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?

Awww happy 6m birthday to your DD. DS is 9m today, how did that happen?????

9m! happy 3/4 of a year!! see they grow up soo fast!!

Hello all. I'm back home and not had a chance to catch up on the posts - glad to see the thread is thriving (well kind off... sorry and all that too).
I'm after some quick advice if any of you are around. I decided tonight thatwe would come back to a fresh start with no finger sucking at bedtime (especially as he got his first tooth this week). I did the bedtime routine and put DS in his cot and he was happy enough for about 10 minutes then started screaming when I wouldn't let him have my fingers. I tried offering a dummy and stayed with him the whole time stroking and patting but he just kept on screaming. After an hour I was starting to wonder what to do when he turned onto his side and went quiet. I thought we were getting somewhere until 5 seconds later he went back on his back, screamed some more and then vomited all over himself . There was no warning really - his screaming just stayed at the same intensity for the whole time.
Feel really bad - been listening to too many people saying we are soft while we were away - and I'm now not sure what to do next. He's up with DH at the moment. He will probably feed him to sleep as he's so tired but what do I do tomorrow? Don't think I can go through this again but we have to try something new.
Hope everyone else is having better evenings.

hi Judy, I don't think we've 'met' before. I'm sorry I don't have any advice for you but I wanted to commiserate. Having a hideous evening - despite 3 hours of naps today (a first), DD is horribly unsettled and will only sleep whilst being held. We've had two really good nights and even with that rest I still lost it tonight and walked out of the flat. I want to try something new too but have no resolve whatsoever. Feeling like I'll never make it as a mum.

Judy, you mean he sucks a finger to go to sleep? have you read the no cry sleep solution? she talks of a method to stop a baby sucking a nipple to sleep, but I imagine the same principle would apply. you remove finger just as he's about to fall asleep. if he roots for it, replace, then try again a minute or so later. and repeat until finally asleep. it can help to gently hold their mouth closed (finger under the chin) when you first remove finger. the aim is to gradually take the finger away earlier and earlier. hopefully less distressing as the baby does get a chance to learn he can do this, but takes longer than cold turkey. it helped for my ds1 who needed a nipple to go to (and stay) asleep.

Thanks kitty - sorry you're having a bad evening too - and mama. I have been trying the pantley pull off for a while now but never seem to get anywhere. Guess i'll go back to it fot a while. I'm thinking of getting a sleep consultant this week but thought I'd give it one more shot before then. Nothing but sucking my finger settles him and it's even less sustainable now teeth are appearing. It also has to be my finger most of the time - he won't even accept DH's.
It was a bad time to try as we've been away for the last 8 days (my dad is ok-ish after a minor stroke - thanks mrC) and I've been settling Ds on the bed as it was too difficult in the travel cot. Going cold turkey after that was always going to be tough. Being tired just made the,last week even harder to deal with and I'm just so sick of it all. I'd like to go back to sharing a room with DH as well (i'm still co-sleeping half the night).
Anyway, been reading the posts and glad there's been some successes latest (sounding good count!).
Think I'm going to call Andrea Grace tomorrow - I tried last week but think she es on holiday. Anyone think Milpond would be a better bet? I bought their book to see what it was like and every solution seemed to involve cc but I've heard they will accommodate you if you don't want to do it.

I have a very tired DD on my lap right now. Co-slept last night and neither of us got any sleep. Today is a new day with a new rule:

• No feeding to sleep. She can go to sleep any other way but not by feeding.

We had a bbq last night and one of the women very seriously sat down and talked about CIO and how she did it to her 6w olds. Got to say if it were it not for DDs reflux I'd be more than tempted.

Hi everyone. Welcome back, Judy - glad your dad is OK. Re sleep consultants, many of them do recommend CC, or a variation on it. Andrea recommended it to us at first. We stopped on the first night after an hour and a half when DS was hysterical :( but I have to say she seemed a bit when I told her we couldn't continue with it and didn't really have seem to have any alternative options up her sleeve. Her methods are also heavily dependent on full night weaning so depends if you want to do that or not (don't know how well your DS is doing on solids/how much he feeds in the night). I seem to remember from the poster on the last thread who used Millpond that she said upfront she didn't want to do CC and they gave her a very detailed plan for gradual withdrawal, which might be a good method for you (though again didn't really work for us).

Comrade, have you thought about doing shortened feeds to stop feeding to sleep?

Another good night here - can scarcely believe it. DS went to bed at 8:30 and woke at 9:15 (DH settled with shushing and hand on tummy) and 10:40 (I settled with shushing and jiggling in cot). He hadn't woken so frequently in the evening for ages and I was thinking, bloody hell, here we go, but I went to bed at 11pm and heard DS cry out at about 3am (I think). I sat up in bed and said to DH, "Do you think I should feed him?" and DH said to wait a second and see what happened. Well, nothing happened. I went straight back to sleep and next thing I know it was 4:30. Fed DS, back in cot and he slept until 6:30ish.

