Misery loves company: riding the mo fo out into Part II

[ElphabaTheGreen]

In our last exciting instalments:

Needles was at breaking point with a screaming 10 mo DD

Hear had experienced the magic of ONE unbroken night!

Dreaming was continuing to confound all with her ability to manage three children on four or five minutes a night, thanks to DT the Terrible.

Stitch was still having her sleep eaten by...erm...Stitch.

Poppy was pondering how the actual fark she was going to manage a newborn on top of BabyAmex's night time shenanigans.

And the desperate Elphaba had turned night duties entirely over to DH with mastitic results.

Join us with your stories of misery and woe in this, the most sleep-deprived corner of MN!

[NeedlesCuties]

dreaming you're doing very similar to me >high five!<

Might work, but might just be something your DS and my DD grow out of.

I put DD in her cot around 8pm, gave her a soothing toy - that Fisher Price lullaby seahorse thingy - and sat across the room ignoring her (praying hard that she'd sleep!). She was happy, then somehow leaned forward and bumped her head on the bars. Cue lots of crying. Lifted her, gave her a small breastfeed, and she was asleep in about 2 minutes. Is now in her cot asleep! Woohoo!

Sitting downstairs now drinking a sneaky glass of and watching The Apprentice which I recorded last night. Ahhh, nice!

[HearMyRoar]

Congratulations on the 5 hours! Win! :o

Dd has a cough so ended up in our bed from 10 last night after 3 hours of cough, wake, scream, settle, cough, wake, scream...well you get the picture. Still took another hour to sleep properly. Poor little poppet. Dp got her some cough medicine today and she seems a bit better now. So far! She is currently doing 5am waking though. Ho hum.

Found out the other day that dd does full on self settling for naps at nursery now. Apparently when she decides she's tired she finds her teddy and just goes into the sleep room and puts herself to bed. Just like that!

Now if I can just get her to do that at home...

[StitchAteMySleep]

Stitch went from 1am to 6.30am last night, when she is not pushing out those teeth we can have quite good nights.

Hear, your dd sounds so cute toddling off with her teddy to have a nap :)

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Hear, she sounds adorable indeed!

Night 7 of the Half Arsed Sleep Training that's still very taxing here. Going terribly. Evening wakings not reducing at all. Increasingly difficult to settle. Still feeding once at midnight, then 4:30-5 am to try and delay 'morning'. Totally shouted at at work by new manager on Thursday, I was so shocked, never been spoken to like that, and all over missing a meeting as I'd not seen the email. Once. Shit end to a shit week.

Hope everyone else is fast asleep now.

Oh, and needles, hope your dd grows out of it. Seriously doubt my Dt1 will as he's shown NO improvement in nearly 15 months. Ffs. I need a quick raaaarrgghh!

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Oh, and i can't jiggle him to sleep in the cot any more. I'm having to bring him into our bed, get him fast asleep and transfer. So, he is definitely upping the resistance, plus being a clingy nightmare in the day.

[StitchAteMySleep]

Do not tolerate the shouting dreaming. I had a manager like that once, they get worse the more they are allowed to do it. Go to HR or above their head and complain.

[ElphabaTheGreen]

And if it was in an email it was probably one of those therapy manager-type meetings that you leave thinking, 'And that was worth half a morning away from clinical time because...?'

[HearMyRoar]

Agree with stitch there dreaming. Your manager sounds like an arse and you should make it clear that you will not accept being talked to like that. Personally I would start by talking to them and then if they continue to be idiots go above them. Seriously who hasn't missed a meeting! I missed one the other week despite it being in my calendar for ages just because I was caught up with something else and forgot the time. I grovelled pathetically and everyone was very understanding.

[ElphabaTheGreen]

I wish DS would pick up his teddy (well stuffed sausage dog) and take himself off to bed, well, anywhere. He has yet to see the inside of the cots at nursery - it's either on one of the girls, or rocked to sleep in their pram. I saw them put other babies down for naps while he was doing his settling in. Lie yawning, eye-rubbing baby down in cot, stroke head for a bit, leave.

We're off to London to see a matinee on Wednesday so won't be back until well after DS's bedtime and mine, so the grandparents are going to have to get him asleep. No idea how they're going to do it. No. I. Dea. For the umpteenth time I'm wishing boobs could be detached and left with babysitters.

[StitchAteMySleep]

I have just the thing for you Elphaba, here.

[PoppyAmex]

Hello everyone.

