please please help me

[popsycalindisguise]

here

I have an ongoing thread in breast and bottle feeding topic.

To summarise:
ds2 is 11 months. breastfed
never slept
wakes at least 3 times a night. usually more

tried everything possible that i can think of/have read
including:
elizabeth pantley
tracy hogg
shortening night feeds by a minute a night....cant get down past 5 minutes
classical music (yes i am desperate)
more blankets
less blankets
selective ignoring
shushing and patting
co-sleeping

you get the jist
not done CC as I really dont feel emotionally able
it is making me ill - off work sick with this as a contributing factor
help

~UCM - are you joking

Not at all. You sound like you need to sleep.

Ooooops I have walked right into something I didn't realise was going on.

Don't give a bottle. Take MN advice, sorry.

Ive lost this reply 3 times, so here is the short version.

We gave our son our space, call it cc if you like. He got his own room, we left the monitor downstairs and the doors to our rooms open. He didn't have me pouncing on him at every murmer. Everything calmed down.

He slept throught immediately.
Good Luck

what a shambles
I woke at 3:30 peeped in the cot only to find that ds2 was in my bed. I have no recollection of putting him there at all.

What a bloody shambles

Aloha - is your sleep lady thingy going on right now? I am really interested in this but we are right up north and I wonder whether it rules us out.

Going to give it another go tonight first. It is having the stregnth during the night isnt it. I can handle the evenings but 11 months of no sleep has taken its toll.

popsy - i so feel for you as in similar thing with my DD2 but shes not quite 5 months. I too am VERY interested in the sleep lady Aloha mentioned - she could do well out of us??!

you sound so like me as i thought things would be so much easier second time - how wrong could we be???

SL x

Thanks SL

This is the thing. DS1 slept through from about 4-5 months and I didnt have to do anything. He and ds2 are just so different - almost opposite ends of the continuum.

Right.

Oh poor you - thats worse in a way! At least I have NEVER had any sleep!! the health visitor actually said that to me!!! Must make you wonder where you are going wrong though. We're so alike that my DH is away a lot and we don't have any family support so it all falls to me and to be honest I feel most days that I am just about holding on to my sanity with the very tip of my fingertips!

Sorry, can't offer any advice but solidarity all the way!!

SL x

TBH, I cut out night feeds completely when I did cc and dd very quickly started eating LOADS more during the day. It didn't affect bf as I continued until she was 18 months.
HTH

Has anyone had the same probl;em as me? In that youdon't realise you are bringing them into your own bed?

The same was happeneing when I was trying to stop co sleeping....

argh
feeling really at the end of my tether today

Yep, I did it loads of times!

Thank goodness I am not the only crazy one

I read through some of your thread on the breastfeeding board, and you sounded so desperate I'd at least try to offer some moral support..
From what I gather (I read the thread quite quickly), ds2 settles well for naps and early evening, just not at night. I'm a great believer in the idea that babies can really pick up moods when people pick them up. Could it be that ds is picking up on the fact that you are (completely, utterly understandably) tense and frustrated etc when you pick him up at night and this is in turn making him a bit tense and finding it hard to settle. Does this make sense? It isn't a criticism, of course you would feel like that. But maybe you can try taking a deep breath and staying as calm as possible when you go in to him and remembering to keep your body relaxed and your voice soft and soothing. I found this helped with dd1.
Talk to him and engage with him s little as possible at night so that it becomes a bit boring to him when he wakes up. But as cheeful and smiley as you can possibly manage when morning finally arrives. Help him to differentiate between day (awake time) and night (sleep time).
I think cc does work for most babies - but you have to be totally committed. If you're not sure you can see it through, best not to start. Personally, I think going in after 2-3 minutes is a bit too soon. I would give him 5 minutes - use a timer (I did). And remember - you are letting him cry, not making him cry.
Is there any way you could catch up on a bit of sleep during the daytime? If dh can't get up at night for you, could dh take the children out even for a couple of hours at the weekend so you can have a nap? Plus, a bit of fresh air and exercise of some description in the daytime might help a little with ds2's sleep.
With regard to the feeding, I wouldn't wake him if I were you. Personally, I don't see how disturbing a child with already disturbed sleep paterns is going to help. Have you heard of the core night theory (or something like that)? The idea is, once your child has slept through to a certain time, you know they can manage that long without feeding, so you never feed them before that time again. For example, once ds2 sleeps through to midnight, you never feed him before midnight again because you know he can manage that long. Hopefully, someone will come along who will be able to explain it a bit better than that.
Anyway, hope this helps. Fingers crossed that things will start to improve for you soon.

Lucyju that all makes perfect sense.

He has slept through until midnight twice before.......

Yes, he is probably picking up on my emotions.

How on earth do I stop 'sleep-bring him into bed with me'-ing?!?!?!

Popsy, as he's in the same room as you, could you make a make-shift bed in the front room. I slept on the sofa with a sleeping bag for a few nights whilst I was trying to stop 5am wakings with my DS.

If you actually have to go into a different room to get him out of the cot, I'm sure you'd be aware of what you were doing don't you think?

but dh is in there too.......hmmmm
he needs to be in his own room....but ds1 is still in there and to get him out we have the almighty task of at the very least clearing the spare room of ten tons and crap and preferably decorating it for ds1
it needs to be done
grrr

Even if DH is in there at the moment, if you're not, then hopefully you won't move him inot bed with you without being aware of what you're doing (hope that makes sense).

Know what you mean about rooms. DD needs to move inot our spare room so DS can move into the baby room and we haven't sorted this yet which is why he sleeps in the same room.

glad i am not the only one lol

i might do that tonight actually
L

ok
riound 2

Good luck Popsy. My back ached after spending 3 maybe 4 nights on the sofa but DS now sleeps through and it was more than worth it. Now all I have to contend with is DH's snoring

Fingers crossed.

ok sofa it is then
or ds1's floor

Good luck popsycal, will be thinking of you.

Aloha, sleep lady sounds good!

i need a sleep lady
i wold have to tidy my dreadful bedroom first

popsy - no advice but wanted to give my support - I knew, obviously, that ds wasn't sleeping but wasn't aware of quite how bad things had got for you.

Good luck for tonight.

Just put the baby in the spare room Popsy! I can assure you he won't care about he decor, and you can leave ds1 where he is for the time being.
Enlist dh to be the night time soother - you stay where you are, he gets up and pats. Baby stays in cot.
Last night dd went down at 7.30 in her cot, fed sleepily at 10.30, woke briefly for a whinge at 4am - dh went in for a minute or so - gave her a pat - she went back to sleep until 7am. it's blooming miracle!
I'd say it's the best £300 I've ever spent. I wish I'd got her in six months ago tbh. Kicking myself vigorously.