Why won't you bloody well sleep?!

[PickledLily]

I thought it was 4mth sleep regression, but we've now hit 5mths and her sleep is still rubbish. Last night for example, she went to sleep at 7, then woke at 9.30, 11.30, 1.30-4, then 5.30 and hasn't slept since.

She has a cold, which is this week's excuse, but to be honest the sleep pattern is pretty consistent except she normally doesn't wake at 9.30.

How do I get her to sleep now? She's playing on the floor showing no signs of giving in. White noise, rocking and feeding have all failed.

Back.

DD is 2 years and 26 days old.

Last night she slept from 7.20pm until 5am. That is three times longer than usual. Not only that but when she woke she had to find me (DH had gone in to her) and ran through and with a big pat on my back and a smile toddled off back to bed with DH until 6.30am. DH and I were utterly utterly bemused as to what had changed and the answer is nothing except having her dinner later and weaning her from boob milk. AND her last tooth has pushed through the gum.

Today she has been a joy to be around, no screaming and no shrieking and even took an hour and a half nap from 1.15pm until 2.45pm, she has eaten all her meals, run up and down the garden giggling and pushing her tractor and also helped DH to pull ivy off the wall, she baked a cake with me and played with some friends who popped in for tea.

This is a child who has screamed since she woke up in NICU at 2 weeks old, who had untreated reflux until 22mo, who has been held to et her to sleep until recently, who cannot regulate her temperature so is often too cold or too hot. It feels like nothing short of a bloody miracle. I wait with baited breath to see how she does tonight...

That's great news eyesdomore. Hoping it lasts for you. Reflux is a total pain (in so many ways).

Tonight in the Pickled family DD is once again fully awake. Having woken every 2 hours for feeds. DH is trying the calpol/bouncer chair/white noise combo and ignoring the grumbles/cries until she passes out :( I hate it

All a bit rubbish really.

So she finally went to sleep only to wake again at 3.30 for a feed and at 5 for a 'chat' and play. I've had 3 x 1.5hrs sleep, DH has taken her downstairs bit now i can't sleep and feel shit that DH has the patience to sort her out and I don't.

Rubbish rubbish rubbish.

It didn't last. Last night was really awful and up for the day at 5am

Will now spend Bh Monday with all of us massively overtired!

Oh God, just read this thread and feel sick. DS2 will be 5 weeks tomorrow and he is so different to DS1 already. We realise how lucky we were with DS1 who had three feeds in the night and slept through at 6 weeks (not expecting the same from DS2, but similar). DS2 wakes every 1hr 30mins. I am recovering from a second c-sec, which is shite enough, and having a baby that cries most of the night is no fun. DS2 starts school next week and I keep thinking how the feck am I going to get the three of us out of the house at 8:15 every morning?! I am hardly functioning with lack of sleep. Our friends keep saying they are sure he will be sleeping through soon, but having read this thread, not so sure. I sympathise with all of you, it is absolutely no joke.

Eyes she's done it once, she'll do it again :) You've been at this game long enough to know thes things don't just change overnight, but I've always found that once a milestone has been achieved it gives me a little bit more hope. And I find that's really important - when you feel like things will never change, that's when the stress really ramps up (though conversely I also find myself feeling better about things when I sort of accept them for how they are...)

pickled please don't beat yourself up that DH can deal with it when you can't. I spent quite a few nights getting more and more stressed rocking DD for hours when DH was perfectly willing to take a turn because then I would feel like a failure. You're def doing your share so try to relax and enjoy the time off DH has given you... :)

Not sure why I'm posting on here really, I already said the only words of wisdom I have in my first post, but you all sound like you're having such a rubbish time, you could do with some sympathy and hugs!

o how i remember the midnight (and every other time) of raspberry blowing. and crawling, and standing, and rocking, and walking etc. damn development leaps

DS1 had good daytime naps from about 9 months, he slept through the night reliably from 21 months.

Ds2 is 17 months and has never slept well, and now he looks like he is dropping what existed of him daytime nap. He does however seem to be sleeping 11-12 hours at night most nights in return, which I will take.