I thought we'd have to do some difficult and horrible sleep training to drop that 10/11pm feed but he's done it all by himself. I haven't fed him until 4/5am for the last three or four nights. We haven't really done anything different - we did go back to settling in the cot at bedtime after a few weeks of rocking to sleep, and did the odd shortened feed but nothing different from before. I guess sometimes they just get there on their own.

I hope this sounds encouraging and not smug - it'll probably all go tits up again anyway. We're off to France tomorrow for 3 days so will be interesting to see how he settles in a strange cot there.

judy you are not ?soft? you are doing what you feel is right for your child.

I actually came home and cried the other week because I had mentioned his sleeping through to someone at work who had said ?blimey he?s 9m and only just sleeping though, you didn?t put him down awake as a newborn did you? and I had said we?d tried but he had screamed, to which I got the response ?oh you just have to leave them, they get the message in a couple of hours, you?ll learn for next time? to which I replied that actually next time I will do exactly the same again.

I simply cannot imagine leaving a tiny baby to cry for a couple of hours?

comrade I stopped feeding DS to sleep when he was about 5m ? I used to rely on it for nearly every sleep. The first few days did involve him crying, but I was cuddling him the whole time. I think it really did help his sleeping.

Cosmosis I would have reacted exactly the same as you to that.

I think people who say things like that have babies that just grumble, whimper and maybe wail a bit at a push. My DS has always had the ability to scream like someone's chopping his leg off. My NCT friend said once that the screaming was disconcerting enough, but that he also had this expression on his face that she described as 'haunted'. And she was right, that's exactly how he looks when upset.

well ihave never been able to leave any of mine to cry, i did once they reached 9mths or so stop feeding them to sleep, so gave them their last feed and then laid with them in bed and they cried but it was a cross i want a boob in my mouth crying iykwim? and i was still there and patted and shushed them so they were being comforted but not with boob.

glad at least one of us is having better nights count :)

i have had a few rough nights with her just being unsettled but i think its just teething and maybe her tummy getting used to solids as we just started weaning, two ice cubes of mashed fruit or veg with bits to chew on at lunch so not much, but for her its totally new.

no idea re the fingers, but like you say its not sustainable at all :(

Oh yes, I will "leave to cry" when I'm with them and shhing and patting, but not shut the door and leave type leave.

see i dont think you are leaving them to cry then as you ARE offering them comfort, just not necessarily the comfort that they want! BIG difference to just leaving them and walking away, not that its not tempting at times! but i just couldnt do it.

No I agree with you :)

Yes, me too. I think there's a difference between allowing them to cry while you comfort them, and leaving them on their own :(

In retrospect I think we should have maybe tried to settle DS in the cot sooner rather than all those hours and hours of rocking to sleep, during which he would cry and cry and cry anyway. DH and I just ended up stressed and aching, and we'd put him down only for him to wake again straight away. If I have another one I think I'll try that a bit earlier - not in the tiny newborn days but maybe around 3/4 months rather than 5/6. Hindsight is a wonderful thing though!

I agree count - although I said to my colleague I wouldn?t change anything, I do think that I would a) not feed at every peep during the 4m sleep regression and try other ways of setting, and b) try to settle without rocking earlier than I have done. I still would never ever ignore crying though.

Welcome back judys. Sorry things have come to a head re sleep.

From my experience, the first night DS went to sleep in his cot and wasn't fed to sleep, he cried for 1.5 hours and it was awful but that was the worst of it. After that he either cried for a short time, or (as he does now) climbs up, rolls round etc and eventually falls asleep (lengthy but with no tears and minimal involvement from me). We did what most people on this thread have done, comforted in the cot. You may find if you try again tonight he may get the idea sooner and cry less.

On the other hand, you could cut yourself some slack, ignore everyone's "helpful" advice and carry on the way you are and try again in a few weeks when your DS is a bit older.

Was also going to mention that I recently bought a new sleep book - by Kim West and it's quite prescriptive about what to do but in a good way. She basically recommends sitting next to them and gradually moving the chair until you are out of the room...think it is over a period of 2 weeks. She also recommends full night weaning, as they all seem to! It's only now (DS is 10 months) that I feel okay with the idea of full night weaning.

I also get annoyed when people say that kind of thing Cos - and agree that either they have babies who would have slept well anyway, or they are happy to hear a lot more crying than I would. No one seems to think about the emotional needs of a baby when they talk about leaving a newborn to cry for hours.

Count am really glad things are improving for you! It doesn't sound smug at all, and we all know you have been through some rough times.

I am in napping hell today as DS has just had 2 half hours so far and is getting increasingly overtired. Going to try for another cot nap at one and if that doesn't work we are heading out in the rain with the buggy.

4madboys I find your posts really reassuring! It is good to be reminded that they will all sort themselves out and one day this will all be a distant memory...