I've been keeping away because I'm not actually sure how this whole experiment is going.

We moved DD to her bedroom last weekend and she seemed to settle ok; we've since had alternate nights of sleeping through to 6:45am and nights of absolute hell, where she wakes up a lot and then is up for the day at 3am or 4am.

I think the good nights just happen because she's exhausted from the previous night, so I'm not optimistic at all.

I must say I was very sad to see her move, but at the same time it feels good to have the bedroom back to ourselves (for another 5 months until DC2 comes along, anyway).

I'll catch up with the thread now, before I fall asleep sitting up - hope there's loads of sleeping babies this week!

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Stitch Step away from the Internet...

[StitchAteMySleep]

At least it made you smile.

[ElphabaTheGreen]

So last night with the grandparents, it took DS a grand total of 10 minutes to fall asleep IN his cot and stay asleep until 4:30am!

And he's started sleeping in the cots at nursery

Maybe I might get a life back at some point...

[StitchAteMySleep]

Brilliant Elphaba

We have had lots of waking between 10pm and 3am for the last two nights, but Stitch has been very emotional during the day and her head has been hot, so thinking teeth again or a virus. Last night she decided to be awake from 2.30-3.30am because she noticed her dad in the bed and got all excited (she fell asleep before he got in from work).

I could do without it, I am exhausted all the time at the mo, my menstrual cycle is all over the place and I have had to go gluten free as I have had constant stomach and bowel pain for months. Going to GP as think I might be coeliac, it is in the family.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

I am here, just fecking knackered. As you lovely ladies predicted I have had a sleep training fail. Well, success in mostly not feeding to sleep in the evening, or rocking til everything aches, just hold him in my arms til v calm then soothe in the cot sometimes, or just hold til asleep . I hold out through multiple wakings, only feed at 11:30 midnight, but after that its co sleeping and several feeds. I know I need to push on for full night weaning, but for now I'm having a 'rest'

Sorry to hear of all this teeth trouble stitch . How many left to go?! Mine only have 6 each...not all fully through either. Stupid, stupid teething process.

elph, you sound cheerful and optimistic. Tis the time for baby #2 to bring you back to earth . Really though, how amazing he's sleeping in his cot, and at nursery! Gold medal to that baby.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Oh, Nd your tummy troubles of course. Hope you get an.answer and feel better soon stitch

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Poppy If it's any consolation, we've never come close to sleeping through until 6:45 so it sounds slightly promising. The biggest lie-in DS has afforded us so far is 5:06am. This morning it was 4:10

The blackout blind arrived today, but I must admit I'm underwhelmed by its blacking-out properties. Should have just gone for Hear's cheaper solution. We'll see if it makes any difference. I feel decidedly like I'm trying to have my cake and eat it too by getting him to sleep later - and early waking beats multiple waking HANDS DOWN - but he's just getting in the habit of being arsey and tired within two hours of waking up (as are we all) so he obviously needs a bit longer. Or I could just brew up for him as well as for me when we're up at the crack of sparrow's fart and he'll learn early that a double shot espresso cures multiple ills

Dreaming Is your DH off work for a bit soon so you can pack off with DD and DT the Angelic and have a bit of a break? And second baby? If Aunt Flow's not back by next month that'll be two years without a period here. The cessation of night feeding hasn't kick started my cycle as I'd expected. I'm not bothered, only I'm fed up of the 'urgent' letters from the GP telling me how overdue I am for a Pap smear, then the receptionist telling me I can't book until I've had a period

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Really?! No af here but I've had my overdue smear. With my quick succession of pregnancies I've had 2 periods since November 2009. I have The Fear. I am never wearing white/ light trousers again, just in case. Early waking is definitely making you less miserable than multiple waking if that's your response to #2 as well

I am using a gro anywhere blind in our room as that's where said Menace sleepd after midnight ish , but the suckers piss me off, so we keep leaving it up all day too. Thinking of going for hears solution too, it'd actually currently sat in my Amazon basket. The blackout is possibly helping with our early waking, Dt the Terrible slept til 6 this morning. Dt the Angelic who's back to one night feed though slept til 7 mind, while dd lay in til 8:30!!!

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Blackout blind 100% failure as quietly anticipated. DS up at 4:10 yesterday morning, then 4:20 this morning.

