I must not be cut out for motherhood

[CantCope]

Tonight I shouted at dd who is only 6 months old and looked absolutely terrified, because she was still crying after an hour of trying to settle her to sleep. I feel so awful. I am the person who wont leave her to cry for even one minute because I think its cruel, and yet I scared her and was so horrible to her myself.

I am so frustrated tonight. I never thought when I had a baby that 6 months down the line I would spend hours of every day coping with a crying baby and trying to get her to feed or sleep. That I would never get more than 4 hours sleep a night myself and never more than 2 hours in a row. That I would have zero social life, look like a pile of crap, spend most evenings catching up on jobs rather than reading or watching a film, spending time with dh,or relaxing in any shape or form, because it takes a whole day just looking after a baby nevermind getting anything else blooming done. Or else I am out of the house during the day at a group or visiting a friend because I cant cope with a day in the house with baby.

We have been for over a month now trying to resist rocking dd to sleep, and using PU/PD or Shush/Pat in her cot. Supposedly after a few nights or weeks it should take less and less time to settle to sleep - not the case - sometimes she falls asleep on the breast, sometimes she can fall asleep in the cot after a fit of fussing, most of the time she fusses gets picked up and put down again etc etc etc for the best part of an hour. I dont have the blooming patience for it because I spend most days feeling so tired I could cry.

Am I getting something seriously wrong? as I feel like a total failure as a mother tonight - if I can shout at a tiny baby who just cant seem to settle herself to sleep, goodness knows I will have no patience for a toddler or the rest of childhood.

frayedknot thank you your post is really lovely and I see myself in so much of what you say about how it was for you

Ds2 is my 3rd child, thus extra extra self flagellation about a baby who wouldn't sleep! Must confess that I never actually followed any advice to the letter, no gumption for cc. Although the experts all say that sleep behaviour doesn't sort itself I think that it does get better with increased age. Please don't waste what little energy you have in beating yourself up, just concentrate on enjoying a really special time with your baby. Your other half can wash, cook, clean even if he can't settle the baby as well as you

talking on here last night really helped - was at wits end

going to find a hv to talk to today

good - glad it helped

just talking may well do the trick. keep us up to date on how you're getting on!

Oh god you post brought it all back - I can vividly remembering sceaming at ds 'I don't know what you want'.......(he was about 3 months so he could hardly tell me...) Stomping up the road, tears pouring down my face was also not uncommon (ds with dp....) We're all pretty much been there - why do you think sleep deprivation is used as a means of torture . Hope you feel better soon...

Why are you resisting rocking to sleep? - if it works then do it and get some sleep yourself. Go for whatever is the quickest - the best way to teach her to sleep is for her to have some.

Also stop catching up on jobs instead of sleeping, watching a movie or reading. Your dd needs to see you relaxing if she is going to relax herself.

You are not a bad mum, you are a tired mum.

hi cantcope, don't I understand. I have shouted at dd and worse (shudder). I didn't like myself at all. Dd could not settle or sleep for more than 2-3 hours at a time until she was 17 months and weaned off the breast. I never thought the day would come for me (I was also reassured that it would get better after 3, 6 months, 1 year, etc).

I agree with threebob. Whatever works. Fine if you don't want to do co-sleeping. But there is nothing wrong with rocking to sleep or using the breast. I found that putting dd in a buggy and pushing her around the kitchen until she fell asleep also worked. I had a travel system which I could lift the carseat out of the buggy and carry her to bed.

6 months is still very little. All babies need to find their sleep rhythm, some take longer than others. Don't worry about "bad habits" and "rods for your back". My dd now sleeps through generally and settles much easier. She is 2.5 years. I did nothing to break her habits besides waiting for her to grow up. In the meantime, a bit of rocking or pushing or nursing is no hardship. Once you accept that is your lot as your dd's parent, it makes things more peaceful, takes less time and effort and just more harmonious overall. You will NEVER regret that the time, love and patience that comes with meeting your dd's needs. hth

Yep, I couldn't cope either. Honestly, ds came into our lives and completely ruined them for the first 6 months. It was dire. Nothing I did made him happy - he was chronically sleep deprived and naturally he felt pretty cr*p all day, as did I. As colditz said, PU/PD did not work for us - he would settle beautifully as soon as I picked him up but only howl with greater outrage when I put him down again. He simply had the wrong personality for that method. Knowing him like I do now (he's nearly 6) it's obvious to me that that kind of technique wouldn't work with him - he's an all or nothing boy. But you can't know your 6 month old like you know your 6 year old!

Anyway, CC worked for us. 3 nights and it was all over - ten hours straight, and he started to ask to be put to bed and would just roll over and get on with sleeping when I put him down. In fact, if I hung around too long he'd kind of glare at me, with the clear implication that I was disturbing his rest!

