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..?

Hello all. Remember me? I'm the miserable git that started this thread and I'm both heartened and sorry its still going.

I bowed out after some not-terribly-professional sleep training which although didnt get us sleeping through, did get us only 1 or 2 wakes to a quick feed and straight back down, which I could happily take.

But I'd like to join again if I may. DD's 2 or 3 (now) wakes persist, but a feed doesn't do it and it takes a good 1.5-2 hours to get her down again, and only if I get her to sleep on me until she is totally told out cold so I can put her down. I am back to 4 or 5 hours fractured sleep and not coping. DH has been away lots for work recently so I'm also doing DS' (3 yo) wakings. Much quicker to deal with but always tag teaming.

I just thought by 15 months, DD would be better than this. She's also a whiny clingy nightmare in the day, which I'm sure is sleep related.

Ugh. Sorry for pity post.

Oh no, Such!

There's another thing that always makes me balk at trying any kind of sleep training again: the likelihood that it won't stick. Such a horrible thing for everyone to have to go through (I remember it was a really tough decision for you to do it in the first place, Such) then so heartbreaking when it has all been for naught. Poor you

I reckon those babies for whom sleep training works would have become sleepers anyway. Ours...well...

Off to squeeze in 40 mins of the latest Dan Brown some literary fiction before DS's first wake-up. I could easily fall asleep myself now but being woken up again so soon is just painful.

Good night, temporarily.

Welcome back such sorry to hear that things have got bad again.

I have a horrid cold and feel crap. Dd is also off her food which is always a bad sign. She asks for milk but then screams like as little banshee after only a few sucks. Sometimes I think I spend more time feeling ill then well at the moment.

Hey Such - sorry to see you back, that really sucks.

Does your 3 yo also wake up in the middle of the night?

Elph I'm also reading "Inferno"; he's not a brilliant writer, but his books are real page turners!

Hear I know this sounds feeble, but are you taking some kick ass vitamins? I'm really slack with that sort of thing but since I found out Im pregnant I started eating low-gi again and taking proper vitamins and I feel marginally better.

Stitch I used to feel strangely comforted when I resigned to the fact it's a long term thing, but now the thought of a newborn in November is making me feel faint.

DD's sleep is still all over the place and I don't see any improvement - in fact she just woke up again while I'm writing this (DH went in to settle).

poppy, the reality is shit. Last night DT1 woke 5 or 6 times before being up for the day at 5am . DT2 woke 3 times, one of those times being woken by DD, 2.8 waking up crying. For. Fuck's. Sake. I cannot carry on like this.

such, I'm a later joiner to your thread, and gutted to see you back . Surely its a phase for you

Hello - late joiner to this thread but is great - thanks for making me realise I am not a crappy mother.
DD1 - great sleeper, DD2 - nightmare - born on Friday 13th - should have known from the start!!

HV came round yesterday and told me, for the sake of my child, I should do CC - and she even sat with me whilst I put her up for a nap and let her scream for 20 mins - I was in tears and she basically told me to 'man up'. She told me that when they vomit because they have cried so much - it is OK to clean them up and put back in the cot!!

How very very kind - one is permitted to clean up ones child who has vomited because she has been left to scream - I am touched!

It has also been suggested by a 'friend' that I give up chocolate to help her sleep (am BF)......are you absolutely completely insane. Without chocolate I would be institutionalised.

Good luck everyone
X

Justdoingmybest, welcome.

I'm really shocked with the HV intervention, it sounds awful; are you feeling OK now?

I'm a wuss when it comes to CC and I can't stand the prescriptive way most HVs advocate it regardless of circumstances. that's why I lie when they ask me about DD's sleeping patterns

Your friend is talking rubbish and you can't be expected to go through this without chocolate. I think I would murder anyone who tried to deprive me of all my carbs my morning toast.

Thanks Poppy - HV did make me question if I was doing the right thing by going to her all night / sleeping in her room but am going to stick with it in the vain hope that a miracle occurs and she decides to sleep for more than 2 hrs at a time.

Another thing I get from people is '...but she is sooo cute, I don't believe what you are telling me' - because, as we all know, cuteness is an indicator of how well a baby sleeps.....

I'm back.

