Misery loves company: anyone want to join me on a support thread for those desperate and demoralised by their 8/9/10 mo sleep?

[Suchanamateur]

Bloody sleep regression. It's like 4 months all over again but worse because it felt (briefly) like we were getting somewhere. Feck. Anyone else want to share tales of woe or is it (a) just me or (b) way too depressing to post about..?

Hearmyroar, have you got a Sophie? I don't know what it is about them but they are brilliant and DD is v attached to hers. I think it's the texture or the shape or something but she really finds it soothing.

(It has a very annoying squeak though. This can be rectified by a go in a steam steriliser. Not that I purposely broke it, oh no)

ballroom if you look back at my posts you will see i am in the same boat. Dd used to settle well/sleep thru etc till about 7 and a half months then it started to get worse then at 9 months it is just awful. Dd is nearly 10 months now. I feel your pain. Separation anxiety i think. I have given up trying to work out the what's and why's. It is what it is!!

Pretty rubbish night last night. Several wake ups. Hard to settle. Pounding the corridors at 2am. Great..

Its the inconsistancy that gets me. Every fucking night is different. The wake ups vary in time and length every night. Its like a sleep lottery!!

Yes yes yes, I was all PFB about DD, no sugar, (natural yoghurt with fruit puree even!), no drugs unless really, really necessary, all home cooked food... My poor boys are Ella's Kitchen kids, I'm bloody delighted if I can get a petit filous tube down the neck of the one who's not only just doing a dairy challenge, and Calpol ahoy!! I get loads of mouth ulcers and anbesol absolutely rocks, it really does numb the area so completely anaesthetises any pain. I have heard it's out of production now, but keep forgetting to actually check and stockpile if so...

One wake up already here, but soothed without boob by dh. So, straw poll, 9.5 motnhs, does he really need 4 feeds a night?? of course not How long would you try to comfort and get back to sleep without resorting to boob? We did try PU/PD style thing, and on night 3 only fed once and I was delighted, by by night 6 of hours to settle, he'd cracked me, it was Christmas, I gave up, and recently it's been illness. He's just run a temp of 39 or more for 6 days straight, straight afte rhvaing croup, so anything to keep the little tike hydrated and happier. But now, now I should get back on the sleep trainign wagon....I suppose....

Any plans anyone, with details for me to try?? I can't face cc, I just can't. yet

Ack! DD is absolutely wide awake. DH is trying to settle. She only fell asleep 30 mins ago...

feek, while frustrating, it shows she may need something... Maybe?! I read that if wakings are really regular, AKA my DT1, it's more likely just habit- but for me its seemingly impossible to break- 6 nights without the 9pm feed, but without huge effort, we're straight back into it. and it has NEVER been better. Ridiculous, a nearly-10-month-old who has never in his whole life slept more than 3 hours.

I think we have separation issues here too, as he used to self settle the best of my three every evening but now is much harder. And if he falls asleep feeding I don't wake him to put him down because I'm too tired to start a battle that can, and has, lasted hours. However, he is a truely stubborn little tike, and I also think some of it is nature versus nurture as his twin is soooo different and they have been 'nurtured' excatly the same, I've always fed his brother, every wake up, cuddled, rocked and soothed him just as much, but he only woke once again last night .

And Sophie is brilliant, we have 3. We would have had two, except I lost DDs and of course re-found it after i bought the boys their Sophies.

Sorry for all the typos before, too numerous to try to correct

Dreaming BfN lady told me that an average of three feeds a night for an eight month old is reasonable. DS has...ooh...six? ish? Above average, my little boy

I just lose the will when it comes to settling without feeding after about 10:30pm midnight which is when the co-sleeping kicks in so I can cope. Otherwise it would be feed, then attempt resettling in the cot for an hour or more after. Less sleep for all concerned.

I may be looking down the barrel of sleep training if work is really unmanageable on the sleep I'm getting, but I really don't see the point until we see where he goes with separation anxiety and the nine month sleep regression. We've already done two rounds of sleep training with no lasting results whatsoever and I can't , I just can't, put him and me through it again, only to have to keep re-doing it every few months, so co-sleeping for now it is, unless I really start to lose it back at work. (The patented Elphaba Toughen-the-Fuck Up Programme is still ongoing, BTW, and I'm finding it quite effective.) My mum has actually suggested I'm 'indulging' him I'd like to know what the blinding bloody hell else I'm supposed to do...

Maybe I should try a Sophie then. I have resisted as dd just hasn't been into soothers apart from her dummy. we have a raspberry thing that she quite likes but that is like a big knobbly dummy.