Now DH and I are having a disagreement about this. My response is to go in when he wakes up and, on a weekday morning, feed him for the hour he seems to require then I can usually get him back in his cot for another 1.5 hours which allows me to get ready for work or, on a weekend, take him into the spare room, feed for an hour, and we both get another two hours by co-sleeping. Nice, manageable, fine by me and DS gets all the night-time sleep he needs within the appropriate hours.

DH thinks he needs to learn to sleep later, so when he goes in at 4:10, he'll keep lying him back down. If DS goes back to sleep, it'll last 5, maybe 10 minutes, then he'll bob up and start wailing again. By this time, it'll be 4:40ish and DH will ask me to feed him, saying that 'I've at least given him the chance to put himself back to sleep.' Isn't this just telling DS that if he holds out long enough he'll get what he wants or does DH have a point??

My position is that sleep training is only for the benefit of the parents. Once it reaches a manageable stage, which it is for me at the moment using my method, it's fine as long as DS's sleep isn't being affected. Using DH's method, he gets completely wired from screaming, only sleeps fitfully if I can get him back to sleep at all, then he'll pass out for an hour and a half around 7 or 8am on DH's lap which then ballses up his nap time.

DH thinks I'm a complete hippy for saying that DS will learn to sleep later in his own time and that sleep training is for DS's benefit, not ours, because he 'needs to be taught how to sleep' and starts pulling out the old 'rod for your own back' clap trap.

Have I been on MN too long and does DH have a point or is my path of least resistance the way to go? Or is there a middle ground?

(Sorry for lengthy rant but it was DH's method this morning so I've been up since 4:20 listening to my baby screaming then dealing with the sleepless fallout. Unlike DH who went back to sleep until half seven once I calmed DS down in the spare room )

[StitchAteMySleep]

I think as you are the one who deals with the fall out of your DH's method that your way should win out Elphaba, if he was going to persist rather than ask you to feed him then things might be different.

His method will work when your ds gets older. Dd1 will go back to sleep if she wakes early after a drink of water, she started doing that around 3 years old. Our babies still need their milk, they are busy growing all night and often wake up hungry. Especially now your ds is sleeping for longer at night without feeds.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Yeah, absolutely, milk at 4, and dozing together sounds much nicer. That's very half arsed to do 30 min putting back to sleep then give up. Surely he'd have to bite the bullet and do it or not?! Says she who's failed at sleep training entirely . Though I am still not feeding before midnight, but some nights I pick up, settle, put down, it lasts 5-10 min as you say elph til i give up and go to bed with him at 10:30 ish thinking at least I've not fed him....

[NeedlesCuties]

elph I agree with you, not your DH.... although my DH is of a similar mindset as yours. I think it's a bit of a male task-orientated point of view where they want to see cause and effect and to fix things.

DD has had some good nights, but now the hot weather here in Belfast has knocked her sideways and she's hard to settle and hard to get to stay asleep. Also, she's thirsty as she's warm, so I'm still breastfeeding lots at night.

[delilah88]

Hello - is it ok if I join this thread? I'm a little stressed about my 8.5 month old whose sleep has gone haywire. I always have to bf her to sleep in our bed and then secretly transfer her to cot. She used to go through waking once or twice for feeds, but now she won't settle and also crawls round the cot, sits and stands up in her sleep (then cries)! She never really rests in the cot and wakes so frequently I always bring her into our bed which is a pain, as she's pretty huge now! There she sleeps like a log, but she is an absolute milk monster and still has about 8 feeds a day.

Husband thinks she should be left to cry in cot, but I don't see how when she's standing up/crawling? Also I don't like the idea of CC, I would rather comfort her...

Please give me some help. The worst bit is the evening when I never get time to myself as every 20 mins crying through the baby monitor.

[NeedlesCuties]

Hi 88 yes, welcome to the madness that is our thread!

Most of the other kids on the thread are around 15 months old (correct me please if I'm wrong!) but my DD is almost 11 months old so the closest in age to your DD.

Take heart: everything you've written was just what I was writing when she was that age, and to be honest, we're only just getting better now that her 1st tooth has broken through.

You are doing nothing wrong, just going by your instincts. What your DH is saying also isn't 'wrong' and a bit like what my own DH said. I ignored him though

I have 2 children, and DD is the worse sleeper of the 2 of them. Nothing I've done differently really with them, it's just her personality, and perhaps it's your DD too.

Is she happy and rested when she does get up in the morning? What are her naps like? Is she hitting milestones?

The constant feeding is very familiar to me >looks at 11kg milk monster DD