Lost the thread for a while cuz we were on a holiday. All went well, and both kids slept grand - 3 year old DS slept all night happy that we were all in same room. Almost-9-month-old DD slept all night apart from the usual feeds, but always in the big hotel bed with DH and I. We did have a travel cot for her, but it was used for storing clothes!

I could lie down in the street and sleep for a year now we're home and DS is waking up again, and DD too.

Join us just in 'riding that mo fo out'!

The mo fo's been riding me out this week. My mother asked me with some alarm yesterday afternoon, 'My God, are you ILL?' because I looked so horrendous. The laughter which erupted from me when she suggested I have an early night and let DH put DS to bed only sounded slightly hysterical.

And now all these people who I thought were sleeping happily and giving me hope are coming back!

Absolutely, giving us hope then taking it awaaaay...! Maybe I'll pretend you are still sleeping and haven't come back. Head, sand, me?!

D'ya know, I think I hate starting the day at 5 more than all the rest of it?

I have slight hope following a dietician appointment today which was actually for DT2 but I asked about DT1 too, whose appointment isn't through yet. Plus collared the paeds speech and language specialist in reflux babies at work, and am now a believer. At last. My DT1 does have reflux, and is responding to medication and exclusion diet and will hopefully improve anyway after 18 months!!! A glimmer of hope. So, here's things he's always done that I only learnt in the last week are reflux/silent reflux signs (he has a bit of both, mixed picture hence why its taken so bloody long for a GP and paeds physio to realize-doh).
-Complete spoon refusal from very young (7.5 months for him)
-very poor sleep
-very frequent night feeding, often/usually short feeds
-'wet' sounding burps
-prefers tummy sleeping
-can be very funny about food textures
-labelled a 'colicky' baby (which the slt says she doesn't believe in anyway-colic I mean, she thinks in a v unsettled baby there's pretty much always a cause)

Erm, forgotten the rest already, but maybe I'm currently so enthused I'll
become a reflux vigilante, but just for you other sleep deprived, its so not textbook, any other undiagnosed reflux babies??

Well DS ticks a lot of those boxes but then a lot of those boxes apply to tongue tie as well which DS was until we finally got it sorted at 6 months (not that it seemed to make any difference to anything except it might have made him slightly less gaggy with finger foods). Isn't silent reflux one of those things GPs get a bit sceptical about? Who's best to diagnose?

Sooo, ended up moving DD's cot back into our room last night just so that DH and I would be able to sleep in the marital bed together again. She was up maybe 6 times, after taking hours to fall asleep :(

Then at midnight DS woke up crying, wailing etc and DH ended up sleeping on his floor the rest of the night.

Both kids just seem so clingy at the moment, and I really don't want to be annoyed at them.... but I find it so annoying.

Don't know WTF to do!

Hi Needles - the only reason we haven't brought DD2 back into our room is because the cotbed is too big to fit through the door and is a bastard to put back together again!!

DD2 (10 mths) like a strip of Velcro to my leg and so DD1 reacting and wanting some extra Mummy love as well. Then DH wants a piece o' lovin' ..... even the idea makes me laugh.
If we can get through this we can get through anything.
Here's to a good night all

Well, I've done a bit of Googling and I don't think DS has any kind of reflux. I remember looking into it back when it first dawned on me that his crappy sleep wasn't getting any better. His spoon and food refusing is really only for me because he's a stubborn little so-and-so and wants to feed himself - he eats ridiculous quantities, however it comes, at nursery, and no

Bloody hell, MN app having ishoos tonight...

No wet burps. He gagged stupid amounts right up until a month or so ago on any finger foods but I'm pretty sure that was to do with his crappy tongue mobility. He's never seemed like he's in pain and his night time feeds could certainly never be described as short, which in theory they tend to be with reflux. He slept on an angle for a while which changed nothing. I suppose it's good that he doesn't have the discomfort of reflux, but something to point at and blame, apart from the cruel hand of fate, would be nice.

Well, he's eaten buckets today and crawled or toddled with his push-along walker the equivalent of about 50 circuits of the house, so he's going to be SO WORN OUT and FULL he'll sleep for ages tonight. Just you wait. He will. Totally.

Dreaming, sounds like you might finally see some light at the end of the tunnel there.

Thanks for sharing the symptoms; DD definitely doesn't have reflux...
She has NO PROBLEMS at all, apart from enjoying this twisted way of torturing her parents.