The differences between your twins are really interesting! I do think that it is really nature and that dd is just not a sleeping baby. My mum tells me I was exactly the same, even down to the peculiar sleeping position dd likes.

I've given up on sleep training for now and am a fully signed up member of the ride the mo fo out school of sleep management. I'm going to reassess when she is a year old and maybe try something then. I just hated the training business so much and it just resulted in everyone being stressed and miserable.

dreaming my dd is 9.5 month old and she prob feeds at least 4 times between 7-7 but that's coz i can't be arsed to try settle her when she wakes so just offer boob so not sure if she actually needs feeding but either way its the quickest way to settle her. Luckily she.never feeds for more than 5 mins so i can cope with that. If we were.talking a 40 min feed i wouldn't be so keen.
i would say if your talking 4 times in 12 hours i would be okay with that...
Also i am mindful i have returned to work so dd is getting less milk thru day now so happy to go with it for now..tho i do wonder if i will still be settling her with boob at 10 yr old as can't see how we are ever going to move on from this chapter!!

Ride that mo fo out...... Love that!!!

I'm in other same boat as you feel with return to work. Dd doesn't have any bm during my working days so I feel I need to let her feed at night when she wants. Also around 4 times though sometimes more if growing or teething.

Last night started well but then she wouldn't lie down at all between about 1and 5 so very little sleep had. We cosleep so you would think she would be OK about being put down as she's right with us, but no, heart rending sobs whenever I tried.

YY to nighttime BFing being mitigated by the fact that DS isn't getting as much during the day. I send EBM in with him every day, but I don't think he takes in much of it.

Does anyone feel the exhaustion goes in cycles? Some days you're quite fine, and feeling very chuffed at how well you're doing on so little sleep, then others you feel like you're walking through custard even if there's been no major worsening in DC's sleeping pattern? I'm having a few custard days at the moment...

I have exactly that Elphaba, today and yesterday have been custard days, but I am under the weather. Two days ago I was chirpy.

I am definitely in the ride it out camp. Did it with dd1 so I know it eventually gets better (when she started walking I found). Dd1 refused bottles when I went to work, so reverse cycled and fed every two hours.

I'm also on a custard day. I find I keep drifting out half way through conversations and then can't remember what people were talking about. Very embarrassing

I too feel bit like that but in a weird way going back to work has helped as i am so busy i forget how tired i am. And actually if we have had a shit night its kinda nice just to drop dd of at childcare and just go to work, have cuppa etc.
Think i found it more tiring when on mat leave as shit night sleep then having to deal with dd all day. Work is certainly less tiring!!

I can't find our Sophie anywhere. Most distressing.

So I've been doing the evil sleep training. I can't say DD is sleeping through by any means but we have had some good nights. But she's been ill on and off, so I've not been able to be consistent and our nights reflect that. Some nights no wakes until 5 or so, and others ... . So I'm sitting on the fence of bowing out. It's not as bad as it was when I started this thread (she's almost 1 FFS), but neither is it particularly good, especially when we've just put DS in a big boy bed and he's up and down. So I think on balance I'll keep checking in. I want to see how everyone is getting on. They Will Sleep. Hopefully.

HearMyRoar Yes. I know the feeling. I'm like an old person watching telly as well: 'So who's that again? Have we seen them before? No, I really don't understand what happened just then.' It's fucking awful because I used to be so on the ball! If I hear anyone say 'baby brain' again I'm going to deck them. NO. I'm just FUCKING EXHAUSTED. It's only secondary to baby, not a softening of brain tissue associated with the birth process.

feekerry I do hope you're right about work. T minus a week and a bit now before I go back. Well, start, really as it's a new job with people I've never met, most of whom I'll be supervising. They're going to think I'm a hell of a dozy, useless cow if my basic TV-watching skills have gone so much to pot. Oh, dread, dread, dread... At least if I was going back to my old job I could ease back in gradually and be allowed a bit of dozy-cowness. With this one I've got to hit the ground running.

suchanamateur Well, I hope it does all work out. Do pop back and visit us and let us know what unbroken sleep is like

So DS's latest permutation is that if he wakes while he's in his cot it sometimes just needs me to roll him onto his side to get him back to sleep. The thing that irks me, apart from the interruption just as I'm trying to drift off, is dressing the child, or changing his nappy, is like managing a Mexican jumping bean because he is so mobile. He really can't see fit to gently ease himself back onto his side without summoning mother? (Yes, I do try and keep him supported with a rolled blanket and one of his firmer soft toys to keep him on his side, in case you're about to suggest that. He still manages to end up on his back and conveniently forget he's been rolling for over four months now.)

Elphaba thanks. DD used to do that. Drove me mad. And she would just pick up any rolled towel/ other imprisoning device and just punt it round the cot at 2am.

