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..?

It's brilliant when someone starts setting off an artillery of backyard fireworks when your baby has finally slept for longer than forty minutes after re-settling three times already...

elphaba I've found that the first year of parenting is basically wishing everyone and everything in the world would just be quieter! It's so demoralising trying to get DS to sleep when I know that in 5mins a train will go past and wake him up.

Oh, and the house next door but one has just bought home a motorbike.....

Arghhhhh! 1 step forward 10steps back!! Staying at relatives coupled with full on teething = zero sleep for me!! Had to co-sleep which I don't like for the simple reason I can't get comfortable (bad back) and get no sleep, DD managed a grand total of 2hrs, so she's like a bag of weasels today . On the teething thing how long does it last before the tooth actually appears? Or is that a how long is a piece of string kinda question? Have been giving her powders (ashton&parsons) during the day, and either calpol or nurofen at bedtime. All I wanted for Christmas was her 2 front teeth - but alas not to be.........

I know the feeling kez. Teething is the pits. Sorry to say if yours is anything like dd it could be weeks, however I do think she is particularly rubbish as teething. Most people I speak to just love telling how they just get a day or two of grumbling before teeth magically appear.

I know HearMyRoar it's awful! I can actually feel the tooth trying to push through at the bottom, she's in so much pain poor wee mite, was just told I can alternate calpol and nurofen 2hourly, so that's good to know . On the sleeping subject does has anyone found teething wrecks any progress that has been made? I really hope not as we were starting to get somewhere!

I'm sure teething is to blame for a lot of DD's poor sleep. But by crikey it's been going on a long time!

Keznel Nurofen should be given every six hours. Was it a pharmacist who said you can alternate paracetamol and ibuprofen every two hours? If it wasn't I'd check that advice. I thought you could alternate every two hours as well until a pharmacist looked alarmed and told me otherwise.

Well, on the solids improving sleep front here, DS has been taking in loads the last few days, including an enormous quantity of rice pudding (sweetened only with apple) immediately before bed last night and it has had absolutely no effect whatsoever - still waking up 6+ times a night for boob, so the HV can take her opinion that he's waking because he's hungry and stick it. I've also read from a number of sources now that you can't really do CC until you've night-weaned, which makes sense but...ugh. I'm getting happier with co-sleeping and I've mastered the art of feeding while lying down and dozing for night feeds but I still don't think that level of sleep interruption is compatible with working. Doing Christmas lunch on Tuesday nearly killed me and my job is a lot more involved than that!

And DH has got a vomiting bug so I'm looking after two babies at the moment...

Can I join in?
Dd is nearly 9 months and has yet to form a predictable pattern. She got worse weekly up to 7 months when we did controlled crying which was magic - just woke at 10 and 4ish for feeds then straight back to sleep. Then teeth and colds appeared and four of the last 5 nights have involved large amounts of crying, frequent waking, refusing to go back to sleep... Dh is v ill with flu, ds (3yrs) is waking early because we're not at home and I am barely functioning.
I'm just glad I'm not alone... Merry Christmas!

Re ibuprofen and Calpol, my GP told me to alternate them but on their own dosage patterns. So as they're 4 times in 24 hours for a baby over 6 months, that's every 3 not every 2. And only for 3 days! (Can get paracetamol build-up if not careful.) We try to only give it to DD at bedtime. And resist the urge to give her gin

Glad the cosleeping is getting easier epheba. Hang on in there ;)

Welcome to the party bouncer!

We give paracetamol at bed time, then ibuprofen in the night and another dose of paracetamol in the morning if needed. We've been doing this far too long but though we can distract her during the day if we give nothing at night she will just cry and cry for hours which is no fun for anyone.

I've decided that it's less stressful for me to just except that I'm not going to get a full nights sleep for some time and go for damage limitation rather then hoping she will suddenly start sleeping through. To this end I'm trying to work out the things that are stopping her from settling and making her miserable. Think I've sorted the cold problem, can't do much more about her teeth than we already are, so last night I went for the poorly belly. I've noticed that after feeds she's often really unsettled and her stomach is gurglimg away so I tried keeping her upright for 20 mins after feeding. It was a bit tiresome but she did seem to stay settled longer (3 hour stretches of sleep) and woke this morning in a really good mood (She's usually pretty horrid until her first nap), which made a pleasant change. I'll try it again tonight and see how we go.

I've decided to revisit sleep training when she is a year old. By then she will be past the regression, I won't be so worried about reducing feeds if needed, and hopefully her digestive system will have settled a bit. It's only 3 months and I kind of feel better just for deciding not to stress about it for a bit. :)

Apologies Info on calpol/nurofen was given to me by DH from SIL, with a bit of Chinese whispers in between! Have since checked with GP and fishandjam is absolutely right it would be alternating them every 3 hours. Luckily I hadn't followed the advice as I don't like giving her drugs as I am reluctant to take them myself, so have been giving a dose of calpol during the day (if none of my distraction tactics work) and nurofen before bed if I feel she needs it, one tooth has cut through, another one on the way, then hopefully the tooth fairy will give her a wee break for a while

I have a question...one thing (well one of the many, many things) that worries me about doing any kind of sleep training like CC is the impending 9 month sleep regression and separation anxiety. Since DS jumped boots and all into the four month sleep regression a month early, never to pro-gress again, I'm fully expecting him to make a meal of the nine month one as well. Has anyone done sleep training and then been pushed completely back to square one at nine months?

waves wearily Hello, can I join in please? 7 month old DS has been a monumentally crap sleeper from day 1 and is showing no signs of improvement. We co-sleep through choice but I'm starting to re-think it because he seems to love the on-tap boobie. And I didn't even know there was a 9 month regression until I found this thread Not tried anything yet because I'm too wet for CC (so far....) and shhh pat doesn't work. Feed to sleep worked for my DD and she self-settles brilliantly now (is 3).