Needles DD is 14 months tomorrow and her bedside cot has never left our room. DH sleeps in the guest room a lot. Sometimes it's just DD on her cot, attached to an empty superking bed, while DH and I huddle in the sitting room, afraid of trying to go to bed.

I'm resigned to the fact that it's not fixable. There, I've said it

Elph said: "he's going to be SO WORN OUT and FULL he'll sleep for ages tonight. Just you wait. He will. Totally."

ha ha ha ha! Sorry, I mean... he's bound to sleep well tonight, Elph! For hours on end. Consecutively!

I realise that I came to this thread really late. What age are all your LO's now?? I could go back to page 1 and figure it out, but don't think I have the concentration skills to do so.

DS is now 3.3 years and was a super sleeper until DD was born in August 2012. I didn't have any of these issues with him as a newborn/baby.

So those of you on your PFB, please take heart that your next DC may not be such a terror at bedtime. For me, I was shocked to the core of my soul by how different DD has been to DS.

I will never have another child. Nope, not ever. None.

Oh god, please don't tell me that - I'm pregnant at the moment!

So do both your DC not sleep, Needles?

needles my dd is 14 months next week. Like poppy's she never left our bed. We used to have a side cot but decided it was less hassle to just have her in our bed. Last month we even sold the cot. I got it on ebay and managed to sell it for twice the amount we paid so at least I turned a profit :o

Dd had a bit of reflux when she was little and it still pops up sometimes when she is teething badly, but her main issue was always wind I think, and food intolerance. I'm secretly hoping that her waking will reduce a bit now she is feeding less at night. No sign of that so far but I remain optimistic... sort of.

We have been joining the exploding poo party the past couple of days but it looks like it might be settling down now. Last night was hideous, I'm still shuddering at the memory...the horror! the horror! Tonight we have the neighbourhood cats getting frisky outside, so lots of yowling but hopefully less poo.

So, yes, onto second wake-up with shattered, full DS here...

He's one on Monday I'm going to be spending much of today trying to pass a cake off as a monkey. It's my first true foray into sugar paste so I may be being a little optimistic. I'm allowing myself plenty of time to get a back-up from Tesco if it goes horribly wrong.

Sorry, Poppy :(

DS slept like a dream until DD was born. In fact, he stopped sleeping the day we brought her home from hospital. He was exactly 2 and a half years old when she was born, and we'd done a great job building him up to it, explaining about the new baby and getting him to help getting cot and clothes ready.

When DS was younger he would have slept for anyone, anywhere and settled quickly and easily.

Now myself or DH spend up to two hours a night sitting on his floor, sitting on the hall floor outside his door, doing the Super-Nanny thing of putting him back to bed etc. All this while I breastfeed DD and try to get her down. Then once he's in bed asleep he'll wake up anytime from around midnight and be a raving banshee shouting and wailing. For a quiet life DH has gone in after he wakes up the 2nd time (usually about 2am) and just sleeps on his floor on a blow-up mattress.

I used to be so proud of his good sleeping habits. Thought I was a great mum. I now realise it was all pot luck, and that has now blown up in my face.

Sorry to be such a misery, but it has made me miserable. DD has been a crap sleeper and crap napper from the very beginning, and with DS as he is too both DH and I are close to breaking point sometimes.

But, for all my misery, there are many many people I know who have two kids who sleep perfectly and all is like a fairytale. Hoping that happens for you, Poppy!

Sorry to have shattered dream illusions. To be fair post sleep training, DD did sleep ok (well ok for my kids anyway) for a while. But I think the dirty secret of sleep training is that you have to continue being hardcore and completely consistent, or have to redo. An I was far from consistent.

Poppy 3 yo DS was a bad sleeper but sleep training made him much better, but yes he still wakes more often than not. But he'll usually just go back with a quick tuck in - none of this hours of resettling and then up again two hours later shit, which is the killer. Although this morning, he had put his light on at 3am and was furious to be told he couldn't read a book.

Just you made me laugh with your comment about DH wanting a little loving. Apart from the fact that there is a slight chance it could result in DC3, which is enough destroy any potential spark in my eye, after 12 hours of my little clingons and then the promise of a lively nightahead, I. Do. Not. Want. To. Be. Touched.

Oh and having DD didnt seem to affect DS like Needles DS - but there was a smaller age gap - under 2 years and I do wonder if that means he just wasn't as aware.