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.

How's everyone going? Bloody awful here. DD went to bed at 7:30, up at 8:30, 9:30, DH got home at 10:30, DD woke up at 12:30 and didn't resettle until 2, then woke at 4:30, 5:30, then up for the day at 6:20. To think I went to bed at 7:30 to try and catch up on sleep! Light at end of tunnel is DD will start part time in nursery soon, it will be worth it in fees just to get some naps!!

Still having good results with nectarina's technique that I linked to before. Last night DD woke once at 2am and I patted her back to sleep in 10 mins and yday she did an hour and a half nap in the cot in the morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon. Give it a go ladies, it's worked brilliantly for me.

pipoca that's amazing! Do you know what age its suggested for?

ems poor you! That sounds horrific!

sophie it IS addictive isn't it? I've just bought a loudly gira and have ordered a connecta,dd is outgrowing her stretchy tho has been asleep in it for 2 hours this afternoon. My back says she's ready for something sturdier though!

We tried to move dd into her own room on Monday as she's 6 months now and has finally outgrown her crib,even swaddled. She went down fine but sadly didn't after her first feed so she ended back in bed with me and last night we didn't even attempt it and she was just in with me all night which i don't want to be a habit but can't bear her to be upset,and I'm lazy! Dh doesn't feel relaxed when cosleeping though and it would be nice to sleep in the same bed again!

Sorry,should have been LOVELY gira!

DD is almost 10 months and I did nectarina's technique as she said her dd was about 8mo I think, but I reckon you could do it from any age past about 5 mo or so, cos it's NOT crying it out. I sit with her in the cot and me next to it, with a hand on her back and I pat her bottom and say shhhhhhh until she's asleep. I don't leave until she's asleep. it never takes more than 15 mins tops. I think i just needed to realise she was tired and to see one technique through until she fell asleep instead of, rock, pat, then jiggle, then bf, then pat, then rock, then jiggle, then give up IYSWIM.
I think, looking back she was chronically overtired and the night wakings were habit as much as anything. You know how if you get up at the same time mon-fri mornings you tend to wake at that time at the wkends too (well, I did anyway) I think it's like that. So, I felt it was time to break that association of I wake up and bf. She obvously didn't actually NEED to feed at night and it had started actually seeming to wake her even more.
I'll link again to nectarina's thread in case anyone wants to give it a go. Each to their own, but it's been simple, painless and very effective for us.

1394888-What-worked-for-us-Hope-this-helps

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1394888-What-worked-for-us-Hope-this-helps

I think we might try this once DD is taking more food. She's only 6 months,has dropped down centiles since birth and only just moved into own room but seems a really good idea for when she's a bit bigger,it looks from the thread as if lots of people have had success with it.

maybe you could try feeding her when she wakes, say a max of twice a night and once she's fed shhh pat her to sleep? Or no, maybe that's too confusing actually. I don't know...ignore me. I think everyone has to find their own way to do it.

That's my concern at the moment too - despite all the night feeds, DD is still only 9th centile and at the moment I'm not convinced she doesn't need the night feeds. I suspect she would make up for them during the day if she slept through but I'm not ready to try it yet. A lot of people on the thread say they got to a point where they knew something had to change, and I don't quite think we're there yet.

Really glad you've had such great success pipoca and thanks for sharing. I can definitely see us following the technique sometime in the next few months (unless DD starts miraculously sleeping through...

can you try and feed her more during the day? What percentile was she born on? Maybe she's just supposed to be small?

I totally agree with you, I suppose I could have done this sooner, but I think I had to get to this point of being totally totally sick to the back teeth of it and feeling nothing else was working in order to be able to stick it out (although in fact it's never take longer than 15 mins to get her to sleep, so ot that long, but longer than I was giving each attempt before). Also, dd had slept 12 hours straight 3 nights running a few weeks before so I knew she COULD do it.

