Let's all meet here for a sleep deprivation support group

[ImNotAnsweringIt]

I though it might be helpful to have a general thread with survival tips for dealing with the exhaustion and misery of the long or short term effects of lack of sleep. I bet we can all find someone worse off than ourselves, and that's always a help, hmm?

My little tips for making things more bearable:

Make sure you are warm enough when you have to get up in the night. Have dressing gown and slippers by your bed if neccesary. This also helps you get back to sleep quickly, should you be fortunate enough to have the opportunity!

Have lovely breakfast things in. I always have expensive cereal in the cupboards Just For Me.

Anyone else? Hang in there everyone, I am having a very down day today which is what inspired me to start this.

Sorry - *Might work for you

scotty that sounds awful you poor thing, are you ok? I've also tried co sleeping many times but dd still doesn't sleep. I keep sobbing at night, it's really getting me down. I think I would try feeding a lot, it may create a problem down the line but for now it's all about survival. Really hope you get a better night.

sb my main technique from no-cry is rocking dd until she is calm and closes eyes, say sssshh night night many times, rock her into cot, rub back, hide.....! Next step is same thing but eyes open. It is getting easier to settle her, we' ve gone from 2 hours of rocking to about 10mins for naps. I'm finding being very consistent is important. I do the same thing for all wake ups and dh does the same aswell.

well we had a decent night,dd slept for 5 hours........but I couldn't sleep! Was awake for 4 hours! Gutted so feel pretty rotten.

How was everyone elses night?

Morning all!
Haven't been around cos just haven't had time read a few posts and sounds although a lot of u are struggling too.
We are back to square one, waking all night but sometimes she soothes back quick and others (like last night) she screamed for an hour a time but she is teething and seems constipated so did try to soothe and gave calpol but worked for two hours and up again.
Just read on here that there is 9 months sleep regression???? Why did I not know this??? She is only almost 7months but if at 9months it gets worse I'm not what I'll do!
Any ideas for constipation, I've tried all sorts. She just can't do foods without being constipated, maybe a trip to the docs?

Hope all slept well, I'm close to tears have to walk my 9year old to school now and u know when ur body feels tired and heavy and u just don't see how ur going to do it??? Well that's me this morn. Plus baby woke 9year old I'm night so grumpy eldest too.

Fingers crossed for us all to have better nights.

Lots of love to all

at pip did you have another good night?

No tips for constipation birchy. Maybe ask on the weaning board see there's any experts over there?

Also very very unhappy to here there's a 9 month sleep regression. We also still haven't recovered from the 4 month regression.

DD is still no better. We had 2 nights of her waking every hour and a half in the evening rather than every 40 mins but now back to every 40 mins. No idea what in doing differently.

Thinking of taking her swimming for the first time today. I think she'll enjoy it but I'm really not looking forward to wearing a bikini

Hope everyone else is ok. Anyone got any suggestions for tasty but quick to make breakfasts so I can treat myself?

Really sorry I've put the cat amongst the pigeons with the 9 month sleep regression thing. Can't remember where i read that but hopefully I've just got it wrong.

Followed everyone's advice and just fed DD every 1.5 hours last night. Tiring but sooo much better than trying to settle a screaming baby any other way. Bizarrely she will no longer feed to sleep at the start of the night anymore,its as if she knows what comes next! DH now has to rock her after i feed her.

Sorry to hear that so many others are still having crap sleep. Thisis I've had that happen before,its infuriating isn't it? At least you know she can do it,if you crack the secret for consistently getting longer sleeps let me know!

Broom i recommend eggy bread which i thinks the same as French toast. Yummy and you can feel virtuous that there's energy boosting iron in the eggs.

birchy are you bfing? I find that if DD hasn't gone in a few days, drinking orange juice (me, not her) usually produces spectacular results

Not started weaning yet but SIL recommended prune juice in their baby rice (or I guess a fruit purée or yoghurt if you don't wanna do baby rice) to ease constipation.

HTH!

