Sleep Nightmares Part III: At 3am No-One Can Hear You Scream

[CountBapula]

I've been moaning about documenting my 8 mo DS's 'challenging' sleep patterns on MN since he was three weeks old. He's still waking every 2-3 hours at least and the other thread's full, so here's a shiny new one for all you parents of hardcore sleep refusenik babies.

Who's with me?

Urgh, spoke too soon. DS was up loads last night. Ended up feeding him twice - whoops.

Oh well, hopefully a blip ... :)

Not sure how but DS slept for 6.5 hours last night! Can't quite believe it. He didn't wake up until 1.50am. I had to count it on my fingers to check and still think i've made a mistake. Sorry if you've had a crap night and this is the last thing you want to hear - it's probably a blip - but really hoping it's due to him getting older.
He woke hourly after though and I fed him 3 times but still.
Hope your doing ok bigkids - forgot you were in hospital. Hope you're coping being away from your DS.

It's entirely awful to say but 12 hours sleep and a whole novel read - it's really not that bad and just saw consultant who said they didn't have to remove the ovary after all (I had a dermoid cyst) so I should be home tomorrow. Hurray!

And hurray for your DS Judy! Wonderful news!

Judys was that as a result of following your sleep plan?

count I'm sure just a blip. post holiday excitement perhaps?

well done to Judys' ds!

bigkids great news on two fronts: no ovary removal and 12 hours sleep - really fantastic. hope your dp survived the nights alone? I know ds1 slept better once we moved and he got his own room (he was born in a one bed flat, so had no option before then).

haven't posted much because there didn't seem any point in saying "another bad night". but we have cracked naps! yesterday they had 3 naps, going to sleep in cots (my hand on their backs), and the first two naps lasted close to an hour! big change from the standard 30 minutes in buggy or my arms while I rock in a chair :) now they're down again for the first nap and I'm off to use my new found free arms to tidy up a bit.

Great news bigkids - enjoying your sleep at hospital sounds completely reasonable to me!
Well done for the naps mamachoc.
DS did it again last night - slept until exactly the same time 1.50am. He gone to sleep slightly earlier as well so it was almost 7 hours. He sounded happy when he woke so I waited to see what would happen. As he can't self settle he just started to get agitated after 10mins so unfortunately he was wide awake when I went in and didn't settle for 2 hours. DH slept with him in the end and he said he woke every hour after but settled quickly.
We haven't started the plan yet and I'm convinced when his stinker of a cold goes it'll be back to normal. We have done a few things from the plan that were easy to start now: DH being really boring when he plays with DS before bed and me stroking DS for 15mins after he falls asleep. We've also put on a night light and are trying to get DS to be more interested in the comforters in his cot. I think the last 2 are the reason he didn't cry immediately but not sure how helpful that was as just meant he was wide awake by the time I went in.

He had gone to sleep...

that's great news re the naps mama I noticed with DS that he sorted his naps so he was having longer, and then he sorted the night sleep.

There is a possibliity I'm away with work for a night this week, which will mean DH is alone with bottles of ebm. DS takes a bottle no problem, but obv this will be the first night DH has done all one his own.

Great news Judy and mama!

One night of sleeping and relaxing was great - two was too many. I'm desperate to go home and cuddle his little self but waiting for the long discharge procedure now. DH says he's not napping and I've had to give up bfing :( owing to the morphine so I think naps this week might be hard!

sorry to year you've been in hossie bigkids. Try not to be sad about the bfing, you have done brilliantly. OTOH, you may be able to still do it, how long are you on the morphine for? You could always try latching on to see what happens after you're off it?

It's been three days since I fed him and DH says he's doing really well on formula. I havent been able to pump here really as sitting up was too painful so have just been hand expressing into pads so I dont explode! I can feel I have a lot less now.

Because I'm back at work and he's at nursery in two weeks I'm not going to try building my supply back up, sad as it makes me that I didn't manage six months. I'll talk to the pharmacist about whether I can feed on my post op painkillers and if I can I'll see if tomorrow morning I have enough for a feed - keeping the early morning feed and cuddle in bed would be lovely and I could keep that for ages and ages. Fingers crossed :)

I think you should well be able to keep a couple of feeds a day. I can totally understand why you wouldn't want to go back to fully bf if you're back at work in a couple of weeks.

Please don't feel bad about the 6 month thing, that's just a date you have in your head.

Thanks :)

Funny how we put an arbitrary date down then feel bad for not meeting it. I should be proud I fed him for so long, especially as he's taken to food with gusto - DH said he had three new potatoes and a whole courgette for lunch and half an avocado and a whole banana for dinner last night as well as all the bottles. So formula is really just another foodstuff. We're our own worst enemies sometimes I think

Forumla really is another foodstuff, especially once you have started solids. And if you do manage to continue bf morning and night, then he still gets all the anitbodies there too.

Anway, DS woken up from his mamouth nap so it's lunchtime from us.

bigkids pharmacists don't always know much about breastfeeding. the best reference is kept by the bfn here. once you know about the drugs you can choose whether and how often you want to feed, your supply should be pretty robust right now.

hope you get home soon.

hello all, thanks for your words of sympathy. I've had a friend here for the weekend which has helped loads but also have a new strategy. The key thing for me is to prevent the frustration because there's no one to hand over to. So I've stopped trying to get her to sleep and started counting.

Yup, sounds mental but this is how it goes: bath etc etc, feed (no longer feeds to sleep). hold her on my lap in rocking chair and let her do whatever she is doing (usually sitting up bashing my boobs). Start counting. So far what has happened is that she finishes bashing my boobs and settles herself against my chest and drops off. then I put her in the cot. She inevitably wakes 30-40 minutes later and then I just put my hand on her tummy whilst she's in the cot and rock her gently whilst counting to myself again. She's been dropping off again that way. It takes 15-20 mins each time but I don't notice the time so much cos I'm counting and also not fighting her wriggling means I'm not getting so stressed.