CC may go against your parenting principles, but it was th esolution for us. Good luck, and don't be too hard on yourself. If you're a bad mother, then there are lots of us out there just like you!! :o

god yes, if feeding to sleep helps, do it. We still did that quite often at bed time even when she could sleep on her on. ditto rocking, taking out in the pram etc. I remember driving round and round Richmond park because it was the only way to get her to sleep. Don't beat yourself up about it., Plenty of good advice here too

I fed dd to sleep no end of times. In the end she grew out of needing to do it by herself, when she got to about 12 months iirc.

Agree that you need someone to take care of her for a few hours every now and again so that you can catch up on sleep. It's amazing what a difference it makes. Try catnapping when she's asleep through the day, even if its just for half an hour. The housework can keep. I know what you mean about not wanting to sit in a mess, but I kept my living room fairly clean and tidy and just ignored the rest of the house .

Hang in there. It will get easier.

Your post sounds like me when ds was this age. If feeding/rocking gets her to sleep then do it.

I had the problem that neither of these worked regularly. He would just cry and cry no matter how much you soothed etc. I shouted at ds many times though I'm not proud of it but I was just so exhausted and lonely. Dh used to get tearful hysterical calls from me all the time so please don't feel bad about doing it once.

I will tell you what did help me eventually a bit and it had nothing to do with co-sleeping which I also tried but if anything it made things worse.

Ds was basically overtired and overstimulated from too much going out and lack of sleep. He NEVER slept more than 30 mins when we were out but sometimes slept longer at home.

He was basically a baby who could only take so much stimulation and would then flip out. Even today I look at people sitting in cafes/noisy places with small babies asleep or just contentedly looking and marvel. You got about 30-40min of calm with ds before he would start to agitate and cry. Feeding him when he was like this did not help he just got more agitated. He needed rest but didn't know how to get it and was very noise sensitive.

I decided two things

One - ds needed to get to sleep during the day for naps and I did what ever worked best to get that. I also left him to cry if he slept and woke after 30-40 mins, not for long but for 5 mins or so. Often (though not always) this worked and he went back to sleep.

This did mean getting him to take a nap within 1-2 hrs or waking up and 1-2 hrs of waking from his first nap. Sometimes he had a third nap and then was asleep for the evening at 5.30pm. This was because he was so sleep deprived.

Sometimes I felt like I was going mad as for about a month I couldn't do anything that took longer than an hour out of the house as we had to be back for his naps. After about 1 week he did definitely improve and we had some days which were much calmer. I also let him sleep in a sling on me at home sometimes if the cot really wasn't working.

The second thing I did was accept that ds was crying. If I was pretty certain he was fed, not in pain (I did use calpol sometime just so I could be sure) etc and he was crying and wouldn't stop I just sat down and held him. I gave him my full attention and was sympathetic but did not try and stop the crying. I decided he needed to get something off his chest and my job was to listen to him and not try and fix it

Quite often the crying would stop after a while and he'd be happier or would fall asleep exausted. The very fact that I just accepted his crying also helped me me cope a bit.

I won't lie, it took about 6 weeks but eventually we saw an improvement in his night sleep wakings he only woke once for a quick feed (before it had been 5-7 times between 10pm -5am and feeding would not get him back to sleep for most of those) and then he just seemed to have more days where he was happier.

He was a baby that needed a routine but couldn't sort one out for himself. After 1 year he did improve considerably though and he now sleeps much better though he still isn't great.

Please don't worry about having the patience for a toddler. I find this stage soooo much easier. I do still get a bit annoyed/irritated but nowhere near as much as I did when ds was a small baby. Despite ds being more into things, more tiring and beginning to have tantrums I find this stage a doddle compared to his babyhood. You will probably find that once you get through this the toddler stage will be fine.

wise words from lazycow.

Reminded me of dd. Easily bored and then quickly over-stimmed. Nothing worked consistently for dd sleep-wise. Each time, I just had to go through the whole gamut of sleep techniques, rocking, sling, buggy, nursing etc. If all fails, then just hold baby, crying and all. You tried your best, sometimes you can't fix things.

Toddlerhood is soooo much easier. It comes with its challenges, but nothing like babyhood. You'll get there, Cantcope

CantCope you might just be normal. I think I first did this to my ds at 5 weeks. On my first day back to work I felt a huge sense of relief.

The older he gets the more I like him (now 2.5) but am not looking forward to the few months following from Aug when second baby arrives. Glad you are getting lots of supportive responses here.

