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!

[HearMyRoar]

elph dd still generally comes into our new room about 5am for as cuddle and then sleeps with us for an hour or so. She doesn't feed anymore but I think she just likes to reconnect in the morning, which seems fair enough to me. Who doesn't like a snuggle in the morning? But then parenting wise I am a shocking hippy so I ask sure your dh would be unimpressed by my opinion on the matter :o

Dd hates the heat and sleep has gone to pot again. Ho hum

Delilah I have four words for you...'nine month sleep regression'. Its a bitch but we have all been through it on this thread and it will pass. Sometimes you just gotta ride that mo fo out, as we like to say. :o

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Welcome delilah!

It sounds like you may have hit the 9 month sleep regression, if you have a good-sleeper-gone-bad. That being the case, you're best off riding the mo fo out until it has passed. Is she clingier during the day than she has been previously? If so, then it may separation anxiety. It's also likely she is genuinely very hungry and needing the feeds, as the sleep regression is also due to developmental leaps which need fuel.

We're none of us here anti-CC - some won't try it, some will (and have - raises hand uncomfortably) but we all rub along happily together without any of those nasty MN shit-fights that happen on a regular basis I will say, though, that it's a hideously horrible thing to have to go through, and, I will say this until I'm blue in the face: it's not a guaranteed fix. It's touted as such, but it's not. It didn't work for me, and there are people I've met both on MN and in RL for whom it hasn't worked, so exhaust any and all options first before considering it. I also don't think trying it during what is most likely a sleep regression is either going to work or be particularly nice for anyone.

We're doing gradual retreat here for 13mo DS's intolerable sleep (1 to 2 hourly feeds all night, pretty much every night since about three months, with 20 minute 'power naps' during the day). To answer your question about what a standing/sitting baby does if you do a sleep training technique involving crying, they either lie themselves down eventually, or fall asleep in a sitting up position. Yes, really. DH then made the grave error of trying to lie DS down when he did that, only to wake him up and have another 10 minutes of wailing. If you're not sure what gradual retreat is, there's a good description of it in the OP of this thread. We're sort of doing that, only I'm still feeding to sleep initially. The one and only reliable thing we had with DS's sleep was that he was asleep by 7pm every night thanks to The Power of the Boob, and I thought we'd be cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we got rid of that. Now we've had 7pm til 4am most nights since starting, so we've swapped the multiple waker for the early riser, but it is far, far more manageable.

But it ain't all roses. Last night was shit. Shit, I tell you, shit. Awake from 1am til 4am, conked out in desperation with boob, then up for the day at 5:10. And he had one 20 minute nap at nursery today. And so far tonight he's woken twice since 7pm. It's a good job I wasn't under any aspersions that sleep training was a cure-all, and it means I don't disqualify for membership of this jolly band!

[ElphabaTheGreen]

X post with Hear!

Well, yes, Hear, I rather love the weekend 4am til 7am feed/snooze, especially if it has been preceded by at least 6 unbroken hours. Rather blissful in fact

Hear is a dreadful hippy, delilah. Cloth nappies and everything

[StitchAteMySleep]

Welcome delilah :)

I am on poor sleeper mark 2 with 16 month old stitch. Her older sister was a nightmare sleeper all the way from birth, so I feel lucky that I had 5 reasonable months sleep with Stitch before the night time shenanigans started. Having said that last night she slept from 11pm to 6am, the longest stint since she was 5 months old. Her canines are pointing at me through reddened gums, so won't celebrate just yet.

Hang in there guys, one day we might graduate!

[NeedlesCuties]

high fives Elph< I didn't use cloth nappies for DS (as I'd never really given it any thought back then), but now for DD I love them! Wish I'd thought of it earlier!

[ElphabaTheGreen]

We might have started cloth bumming evenings and weekends in the past couple of months. Might have.

Holy heck, we're a fecking commune!