So the past two nights we've had 3 hours in the cot each night before the co-sleeping starts. Admittedly its not much but it feels like a big leap even from thursday night.

Hope all are well. 4madboys sorry to hear about op - you must have been beside yourself.

Hi All, not posted for a few days and have tried to keep abreast of everbody's developments. Sorry if I've missed your post - hope you're all well

Bigkids - sorry to hear you've been in hospital and glad everything went well.
mamachoc - am very jealous of you cracking naps!! Well done - you're new found arms could be put to good use having a cuppa and a well earned break!!
Judys - you're ds is doing really well. How old is he?
kitty - it sounds like you're doing really well. Counting sounds like a really good idea. It must be hard when you have nobody to hand over to. You should be very proud of yourself for not getting stressed and managing 3 hours - that's reallly good!
4madboys - sorry to hear about ds1 but glad he is ok!
Count - glad you had a nice holiday and congrats on the self settling!

Well after two good nights of 4 hour stretches in the cot we have had 3 nights if waking at 1am and then in bed with us for rest of night. It's really strange as even whgen we're cuddling him through the night he is waking and crying - never done this before as always been very happy when cuddled. He is 16 weeks on tuesday and I am hoping this is not the dreaded 4 month sleep regression!Thought he might be cold so put him in a warmer grobag, thought it might be his teeth so gave him so A&P powder - he loves the taste but it didn't stop him waking again. On the plus side he has been put in his cot sleepy but awake the last two nights and has fell asleep himself with his music on!! Last night he only lasted half hour without needing to be settled but so far tonight he has been up there for almost an hour .
Hope you all have a good night!

snarfle am way more jealous that your ds is self settling - amazing! at 16 weeks my babies slept in buggy/my arms/sling every night and every day. (and they were still having 6 or 7 naps a day). I think your ds is doing fantastically well. even if he wakes more frequently because of the regression, if he self settles you won't need to wake with him.

Thanks Mamachoc, however I was I was that lucky that he would self settle through the night! He has done it for the start of bed time but not through the night yet. Maybe this is my fault a bit as we tend to react as soon as he wakes and cries in the night rather than letting him have a chance to self settle. Think I am always frightened that if he cries he will wake up completely and be harder to settle (and I don't want to leave him to cry). I've been watching him on the monitor tonight and he has woken, lifted his head up and then rolled onto his tummy back to sleep.
My naps are all still being held during the day or sometimes in the buggy but like your dc's never alone or in the cot. Am trying to have a go at this and managed to get 14 minutes in the cot on Friday (took 15 to settle him in their and get him to sleep in the first place)!! I, like you probably, have watched a LOT of telly lately whilst ds naps on me!

Self settling at 16 weeks is great snarfle. I know what you mean about worrying that they'll be harder to settle if you leave them. My DS is 8 and a half months. Unfortunately we were back to business as usual last night and he woke every 1-3 hours. We did have guests so the house was noisier than usual.
If his cold is gone we ate starting the sleep plan tomorrow. I'm quite nervous as I've been feeding him to sleep a lot lately as he's unsettled with the cold and teething. Think I'll miss co-sleeping too. Really hope it works.

Good luck starting the plan Judys - I really hope it works for you! We had a much better night last night. He slept 7.50pm - 10.15pm (woke him for a feed) and then he slept 10.45pm until 4pm which was much needed!!! Twisted for an hour then back asleep for another hour! We did nothing different to make him sleep better .

Hi all. I'm throwing the towel in and joining your little support group. I've lurked on all 3 threads (posted on the original thread but in hindsight DS was teeny then so not too suprising he was rubbish at sleep) but I've been optimistically buryingmyheadinthesand hoping that things would improve on their own; but i'm close to losing it after 2.5 months of DS waking every 2 hours without fail.

DS is 7.5 months and is very active for his age. He can crawl, pull himself up and cruise around the furniture, climb the stairs and sit up on his own, and inm hindsight again his sleep problems developed at about 5 months when he started trying to crawl. The problem seems to be that when he enters the light sleep cycle he automatically starts moving around (i've watched him when he's napping he twitches, flips over and starts crawling or sits up before he's even properly awake)

He wont settle for anyone but me at night, he's a complete bottle refuser and out of sheer exhaustion i've been cosleeping for the past 6-8 weeks, but he's now refusing to go back to sleep without a BF. It's like having a newborn again, only I know he doesn't really need the food (he packs away loads of solids throughout the day and has maintained a 98th percentile weight since birth).

I read the NCSS but i couldn't help but feel quite dismissive of alot of it as i felt like most of the testimonials were from mums with much older babies who are more developmentally advanced (mentally) than my DS.

My HV has suggested CC. but after him crying for over an hour once with me still in the room i'm not convinced it would work.

Sorry for the long post, just needed to rant a bit

So my might away is a definite now ? Wednesday night. I am planning to go to bed at 8 and hopefully sleep for 12 hours! . I am torn between excitement and worry about leaving DH to get on with it while DS is teething (we think another top tooth about to appear so sods law that will happen Wednesday night!).

sleep welcome to the thread, you have an appropriate name for it anyhow IME, HVs always suggest CC, it?s their only suggestions wrt sleep ishoooos, I would ignore personally! I think you should only attempt CC if your heart is really in it personally.

Have any of you had any success at all with the NCSS method of extending naps? DS resolutely only naps 45 mins and I'd love a way of extending it so he can go onto a 2- nap schedule ...

What is the method? I can get dt2 to sleep for 30 mins in a cot amd when he rouses I put my hand on his back and most times he will go back for another 30. dt1 also but she's harder work and less predictable