Once you feel you're ready to do it, it's a nice gentle form of sleep training, more just letting them allow themselves to settle without abandoning them. In the meantime, hang in there.

DD is teething a top tooth and took 15 mins to settle tonight but then woke 10 mins later nad took another 15 mins more of patting. She's been quite tired all day but woke after only 40 mind this afternoon and seemed quite miserable, but managed to persuade her (by botty patting and shhhing) to do another 40 m ins.

slight set back here. DD woke at 12 after taking ages to settle tonight and is still awake at 1.25am. Have tried everything including bf and am currently downstairs listning to the occasional waah from upstairs. Given up on shhhing and patting. Hopefully she'll conk out soon. She's not crying, just waah waah from time to time. And there was me thinking I'd said goodbye to long nights awake. Hopefully it's just her top incisor cutting through.

Aw,i hope its just a temporary set back too,i bet it is the teeth.

My DD started on 50th centile but fell to between 9th and and 25th though at recent weigh in had climbed to 25th again which like sophie makes me think she does need the night feeds at the moment,partly because she's very distracted when feeding during the day. I think I'm also not quite there yet with being ready to do the training but its definitely the method i plan to use when i get there. Does it help with early waking too?

pipoca I started doing something similar to Nectarina's technique a few weeks ago and it worked well for about a week then it stopped effectiveness, some friends have said it's because I didn't move on from the patting to removing my hand and just shhhing but DD is so mobile and hard to calm down, if I don't literally hold her down in the cot until she is 90% asleep she will be up and moving and back to square one. Even with holding down I am finding it can take up to 3 hours to settle her back to sleep this way and during the middle of the night it's really hard to keep it up. She's wise now to what I'm going to do and wakes up and cries the minute I try to sneak out the room, like she is fighting getting into deep sleep. I seem to never be able to move on from the first stage of these separation techniques!

After reaching rock bottom with a night of zero sleep, we moved ds to his own room which had hugely helped. He goes to sleep ok with a but of shhing and a dummy has a bedtime feed and a dreamfeed and has even done one stretch of 8 hours sleep!!!!. Now the problem we have is early morning waking. I can cope with 530am which seems to be his natural wake up time (although 6 or 7 would be better) but sometimes he's waking up for the day at 3 or 4 am... Not sure if he's waking up cause he's wet (sometimes he is) or hungry but it seems that if he wakes up then he just won't go back to sleep until he has a nap about 7 or 8. Any suggestions??

I'm afraid we have the same problem,minus the good stretch of sleep leading up to the early waking...

Scotty are you breast or bottle feeding? How much does your dc eat during the day?

Breastfeeding and she feeds every 2-2.5 hours,day and night! Started giving her tastes of food at 5 months and she's just turned 6 months this week and has porridge for breakfast, then 2 more 'meals',one something like pear and yoghurt or mashed veg and the other is finger foods like cucumber and banana. She only just started having the 3rd meal this week and its still fairly small quantities.

Scotty will she take a bottle? Have you considered a dreamfeed bottle of formula? You might get a 4 or5 hour stretch which would make a world of difference to how you feel the next day x

Sadly she is very temperamntal with a bottle. Also a dream feed would require her to not have woken up yet at 10/11 wouldn't it?

Argh!!! I've jinxed it. Up every 2 hours last night and soaked through and up for the day at 5.30

If it makes you feel better i envy your night,tells you what sort of night we had!

Oh no Scotty. How are you coping? My night sounds much better than yours but Ds is coming down with yet another cold and was very grumpy today and I get grumpy too when I'm tired. I just get so snappy and rude with everyone. Some days I just want my former life back

I know what you mean candy. I'm such a grump!

I started the day at 330 which is a big improvement on yesterday which started at 110! She's sleeping for such short periods that i don't get a chance to fall asleep before she wakes again :(

How's everyone else today?

Another 5am wake up. Never thought I would think of a lie in til 6am as a treat!! Any advice to stop early morning waking? We've tried making bed time later but Ds still wakes up too early...