Support thread for sleep deprived parents doing or considering CC

[babybouncer]

Seeing as our last thread got a little hijacked off track, a new one seemed a excellent idea.

DD is 7months old and I'm about to start night 2. Last night took 90mins to settle, including a longish quiet time. This afternoon's nap took a long time, but in both cases she slept week once asleep.

Fingers crossed for tonight!

Ps please don't post any anti-cc comments - it's not something a parent does lightly so I ask that you respect our decision.

It makes me ill when I see people posting about their 3, 4 and 5 year olds with sleep problems...I have to be back at work in 2.5 months!

Sat here, again, holding DS, again, feeling my heart sink every time he coughs or wriggles because that means another 10 minutes at least sat here in the dark, battling exhaustion.

I wish this cold would eff off so we can just get on with doing something about this bloody sleep!! It has lasted about two weeks now! (the cold, not the hideous, endless non-sleeping.)

Yes, handholding will be needed at some point in the hopefully fairly near future lovely new person (can't see/recall your name, sorry!) so do hang about

Thank you everyone for the kind and reassuring words.
Tonight however I have a different problem!! Just woke up. Still have this bug- so this evening after a couple of hours of trying to get DD to sleep without me feeding her DH plonked her in the buggy and set off for a walk round the block...that was at 9pm and she is still asleep in her buggy in the cold(ish) (maybe 16 degrees) vestibule. She is still in her pramsuit with a very warm down cover zipped over her. DH had plugged in a baby monitor and because of my bug I'm only really in the next room from the front door so can absolutely hear her should she wake. Started to be really annoyed with DH for leaving her in her pram etc until he pointed out that this is the longest she has slept in months! What should I do? Should I wake her to get her out of outside clothes or wait till she wakes up herself????

I'd get the down cover off. Apart from that, if she's in a coldish room leave her maybe...? I guess she's of an age now where overheating isn't as much of an issue as it once was.

On the occasions where we've taken DS out in the pram for the sole purpose of getting him asleep, I actually don't bother with any extra clothing because taking it off him when we get home would wake him up. Instead, I layer blankets over him, then maybe a beanie, which can always be easily removed once you're back inside without causing too much disturbance.

I know its late but if she is asleep in her pram, leave her. She will let you know if she is too hot or cold.

My heart really goes out to you all and I can't believe that less than a week ago I was in the same boat. Honestly, read the Ferber book 'solve your child's sleep problems'. I was expecting my DS to cry and cry, but he barely did and honestly now he is going down for naps without any crying, falling asleep so quickly.
I still feed him to sleep at night (7pm)and then feed him at 5am because I figure 10 hours is a long time between feeds, then he sleeps until about 7.30am. It is lifechanging! I was so worried, but now realise it was the best thing for all of us.

This thread is very timely for me, my DS is 14months old and wakes constantly. He used to sleep well if he was in our bed but the last few weeks he has been waking every 30mins, crying out and needing me to rock him/rub his back etc. When we got up this morning myself and my DH said we just can't do it anymore, we are beyond exhausted and really feel CC is the only way to go now. We were so against it, thought it was cruel but it's all too much for us now and we're giving it a go tonight. I feel bad just leaving him so was thinking of doing the gradual retreating approach but DH feels that will prolong the crying and we should just leave him. I'm at work now and actually have a knot in my stomach thinking about it all

magoosmom - When we were doing gradual retreat, there was one night where I was convinced - absolutely convinced - that DS had descended into hysterical crying. My DH assured me that the only hysterical cryer in the room at the time had been myself. I think it's probably very easy to let our feelings of guilt, displeasure at what we feel we need to do and months of hideous fatigue colour our interpretation of what we hear coming from our babies. I think the only way to manage it is to force an objective head on whenever you can: he's not ill, he's not in pain, he's not in danger and his distress will be fleeting (even if it doesn't seem like it at the time). Have a good read of that Science of Mom blog linked earlier. It's really reassuring and makes some excellent points. Best of luck with whatever you decide to do. x

In other news, I took DS to the doctor for a check up today just to confirm that there was no physiological causes of his horrible sleep (there aren't). Doctor suggested sedative antihistamines. Wow. He suggested I drug my baby who is not quite 6 months old. And the sleep training police think we're barbaric for contemplating/doing CC!

