New to mumsnet : ) Hi
Hoping for tips/help/support!
Our & mpnth old baby has always been a bad sleeper. She was diagnosed with reflux when small and at first we took turns holding her, she wouldnt sleep lying down at all. Gradually got her to lie down, sleeping with her. At 6 months put her into own room as I had insomnia and we weren't sleeping well together. At first it went well. Well for us anyway! She'd go down around 7ish, wake at 8 - need settling back, again at 9. But then some nights from 9 she did stretches like til 11 or even on a good night til 1! She had also begun managing to settle herself back to sleep a little bit. You'd hear her stir and cry and think here we go, and then she'd go quiet again. She'd usually end up in with me towards morning but I was happy with this, I thought the gaps would slowly stretch out. And we had an evening which was nice. But the last month or so she's got worse and worse. Now she goes down at 7 and by 7.30 she's awake, arms flying about, crying out (she doesn't really cry it's more confused, can't get back to sleep, whinging, it's distressed sounding but not fulll on crying!) She can hardly go half an hour and by 10 we've given up and she's in with me. But co-sleeping doesn't work well for us. We're both very unsettled. And my husband has to sleep downstairs so I'm coping with the endless settling.
We don't want to leave her to cry. We try and re-settle without picking her up but it doesn't work. Only picking her up sends her back to sleep and sometimes we're rocking and singing and playing the hairdryer for ages (she likes white noise). Othertimes she falls asleep the minutes she's in your arms but it's a battle to get her into the cot. She wakes as soon as you put her in, or within half an hour tops. I've bought a humidifier so we'll try that. She's often got a bit of a cough or slightly congested breathing. But she's not ill. And I've tried calpol before bed once, just to see is it teething pain. But she was the same.
We've been told by our Hv don't take her in with us but you get to a point where you have to lie down. We've also been told not to pick her up but it's the only way to send her back to sleep. We've also been told to wait til she really cries but she's so hard to settle back if you leave her til then. She's really awake by then. They say put the baby down awake but we never had a baby you could do that with. She just lay there like 'what am I doing here?'. I realise she may be dependant on being held to sleep because we did that at the beginning, but everytime you put her down she woke and wouldn't settle back so what else were we supposed to do!?
We have a good routine, we have had for months. And as I say she goes down fine.We've read the no cry sleep solution. I guess we do a version of the pantley dance, for any one that knows that book!
Anyhow....I think we just have to keep on trucking and it will change. But wondered if anyone recognises any of this or has come out the other side! It's hard work at the moment
xx