Hi everyone

We continue plodding! We've cut down the amount we comfort him when he wakes and now he only needs a hand on his tummy for thirty seconds and he goes back to sleep. But he still wakes every one to two hours! There's not much else we can do, really, except wait it out I think. He doesn't feed to sleep, naps in his cot, self settles, isn't taken into our bed at all, doesn't feed at night... Not many avenues left!

Still, today he has rolled AND sat for the first time so perhaps things might improve a wee bit???

Ahhh - it's great to be back in the folds of the sleep nightmare thread.
The friend who did talk about being too soft did say she put her son down to sleep somewhere she couldn't hear him so guess I should have known our parenting approaches weren't the same.... Just feel this is never going to end. I can imagine that DS might start sleeping longer and longer but unless I do something he won't settle by himself. HAve emailed Millpond to see what they say.
I think I would try settling in the cot sooner too - we spent hours rocking DS while he was screaming his head off. I just thought we could do it without crying.
DS was ok last night considering (2 and 3 hour stretches and stayed in the cot until 2am) but my cats kept me awake instead! They're a bit needy after us being away and were miaowing outside the bedroom door all night .
Count you don't sound smug - gives me a bit of hope that things might improve.

Bigkids how did you get your DS to settle himself for naps?!?

Well It's 10pm here and she hasn't fed to sleep once so I'm taking this for a win. Tonight will be the hard part though... at 3am when I just think "I'll just feed her now then I can sleep again." So please send me positive vibes for tonight.

Stuck to feeding her every 3 hours. She still has only slept for a grand total of 1.5 hours since 8:30 this morning so she is exhausted. There were some tears (from us both) and she was pretty much rocked to sleep but at least it wasn't feeding.

So at least 3 more days of this and then we'll move onto the next step of getting her to fall asleep in her cot.

My friend who told me at length about CIO said herself that it was horrific, she hated it, her husband hated it, the babies (6 WEEKS!!) cried for up to 2 hours, but (in her own words) she was a sleep nazi and wanted sleep. It was all rather sad tbh.

Hello, hello.

I popped into the last thread, but haven't been on since.

FIngers xcrossed for your night, zing! Where are you?

My 12mth old is a sook to sleeper - and only mum will do! Ds1 was a fab sleeper, this guy is awful.

I don't have the energy or inclination to really do anything about it atm. I am resigned to sleep deprivation, but it isn't annoying me, iyswim? However, it is annoying dh. HE doesn't 'do' nights, which is fine by me because he is a pita with no sleep. However, he has been in the spare bed in ds1's room for 9 mths now and he is cheesed off and I don't know what to do. What I feel like doing is tellinghim it will all pass and to enjoy the fact that he GETS sleep and to stfu! Of course I do not do this!

He's a good lad apart form that! DH and ds

Good luck comrade! I kept thinking " everything I do today I don't have to do tomorrow. And I might be more tired tomorrow" - worked for me!

Mr C- I committed a month to it, because DS starts nursery in three weeks and I was worried he wouldn't sleep there at all! So for a while i haven't been out of the house in the morning ( lunch and afternoon naps he has in sling or pram). Anyway, I started by feeding to sleep as usual then started feeding and keeping him awake for one minute, then letting him sleep in the crook of my arm. Then extending the awake time to five minutes - this was actually the hardest bit! Before he went to sleep in my arms. Then putting in his cot five minutes after feeding but hugging in his cot as he would be hugged in my arms, till he fell deeply asleep. Then hugging slightly less, then just one hand on his head and one under his bum, then just a hand on his head. Finally I can put him down now without feeding before, put a hand on his head for thirty seconds and leave. It's not infallible, this morning I left it too long and he was upset so I went back to hugging in the cot for five minutes. It's taken three weeks so far.

Thanks for the sympathy guys. It does indeed help to know it's happening to other parents as well. Love the idea of the flashing map bigkids!

a week later, it is getting easier - hubby stays up with him til 1 or 2 am so I can get some sleep to start with, then DS wakes every 3 hrs or so for a feed. Although at least one feed overnight lasts 2 hours because I can't put him down...

I definitely feel more human though!

Welcome back, nethuns! Zen acceptance has been working for me for the last few months ...

Funny to hear everyone saying they're trying to stop feeding to sleep ... my DS stopped feeding to sleep in the daytime at about 12 weeks, which was a right pain TBH, because I could never get him to sleep when out at friends' houses etc, but he's suddenly started doing it again, and it's great! Trying not to make a habit of it, but it's so much easier than rocking for naps. This afternoon I gave him a feed sat on the sofa, and he dozed on my lap for half an hour while I gazed at him adoringly and watched 60 Minute Makeover. Normally I'd do that 3rd nap in the pram but it was raining, so much easier to just whip a boob out

He's going down awake at bedtime though so figure it doesn't matter too much. And DH can settle him by rocking him.

Naps in the car tomorrow on the way to France :)