In the end we left her to sleep last night, and she did for 5 hours!!!! Absolutely amazing for us.
So irritating though as I couldn't sleep for worry and that I was soooo full of milk it hurt!
Can't believe your GP wanted to medicate a little baby!

Elphaba thanks for your reassuring post, stayed with him for 45 minutes and then left the room, I can't believe I'm letting him CIO but I think it will be easier in the long run, when Im there he's hanging over the cot with his arms out howling for me to pick him up he might give up and go to sleep quicker if im not there. This is horrific. I won't mind but I read every book going on routines/sleeping and here I am 14 months without sleep.

he's gone to sleep :-) one hour and one minute (to be exact) after he went to bed. Hopefully he'll be able to self-settle during the night. Good luck to anyone who's doing it tonight.

magoosmom - have a

I also found with dd that if she could see me, it made her worse. I used to put her into her cot, kiss her goodnight and tell her its night night time.

Thanks Anya when she wakes in the night do you let her CIO or do you go into her?

I used to go into her, but only to check to see if she is ok, if she is then I just said it still nighttime. If she cried I did what I did at bedtime and go back into her at 3mins, then back in after 5mins, then back at 10 mins if needed.

How's things, magoosmom? Was the rest of the night better?

Elpha I really feel for you. We had this hideous cough/cold thing. DS would also only sleep on me but was mostly awake from 10pm until 2-4am. It's awful when they're ill for so long & I felt like it would never end but his cold finally went after 3-4 weeks. It has kind of sent me over the edge though. I have no sleep in the bank & was only just surviving as it was.

I restarted the sleep training a couple of weeks ago, as his sleep habits had gone to pot. We're doing a type of gradual withdrawal I guess. Obviously involves a bit of crying initially but things are much improved. Today I feel we are back on track, with two good nights in a row. He woke once before midnight & I got him back off without a feed (my main aim). Then he woke at 5am, fed & went back until 8am.

I was close to a breakdown Monday after the night from hell but two good nights, I feel like a new person. It will get better soon. The cold will go and you have your DH now to help at least. They enjoy the groups much more at 7 months + anyway. Just get the sleep in while you can

Elpha you poor thing. It's so grim and there seems no end in sight. But the cough will go - what has the doc said? Can they give him anything? - and when the cough is gone, do the sleep training asap. You need things to change soon. Good luck, keep your chin up. Hand holding available here too, when the time comes.

great news to report from this house DS went to sleep at 8pm (after 1 hour crying) last night, whimpered at 12.30am, cried for 2/3mins at 5am and then woke for the day at 7.40am, almost 12hours! a miracle for us, he has never done that. We felt like new people all day So this evening myself and DH were debating how long he'd cry for 1hour? 2hours? we put him in his cot, kissed him and walked out of the room, he roared cry for.....30/40 seconds yes, you read that correctly, SECONDS! He stopped crying so abruptly that I thought he's died/choked, DH thought maybe we'd forgotten to put the side of the cot up and he'd fallen out, hit his head and gone unconscious! so DH snuck back in to check and he was lying down still awake but ready to nod off! We can't believe it .Who knows what the night will bring but we're delighted for now.
Elphaba you have my sympathies , DS was lying on me all weekend and I just could NOT TAKE IT ANYMORE. A word of warning I gather that your DS is younger than my DS? we tried to do this at 7 months and he cried for much longer, 2.5 hours of crying to get to sleep and another 2.5 hours during the night, then we gave up. Im not saying don't do it, do definately, I wish we'd stuck with it and been braver, just warning you than it could go on awhile.

WooHoo magoosmom

Thanks Anya hopefully it's not a fluke!