Hi Can't cope, like others on here, pupd didn't work with my baby - she got completely traumatised by it in fact. My advice, fwiw, would be to stop sleep training for now, and just get your baby to sleep in whatever way you need to to get a better nights sleep. I think there is nothing wrong with rocking or feeding to sleep now. In a few months time you can sleep train if you want to and feel strong enough to do it.

Why not also read The No cry sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley - this is a more gradual/less stressful way of training a baby to put itself to sleep. I think it worked for some people on here.

hi again - the difference in advice here kinda highlight my dilemna perfectly - my parenting 'philosophy' if you like is that I like feeding her to sleep, it feels right to comfort her when she cries, I want to believe that she's just a little baby and comfort, comfort, comfort is what she needs right now and that she will grow out of it. My problem is that even with rocking and feeding she fights sleep, and so it takes hours and is totally and utterly draining of all my physical and emotional energy. And that at night its is simply unsustainable to be waking so often to settle her again.
Last night was horrendous - at one point she was waking every half hour, sometimes dh was rocking her back off, other times she kept crying so I fed her, I ended up saying to dh 'I wish I'd never had her' - that sounds so horrible, because I seriously adore her with all my heart and dont wish her away, but what I meant was I wish I had known what having a baby would be like and I might have chosen not to have one. That still sounds awful - and its because I dont mean it, its just the frustration and confusion.
Anyway, thanks for today's posts, for telling me your stories and helping me see its not just me being totally crap.

Talked to hv this morning and she suggested talking to dh, choosing a method and sticking to it, whether it involves rocking or just comforting in cot, and that she shouldnt need feeding during the night really at 6 months. I wouldnt mind one feed personally but its knowing how to send her a consistent message?

tipex your post was really nice too - I feel very much like you describe trying everything but going back to just doing whatever involves least upset for everyone ...
the thing about leaving the housework as lovely as it sounds and I know everyone means well to suggest is that I'm not a big housework-fanatic anyway, for example I rarely dust or clean windows or mop floors and have never in my life spring-cleaned! But I do need to make sure we all have clean ironed clothes and our toilet is clean and some vegetable are chopped for dinner, and the pots are washed.

blimey I'm just moaning on now .. I am going to shut up soon, and just get on with trying to carry on mothering, and tonight I'm going to stay at mum's in order to get a night's sleep and leave dh with dd, I'm sure they'll manage even if there is a bit of crying, but I'm no good for her in my current state of despair and sleep deprivation

Hi Cantcope, again your post sounds just like my first few months with my DH i also shouted and felt really guilty about it for ages, my DH had really bad colic for a long time, and the thing that really helped was swaddling, we did this for far longer than recommended but this was the only thing that was 95% guaranteed to work i think that she was over 6 months when we started to swaddle her under her arms and this really did help, i learned quite a bit from Gina Fords - Contented baby book, my Dh was never awake for more than 2 - 3 hours between feeds in the day time, i felt that this really helped her sleeping in the night because she wasnt over tired, and to feed as much as possible between 7am and 7pm (barr the 10.30 - 11.00) feed which we did for ages. Any enough of the waffle it does get better and you slowly get your evenings back, they grow up and you get the smiles and the hugs and the rewards for all you hard work, it is hard work when you feel that you are getting nothing back for all your hard work, but Honestly it does get better, my DH is 14months now and getting a little cheeky personality and my life is so much more fun for her being around!! have a good easter and try and relax a bit.

definately leave the housework!!! your house will be in order again one day, perhaps just concentrate on the lounge so 1 room is tidy and sod the rest of the house.

CantCope I hope you get a reasonable night's sleep tonight.

I think DS was around 8 months when I gave in to the fact that he wasn;t going to sleep through the night like "all" my friends & relations babies did by 6 months, and that despite all the books, the HV's advice, and everything else, the easiest life for both of us was going to be the one where I fed him to sleep, and fed him if he woke at night, until I felt that he didn't need it anymore.

Once I accepted this, things did become slightly easier, although I felt it was something that I had to hide because (at the time) I thought it meant I was a big failure. So I carried on doing it, just not saying much about it to anyone.

Later on I discovered Mumsnet and realised that actually making that choice was was really, really, quite OK, and even recommended by lots of Mumsnetters!!

I strongly believe now that you must do what you instinctively feel is right for both you and your baby.

My DS is almost 2 and Ive only just gone back in to our own bedroom. DO what YOU feel is right, dont follow too many guidelines. You can drive yourself crazy trying to do what the books say is best. I think that if you have a difficult baby you just have to accept that your life is going to be really hard at first, but it does get easier. I did the shouting thing too and scared DS and made him cry.....then cried all night! No one is perfect. Hang in there.

At 6 months heaps of babies need feeding in the night - and if it gets them back off to sleep then do it I say.