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Oh... I'm probably the least hippy ish then, though i was a vegetarian for 15 years (half my life!) and fell off the wagon by accident after dd's birth and haven't stopped eating meat again. Yet. Not sure I will eat meat longterm though. Anyway, I own multiple slings, carry, bf, don't leave them crying though may well try if not for vomit-gate

Yes, 15 month old twins here. One sleeps. One never ever has. A 5 hour stretch recently was one of the first, ever.

Welcome delilah hopefully by the time you decide what to do, your dd will be sleeping

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

And a sweet sometimes 2 year old dd, she's sleeping pretty well atm just jinxed that

[ElphabaTheGreen]

FML, he's only sleeping in 10 minute bursts tonight. Balls, balls and thrice balls. Calpol has been given and we're in the spare room. I had a sinister feeling these few weeks of bliss were ne'er to last...

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Mine is asleep and has not woken yet. Unheard of.

Oh wait. I think I hear him now. Ffs. I thought it and he woke!!!

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Oh, sleep Hell continues. It's too early to be fed up already isn't it? 5:20 start, just Dt1 of course, others still fast asleep. I've given up after midnight and am feeding the little horror lots. Think 4 times between midnight and 'morning' last night. I can't get him to sleep after 10:30pm anymore. I settle him in the cot, repeatedly, and by 11 or so I give up and bring him in bed with me (still trying to get him to 12 without milk) but I'm sure I'd given up by 11:30 last night and fed him. DH won't be home til 7pm at the absolute earliest so a loooong day stretches ahead.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

But DH was up a midnight, and at 3 ish with dd so he couldn't get up, of course....

[ElphabaTheGreen]

Dreaming is the not feeding before midnight changing anything, though? You've got things so tough with three to deal with I'd have thought jiggling/rocking/shushing was more work than just boobing, since you're getting up and doing things to settle him anyway. At least you get a quiet sit down and a bit of MN/Candy Crush/Daily Mail Website/Kindle time with boob (she says, holding the tail of DS's toy dog between her teeth so he doesn't fling it on the floor for the fiftieth time during his final feed).

Things weren't too bad here in the end. 10 minute bursts of sleep ongoing until 10:30pm then he slept until 5:20. All in bed with me, mind, so not ideal, but better than a slap in the face with a wet kipper.

[HearMyRoar]

Hah! I knew it! Bunch of lentil weavers the lot of you :o

Had a super night last night after leaving a fan in dd's room all evening to cool it down s bit. She came into our room at 5am and snuggled till 6:30.

Much better than Sunday night when she was in ours at 10:30 and was so wriggly that after 3 hours I threw a strop and went and slept in her bed. Managed a few hours before she woke me up screaming her socks off.

Nights are so much better but still so hit and miss. I never know if she'll sleep through or be up half the night.

[PoppyAmex]

Hello lovely people!

Wonderful, wonderful news from Casa Poppy

Since DD moved to her own room, she's going to sleep.... ALONE!

It's like you see in films; we put her down, tell her we love her, say goodnight, give her the dummy and leave! And then she goes to sleep! Same with naps!

This changed my life, thus all the exclamation marks. Apologies.

She still wakes up during the night, but the point is she goes to sleep

I see we have hit and miss moments on the thread, but laughing at all the hippies coming out. I use reusable wipes and cloth nappies (only at night) but I must admit it has little to do with saving the environment and more because it works so well for us and I hate chemical wipes.

Elph I agree with everyone else; if you're doing the hard work you have the final veto power on sleeping decisions. Besides, I know exactly what you mean, we're so fucked up that when we get 6 hours sleep we feel almost human invincible!

Dreaming I bet your DT1 is going to be an angel as a toddler and a teenager, just to make up for all the aggravation, you'll see.

Hear that's pretty much the same situation we have at the moment, some good nights, some shocking long wakings. Never know which.

Stitch DD is turning 16 months soon and her canines just poked through a few days ago, I think they were the hardest ones yet - thank god that's over.