My only advice is lots of fresh air, lots of moving around - dance with her, bounce etc until she can move herself, and not too much stimulation before bedtime. And sleep yourself whenever you can - easier with your first than subsequent children!

Good luck, you will get there eventually.

Ah, the raspberries. Yep, we had those at 5am this morning. Actually last night was good - awake at 11.30, 3 and up at 5.15 (see, I have low expectations really!).

Cappucino, we did have a couple of good weeks at 17weeks when DD slept from 6 till 7am, only waking 2 or 3 times. Hopefully your baby will do better then ours!

But tonight it took 2hrs and 3 failed attempts to get her to sleep. And she's woken once already. It doesn't bode well.

Hi, we have been in the same situation with DS2 until about a month ago. We were exhausted and at our wit's end until a friend recommended the Sleep Store website. It's literally a virtual library of sleep techniques, case studies and products for babies and toddlers and they will email you directly to help you out if you need anything additional.

Apparently at around 4-5 months a baby's sleep behaviour changes and they fully wake multiple times a night rather than coming into lighter sleep then resettling like they would have before. If they know how to resettle themselves they will go back to sleep without any help. My son went from waking 4-5 times every night then waking at 5am for the day to sleeping from 7pm til 6am solidly and consistently after three nights of sleep training.

Worth a look, it's been a miracle for us, we are all so much happier!

Oh dear, has it come to this? I have been in denial. I've been kidding myself that she'll just suddenly reach a development point and change. It's not going to happen quite like that, is it. She is, indeed, high need.

LoubyLou - I love the concept of a 'sleep store'! That's the second useful website I've seen from NZ ('crying over spilt milk' being the other).

I've been reading some of it, but failed at no.3 of 'how to gently settle'...

3. Your first step is to teach your baby she can actually fall asleep in bed, rather than on YOU - this is the most significant aspect of the weaning process. So if you currently rock your baby until she is asleep, change to only rocking baby until she is drowsy. Then put her into bed and then pat/sssh/put firm pressure on her tummy etc until she falls asleep IN BED

Ha ha ha!!! it's kidding, right? Falls asleep in bed, just like that. No waking up, no grinning at you and definitely no playing?

You're right, it is laughable! Similar to the approach advised in the No Cry Sleep Solution (actually it might even be directly taken from there as that's one of the approaches they advocate). For DS2 it was too gentle and didn't go far enough to help him fall asleep on his own. Like you said Pickled, it didn't result in his falling asleep 'just like that'! And Raspberry that's exactly what was happening, it was driving me mad.

I know it's controversial on MN but we felt that we'd tried everything else without any success so we used the 'verbal reassurance' technique. I was quite concerned about causing unnecessary distress to DS2 by doing so but after reading the articles on the site about cortisol levels and sleep deprivation versus stress caused by the technique (and being at breaking point after nine months of little to no sleep every night) I felt that the time had come to bite the bullet.

We followed the guidelines within the advice to make sure we were doing it properly and I kicked things off for his daytime naps to make it more bearable - I couldn't face starting it at bedtime or in the middle of the night when I just wanted to go back to sleep. And he got better and better every night until the third night when he slept right through and he has done ever since and I text messaged everyone I knew who might vaguely care because I was so excited

I'm going to write the "no sleep cry solution"

more realistic, i think.

it goes along of the lines of:
1: put baby to breast ans let her feed herself to sleep
2: whilst doing this clamp her hand to stop her scratching
3:once baby is asleep, put her down into her crib
4: baby will wake, and then cry, so to step 5:
5: pick her up, put her back onto the breast and lie down in bed with her.

ooh, how weird - I put 3: capital O and it made a

at raspberry.

Loubylou - if it works for us I'll be getting it printed across the front pages of every newspaper! But I have a question - did you have the type of baby that just gets more and more determined, loud and worked up, the longer you left them?

did you have the type of baby that just gets more and more determined, loud and worked up, the longer you left them?

^ hell yes. Still do.