Can I join too? (waves sleepily from slumping position behind monitor)
The 22 month old festival orphan is going through another terrible non-sleeping phase.
The ideal (which worked for a little while):

• Up 6:30ish
• Nap for an hour or so at lunchtime
• In bed at 8:15ish, asleep by 8:30 after teeth/bath/drink/story/potty/bed routine

The new reality: -Nap for an hour or so at lunchtime

• Teeth/bath/drink/story/potty/bed between 7:30 and 8:15
• Thrash around for 20 minutes
• Scream hysterically when left
• Finally settle at 9:30
• Wake at 3am
• Potty, back to bed with non-communicative parent on sleepy cushion
• Freezing parent leaves room at 4am
• Wake and scream for 5 minutes until parent comes back
• Quiet story read by parent while child runs around like a mad thing
• Back to bed with parent on sleepy cushion
• Freezing parent leaves room at 5:15am
• Wriggle out of sleeping bag and scream
• Parent brings child into bed in desperation
• Child wriggles, crawls, climbs and eventually jumps on parent's head repeatedly
• Up at 6:30

Tried dropping the nap but she's worse without it - very very overtired, grumpy, and won't settle until after 10pm (and has the night wakings too). Feeling quite sick from the lack of sleep.

Got to nip out, but just to say DD has slept through the last three nights! Feeling really sleepy myself despite the extra sleep, think maybe it's my body adjusting? Not complaining though. Still convinced it's just a fluke and ready every night for wakings and weirdly I keep waking at her usual wake up times...to silence . Will check back later.

x

Well, after 3 glorious nights normal service has been resumed. Woke at 1am, 2,30am and up for the day at 630. Still no nearer to knowing why she slept before and not now again. Still, at least it was only 1am and 230.

How's everyone?

Hi festivalwidow sorry you have to join us. Know what you mean about feeling sick . Know what thisis means about crying,last night DD woke hourly and i was in tears.

pipsorry it hasn?t lasted. Fingers crossed its a blip.

Hi everyone...how are you & your LOs doing? Just popping in as DS has been struck with the gruesome cold! First night he was ill I broke my rule/progress by letting him sleep in with us...but I'm not feeling too bad about it as he was poorly. He's waking tying out approx 1-2 times a night..sometimes nothing. Since then he has been having late morning naps & seems to be tiring himself out by bedtime. I've changed his diet..bedtime drink & routine & I think it's helped. Keeping fingers crossed.
pipoca...sorry to hear your LO has gone back to waking...but as you said...it was only twice do that's an improvement.

Hi, can I join you? DD is 6.5 months and is currently waking every 1-2 hours all night, been like this for about a month now (before that she'd wake up every 2-3 hours, so much more civilised!), I alternate between thinking "I have to do something about this I can't go on" and thinking "I'm too tired to do anything about this, I should just go with the flow" :)

Welcome high heels.

Well DD hit a new low last night. She only slept for 45 minutes at a time ALL NIGHT. Going to take her to GP next week as this is odd even for her.

Hi All,

Still struggling here. I set some "rules" for myself at the beginning of the week:
a) try to settle him in the cot without picking up
b) only feed twice (before he comes in to bed with me)
c) don't take him into bed before 3am.

I've stuck to it all except the 3am thing, which I cheated on by 15 mins last night. I don't know if any of it is helping. Sometimes he'll settle in the cot, but he finds it really, really hard to get himself off to sleep properly so what tends to happen is I lean over the cot rail with my arms around him shushing and rubbing, gradually retreat and then repeat every 5 mins for 30-40 mins. Sometimes he seems to go off to sleep, sometimes not. I tell myself that this is all part of teaching him to self-settle, but who knows. I really only sleep between 3 and 6.30 when he's in bed with me. At least that keeps me in one piece.

If anyone has suggestions on how to make this better fire away. Otherwise, sympathy going out to all who have it worse than me and good luck for the weekend.

SB

script....you sound like you have good rules in place & doing everything right.
How long have you been doing the rules for?

Hi wifey,

We're just on our first week. The next thing to face is trying to settle at the start of the night awake - or at least more awake than he currently is. As I say, I don't know how much this will help, but at least it gives me something to think about. How you doing?