Honestly elphaba work is easier!!! I went back to a new job too. Was dreading it as never been apart from dd for more than an hour. Fed to sleep for naps,ebf,bottle refuser, spoon refuser etc etc but all worked out fine. I kinda think before i went back to work if i had a shit night then i would feel kind of resentful in the morning where as now i have no choice. I have to get on with things.

Love love love the Toughen the Fuck Up and Ride the mo fo out approaches
I'm in!!!

Wedding anniversary tonight, out for 1.5 hours for a meal. Both dts up, DT1 a nightmare when got home...

Me and dp both agree that our days at home with dd are so much more exhausting than our working days. One of the main reasons I love that we have been able to work it so that we both do the childcare part-time is that it means dp understands how hard it is. I had no idea until I had to do it, I love my job even more now :)

Last night was another horror with dd refusing to lie down for most of the early hours of the morning. She just had a long morning nap though so is much chirpier, was a crying overtired mess this morning.

Thanks feekerry DS has been gradually building up his time at nursery over several months now and has been full time from this week, so I'm getting accustomed (sort of...) to the separation. I'm literally just worried about my ability to make high-level decisions, and at least appearing competent, when my brain has been replaced with mashed potato!

The custard seems to have downgraded from tinned Ambrosia to a good quality creme Anglaise today, so I'm feeling a bit more positive. And only four wake-ups last night although one of those required 40 mins on the boob to get back to sleep again

Creme patissiere here today. Totally get what feek means about the inconsistency. I could cope better if I knew when she was going to wake! We're doing a bit of CC in that if she's fed, nappied and still whining, she gets a toy or two chucked into her cot and left to it. We only go back in if she gets distressed. More often than not, she'll chunter her way back to sleep.

Plus DS has started waking at night too - think it may be nightmares but he doesn't yet have the vocabulary to explain why he's wailing at the top of his not inconsiderable voice. Our neighbours must be thoroughly pissed off!

I am fresh custard today, still ill, but feeling a bit better. I got more sleep last night as stitch fed loads between 9 and 11.30pm then woke at 2.30 and then slept until 7am! She is now ill too though and there is a tooth bothering her somewhere, so we shall see what tonight brings.

I worked and dh was SAHD for dd1. I had an easier time in some respects as she teethed really badly and would refuse to eat anything but yoghurt and screamed a lot. I was tired from the night feeds, but as others have said you just have to get on with it. It was also nice to get some mental stimulation, atm I get a bit bored with cleaning and only having a 3.5 and 11 month old talk to for much of the time, even at toddler groups the conversation is very child based. I love them and love being with them, but it is not all I am, work helps with that, as does MN :)

"If I hear anyone say 'baby brain' again I'm going to deck them. NO. I'm just FUCKING EXHAUSTED. It's only secondary to baby, not a softening of brain tissue associated with the birth process."

Couldn't agree more. I keep hearing people say it doesn't get better, you just get used to functioning on so little sleep and it makes me feel like curling up into fetal position.

I have a new problem (oh joy) and was hoping someone can suggest something to help:

DD was fine with falling asleep in the side-bed cot (we co-sleep halfway through the night) but now every time I put her down she rolls on her tummy to crawl and tries to get up, even if she's half asleep!

This really annoys her because she's tired, but she won't stop doing it!

So now I have to physically "restrain" her by lying down with her and putting her in my arms to sleep. I wouldn't mind too much (god knows I had to do it 24/7 for 4 months) but she started to object to this so she cries and takes forever to sleep.

Options: cot and let her stand up/crawl etc. and then get upset or put her to sleep in my arms, she gets upset and eventually falls asleep (2 hours later).

Any suggestions, please?

Tricky one poppy, I have a similar problem with dd at the moment, she just wants to stand or crawl or generally drag herself about it even when she is exhausted and so ends up is tears. I just sit her on my lap after a book and basically hold her there until she stops trying to fling herself forward. If I can get her on a boob that usually helps. Its crap and is doing terrible things to my back and shoulders but apart from leaving her to get in a state I can't think of anything else. I'm hoping once she has got walking properly she'll settle down a bit. [Hopeful face]

poppy hmm difficult one. I am prob not much help as i have to boob then restrain then repeat until she sleeps. I often find if i can fall asleep first other then encourages her but not easy whilst trying to restrain.

Dd seems to have settled for 3-4 wake ups between 10.30pm and 6am. She has been sleeping from 7pm till 10pm ish so at least that is something. There is no pattern to the wakes after that. No reason either other than to deprive me of sleep. That's what i think anyway.

Thats a good stretch stitch that's at least 4 hours you lucky lady!!!