Losing the will to live with lack of sleep!!!!

[aimee0211]

My DD is 6 months and wakes 10+ times a night, She is in the room with me (not another room to put her in as I live with my parents) she wakes for the dummy mostly and sometimes wont go back over until she has a bottle (usually 2 or 3 oz).

We have been weaning for about a month now which has made no difference. She has a bedtime routine of bath, dressed, bottle, bed, with starts about half 7/8ish. I am literally at my breaking point with lack of sleep as is everyone else in the house.

Don't know what else to try, nothing seems to make a difference. We tried a dream feed. We tried baby rice at supper (like 7ish), tried to let her self-sooth and go back over herself but nothing works. Any suggestions extremely welcome.

I feel for you. My DS is 7 months and was very similar until about 5.5 months. What seemed to help us was getting him to have structured daytime naps. This was recommended to me by a very good maternity nurse I know. He had never slept very much at all (day or night) and would wake every hour or even more frequently at night.

Does your daughter take her naps well in the daytime?

I started him on a 2-nap routine - first nap at 09.00 ish for 45 mins (up to an hour if he had a bad night, so it was always an hour at first!), then second nap at about 12.30 for 2 to 2 1/2 hours. I did whatever it took to get him to sleep, i.e. walking for hours with him in the buggy, driving him round in the car etc. but it did seem to make a difference.

He now sleeps from 7.30pm to 10.30pm, wakes for dream-feed, then sleeps until 3.30 or 5.00am. Not perfect, but a heck of a lot better than it was.

HTH. And if it doesn't at least you know you are not alone and it does get better in the end.

If she mostly wakes for the dummy, then do you not think that's the problem?
It is obviously falling out and waking her, if that's what she wants. I'm not saying this IS the cause but it will be contributing and personally I would remove the dummy altogether. You should be doing that around six months anyway, to avoid an attachment to it.

I do hope you get it sorted, sleep deprivation is awful. :(

Thanks for replying.

No she doesnt sleep well during the day either, usually for about 20-30 mins at a time. I do try all ways I can to try to get her to sleep more during the day but she wont have it, she just screams until she is picked out.

I have thought about removing the dummy but dont want to make things worse as i said I have to consider other people in the house. I wasnt aware you should remove it at 6 months though so I may look into it more.

Thanks again

Aimee - but could it be much worse then 10 times a night??? I would remove teh dummy, that sounds like the main problem. Remove it, take the pain for a few days and then you should see an improvement.

Ok going to give it a go, might as well start tonight no time like the present.
Wish me luck!!!

Very best of luck.

Hi Aimee,
from all the research that I've done it seems to be that day naps are definately the key to good sleeping at night, like Ces says above. My DS is 8 months now and began to sleep right through from 7 until 5.30am once I had his naps sorted. I looked for the sleep 'cues' and basically put him down then, with his mobile on, telling him it was nap time. Unfortunately because I can't get his early rising habit sorted he still has 3 naps a day. they are generally 7.30am for 1 - 1.5 hours (yes, I know, why can't he just sleep 'til 7?!!), around 11.30 for an hour or so and around 3.30 for 1 - 1.5 hours. He is very busy when awake to make sure he will sleep. I never used a dummy with him, although there were times when I wished I'd had one!! Again, from what I have read, it would appear that although we think that if babies are awake loads they will sleep at night, this actually has the opposite effect and they are wired to the moon. i'm away to find the website I found quite helpful. Back in a mo x

www.babysleepsite.com/

There are some sample schedules on there are and some question/answer bits. Not all good but worth a look xxx

Thanks very much, Decided to go cold turkey with the dummy (as most people said better to do this than wean them off progressively) and she has been crying for 20 mins. Definitely going to be a hard time ahead but just keep hoping better in the long run. Family wasnt happy when I told them though, never mind :).

Hi Aimee. Just wondered how you are getting on? Did you ditch the dummy and if so how did it go? And if it's still not any better, thought I'd let you know that I'm thinking of you.

Oh btw I have changed my username - was Cescalise before.