Anyway, the good news for some of you is that my DD was great for 4 months and then regressed horribly but by age 1 was back on track. So it's not the end. I reckon if they managed to sleep at first they have it in them. Right?

Elphaba - dd was back to square one after colds and teething following improvements after cc. But, I did get a little time with better sleep and I do now feel that there is hope to get back there!

Thanks babybouncer - you've jogged my memory on that, actually. We had some success with gradual withdrawal before a cold knocked him back to worse than square one. Hmm...decisions, decisions.

Hi tettoni - know what you mean by booby on tap. I thought I was getting happier with co-sleeping until DS decided he needed that booby next to his face hourly last night. Can't win for bloody losing! And only the most fashionable babies get up for the day at 5:15am, don't you know

Ugh, the thought of getting up at 5.15am makes me shudder, but I know it's just around the corner. Last night I turned off the boobie tap and my little boy actually got out of bed. I woke up to find him standing at the side of the bed So it was back on the boob. Sigh. They really know what they're doing.

Another tired one signing in here!

DD2 is nine months old and the last month has honestly been hell when she was a newborn I was so grateful that she would go three hours between feeds, I really got my hopes up. Then when she was a few months old she would usually just wake once in the night and would occasionally sleep through (11 hours) so then I really got my hopes up.

I thought I was all prepared. DD1 (who is 3) was terrible to begin with, then slowly slowly started getting better. She never slept through 'til she was 16 months so I thought I'd be able to cope; but what I forgot was she would sleep 5-6 hours, wake for 5 minutes for a feed, then sleep for another 4-5 hours. Really not a hardship

DD2 was poorly about a month ago, had bronchiolitis. It really set her back and she still has a wheeze. She is also full of cold and teething (seems to be a common theme here!) and honestly everytime she coughs I die a little inside because I know she's going to wake up.

< and on cue, she's just coughed and woken up crying for the fifth time in two hours...>

i have no energy to deal with DD1 in the mornings, I whisper "shut the hell up" into DD2's ear in the night. I truly am horrible when I have no sleep

Here we are again. Got fed up of sitting in bed while dd wriggled about grumbling so we are back up. Hoping 20 mins of something else will reset her or something and we can try this whole bed business again. God I'm tired!

I find quite often when dd wakes she will go back to sleep with just rocking so not sure that the proximity of booby is waking her. Mind you despite cosleeping I've never done the feeding lying down thing so maybe that makes a difference

Had to suddenly halt my last post due to dd having a bit of a pooing incident (my own fault, I accidentally gave her something with butter in the other day and dairy really doesn't agree with her at all)

saymama I think you sound pretty restrained to me, I'm a bit concerned that dd's first words are going to be 'oh for fucks sake' as she hears them so often upon waking.

Hello ladies, so santa didn't get your letter about a full night's sleep either, then?

After a few days of good naps and just one (!!!!) or two feeds at night ds.has returned to old ways of no naps, three or four wake ups..(at least not every hour or two yet).i have no idea what changed. Exhausted and demoralised.

Typing this on bus on one of my attempts to force a nap in the buggy. Could do with holiday from being a mum right now

Just swore under breath at a random woman in h&m, and the security.guard who followed me.because apparently I'm so haggard I look like a thief. Now nearly in tears as i got out of lift on wrong floor on department shop. Off to find coffee shop

blossombath

Well, if you can't laugh, you'd cry. Copiously.

Maybe you'd be better off finding a Bargain Booze.

Cake, lots and lots of cake, interspersed with chocolate breaks. :)

Well if you can't drink before lunch at Christmas when can you?? Oh wait, when you're breastfeeding a still milk mad and grumpy nearly 10 month old. Cake and chocolate it is then.

Feeling bit better after nap at lunch thanks to DH (I had a nap that is, DH chased DS round living room). Now, however, we are sitting wearily being competitively tired and summoning up energy for bathtime.

sayMama I too mutter un-nurturing things at DS far too often. I hope this will pass when he is finally sleeping properly and I am only mildly tired.

Oh and just thought I should add on calpol/nurofen: We rang NHS direct last week as DS had a rash as well as high temp. Was just a viral rash, but the nurse said that if baby is ill (ie with high temp) they don't recommend giving both paracetemol as well as nurofen as it can be too effective and mask a bad fever. She didn't say if this applied to teething pain, too - probably not since you aren't worried about fever in that instance.

Blossom and Hear You wouldn't be so nice if you heard me swearing right after I'd posted that last night! It wasn't too bad after all, she was coughing until about midnight (vomited in the cot twice ), then feed at 2am but she settled straight away and slept until 7:45 so the end was nice! Shame DD1 got up at 6!!

Tonight I fear is going to be a repeat. She certainly is poorly, coughing is waking her up constantly. But when we bring her into our room she instanly starts playing happily! Which would be lovely if it wasn't the middle of the night!

I hope you all get a bit of sleep tonight!