SB

The first week script is always the hardest. DS is doing really well thank you. Was poorly Monday night so I had him in with us...was anxious he wouldn't settle in his bed the next night but he did & only semi-wakes or dummy or if he is coughing etc. He actually was sleeping 11 hours & only fidgeting for dummy...due to the cough he will cry out 1-2 a night at the mo. Changing his night time drink has helped so much...& making sure he has a morning nap..not an afternoon nap. Wishing you luck tonight.

So last night I took DD into the spare bed with me for the whole night. She still woke quite a few times but not fully (IYKWIM) and I think we both had a much better night. We're going to do the same tonight I think. I know it's not a long term solution but I can't bring myself to do any sort of sleep training and I can't stand the trips back and forward along the landing all night long. I'm hoping that if I can get her sleeping a bit better for a few nights she might then do better back in her cot as I'm sure part of the problem is just sheer exhaustion and overtiredness from the constant bad sleeping (day and night).

PS: Script you're so good having rules and sticking to them, mine are always out of the window by about 1.30 am

Hello! I joined a while ago - could have been days/weeks/months - all a bit of a blur really!

However, just to let you know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

DS, 22 months, now has a nap of between 30 minutes and 45 minutes during the day which can sometimes take hours to achieve. But we get there eventually.

As a result, he is now only waking up 3 times per night for between 10 minutes and an hour. He starts his day at 6.31am without fail. Our rigid routine is obviously finally rubbing off on him

I feel like I'm on holiday! So hang on in there - I am proof that it does get better

Please let me be a little bit smug about this. I am convinced it's only short lived so I really do have to celebrate my moment of glory whilst it lasts!

Sorry to hear your DD is back to normal pip. Was last night any better?

highheels my DD is the same age and I feel exactly the same as you. I usually start of the night with good intentions and wanting to fix things but when it's to 11 and we've already had 3 wake ups we just bring her into bed with us.

script your rules sound like a good idea. I do think consistency helps. I did used to do this when DD was in her Moses basket in our room but all the rules seemed to go out the window when we moved her into her own room.

scotty was last night any better?

wifey how's DS? Feeling any better?

Hope everyone else is doing ok too.

DD has a cold so had a terrible night last night. 4 wake ups by 11 and then she just wouldn't re settle because she can't breathe properly. She slept with us again but was still very unsettled. She's always learnt how to bash things and so keeps hitting me in the head when I'm trying to sleep very very tired today. DP at least isn't working or playing football which is very rare for us on a Saturday so hopefully we will do something nice to cheer us all up.

Hi Broom, thanks for asking, sleep still rubbish even though we're home now. Sorry to hear you're having a difficult time too. DD has totally stopped feeding to sleep at the beginning of the night now. DH has to rock and shush her for ages after I feed her. Why didn't i realise how good we had it when she woke 3 times and started the day at 5?!?

Anyone else find it a bit upsetting when they read other sleep threads posted by people with 'sleep problems' and their DC's sleep is better than yours has ever been?

Broom....DS had an awful night last night due to his cold...thank you for asking. he fell asleep at 6pm as he was exhausted & he is full of cold.
Hope your LO gets better soon too broom.

Yes that annoys me too scotty. It also annoys me when people on Facebook but statuses along the lines of 'baby woke twice last night so so tired'. Find myself wanted to shout at the screen which I know is completely irrational.

Hoping for a good night for everyone.

broom I'm glad I'm not the only one with no willpower in the middle of the night :) My DD also has the cold (seemed to just appear in the middle of the night last night) and so has been snuffling away, poor thing. Only benefit is that I can hear she's still breathing on the baby monitor during the brief periods she's actually managing to sleep without one of us there! Hope your DD is feeling a little better and is more settled tonight.

scotty I know exactly what you mean. Also when people make comments like a mum of a 10 week old did to me recently "I'm so tired, DD's gone back to waking once for a feed in the night" !!

Well I got to sleep at about 3am last night and was woken every hour till I got her up at 7.30, was freezing as well which didn't help, hoping things improve tonight.

Fingers crossed for lots of sleep for us all.