Fingers crossed its not, it took dd 3 nights.

that's great news magoosmom - its amazing how much better you feel after some sleep isn't it?

some success here also with 21 week old ds2. after two of the worst nights ever (sun/mon night) where I got less than 2 hours sleep and he got about 5 hours, we ended up doing a cross between cc and pu/pd.

dh had already started settling him for all naps and the first part of the night, but he was really bad once i went to bed + I couldn't settle him at all without letting him sleep on me. So on Tuesday night I just couldn't take it and me + dh both slept downstairs.

i fed him + put him down about 5.30pm because he was so overtired. If he was only protest crying then he was left for 5 mins, then dh went in + rocked him till sleepy again then put him down still awake - any distressed sounding crying + dh went straight back in (but to be honest, there wasn't really any!). After about 4 goes, he fell asleep on his own about 6.15. He then slept until 3.30am!! So it turns out I was disturbing him when i went to bed and just by being in the room!

He didn't really settle after that though and he whinged on + off till 6.30am. He had lots of naps yesterday and seemed to be catching up on sleep so we decided to sleep downstairs again last night.

I did last feed of the day + put him down, expecting that dh would need to resettle - but by the time I got downstairs + put the tv on (we have a camera on him!) he was asleep! Not a single sound

He slept till 1.30 am + I think i was too hasty in going to feed him, should have let dh try to settle first - seeing me woke him up too much + he whinged on + off till 4 am when I fed him again and he went back to sleep till 6.30am. I have just put him down for a nap for the first time in a week + he went down with no feeding or crying.

So me + dh have decided to sleep downstairs for the foreseeable now - we only have a 2 bed house and the two dc can't share so this is the best option until we can save to do an extension for a third room.

I really felt the cross between cc and pu/pd was a gentle way, ds2 clearly wouldn't settle with me there so having dh do the settling was best, and he was never left to cry for too long and never if he sounded really unhappy about it. I'm sure we will still have bad nights, but I feel much better that we have a plan + that I've finally had some kip!

Good luck to anyone else battling with sleep issues, its really no fun at all and sadly most people don't understand if they haven't experienced it - my mum had no idea that some babies don't 'sleep like babies' and my sister thinks its as easy as waiting for a tired sign and just putting them down!

that's great news disco my DM has 8 kids and we all slept, she called me a martyr last week! but what can you do if they just want you all the time? the only solution is to leave them cry a bit, I never in a million years thought Id leave DS to cry alone in his room but WE. JUST. COULD . NOT.TAKE.IT.AMYMORE. I was sick of people who had DC the same age as DS saying how broody they are and cant wait to have another, my DH was saying during the summer that 1 was enough! DS was particularly bad from 20-26 weeks so you have my sympathy disco.

Last night was another sucess, after the initial less than a minute howl, he slept til 3.30am then cried hard for less than a minute and then silence til 6am, I debated going into him at 6am because he's been asleep since 7.30pm but we left him and again he stopped abruptly and stayed in his cot til 6.45am he was in good from but very clingy to me, I had to let him sit in my lap for 20mins and hug him, I suppose he's just not used to not seeing me during the night so must have missed me! after breakfast he played with his trucks while we got ready for work, before he would have been cross,cranky and overtired, I used to be thrilled to go to work to get a break . It's so nice to see him happy and well rested I have told the childminder to let him CIO at naptime so FX that works out ok.

I'm glad you had another successful evening magoosmom, let's hope it continues - a well rested child is worth a few tears imho and for some children I don't think there is any other way - they just have to learn to do it themselves.

I don't know how you've coped for so long, ds2 is only 5 months and that's bad enough! Although I guess I'm still dealing with cumulative sleep deprivation since having ds1 three years ago - what I wouldn't give for a lie-in past 7am . Still, it won't be forever but you struggle to see the end when you're in the midst of it.

Good luck to everyone for tonight!

Another good night here can't believe he got the hang of it so quickly, I was sure I was in for a week of hell. I think he was knackered after 14 months of interrupted sleep

''a well rested child is worth a few tears imho and for some children I don't think there is any other way - they just have to learn to do it themselves''

I cannot agree with this ^ more. I felt like dd was a different child once she started sleeping, I even began to like her!

Another Woohoo to everyone getting some sleep