I'm going to have an ice-cream now, because DD is asleep for now. Did I mention she went to sleep by herself?

[Ubermumsy]

Hi all! (Ex-fishandjam here. In fact I might go back to that name - I only changed due to a pisstake on S&B.)

Have been lurking for a while...but I have progress to report! DD, the baby who didn't sleep, is now more or less going through! She was weaned at 12 months (she's now 13) as she'd been having bottles at nursery (yes, the baby who wouldn't touch a bottle at any price ) and she gradually lost interest in me . But provided she still gets a bottle at 10.30pm or thereabouts, she's out cold until 7am! I'll just repeat that - 10.30pm to 7am!!!

However, all is not peaceful as DS (aged 3.5) has started waking in the night and wailing until either he comes into our bed, or one of us goes in with him. Sigh.

[Ubermumsy]

Oh yes - I do the washable nappy and wipes thing and although I'm not veggie, I really like lentils and tofu.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

elph, absolutely not one iota of difference. In fact, its all worse now I'm not feeding. However, I think the way forward lies with night weaning, so as part of the phased cutdown I'm pushing on. After my two days at work, if at all possible, I'll try and stop feeding at 11:30 midnight. I feel I owe it to the others to try and get more rest. Literally 15 months with ONE lot of sleep for 5 hours is taking its toll and then some.

5:20 start here, as per usual. Unusually, dd up 6am, shouting so woke Dt2 up. Bloody fucking marvellous. I'm knackered and grumpy, the nanny is on holiday so having to have both my divorced parents up together to manage my dc as neither can cope alone. I have a stupidly busy day at work booked and sent my horrible manager an email to say I thought his points were all very valid but his manner was confrontational and aggressive. Regret it massively already. Recipe for disaster all round you say? Really?

[Ubermumsy]

dreaming, I'm so sorry things are so tough for you at present. How do you feel about drugs? I'd probably be ripped a new one on other threads for admitting this, but recently, when DH was away and DS was waking every 2 hours all through the night, I gave him (DS) a dose of Piriton to at least get him through to midnight (and therefore I could get a few hours sleep too). Obviously I wouldn't do it all the time, but in extremis it saved my sanity.

[HearMyRoar]

I thought you meant some drugs for dreaming for a minute there!

[Fishandjam]

That is of course an option hear

[HearMyRoar]

And one I have seriously considered on a number of occasions :o

[ElphabaTheGreen]

I'm sure we're all cursing the day they stopped putting alcohol in gripe water

Dreaming's gone quiet. I hope she's packed off with DD and DT the Angelic and left DT the Terrible to lock horns with DH for a few nights so she can get some kip.

We're at a 3:30am impasse here this week. Will NOT go back to sleep for longer than 10 minutes for ANYTHING other than boob followed by an HOUR of holding. T'is bullshit. I've tried sending DH in immediately after boob to keep trying to lie him down but he just goes back to fitful 10 minute bursts of sleep. The only place he will sleep is on me until he's comatose enough to be put back in his cot, by which time it's after 5am. Since I have to get up for work at 6am, there's no point in me going back to bed so it has been up for the day at 3:30am for me all this week. Since I usually get at least four blissfully unbroken hours before that, it still beats multiple wakings, but I spend the day feeling like I've had sand rubbed in my eyes and a permanent low-grade headache. Brain function is marginally better under these circumstances, but the chef I heard say on the radio this afternoon that his kids get him up 'really, really early' at 6:30am nearly got himself a ranting phone-in. I also still have nothing resembling an evening since I'm still going to bed just after 7pm to try and get enough sleep in to cope with the stupid o'clock wake-up call. Which would be now. Night all. Sigh.

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

I'm hear. Quiet = 4 fucking 20am wake up today, after repeated non-settling in the evening, co sleeping from 10:30 pm, up 11, 12-12:30, 3, 3:30. I am going to spontaneously combust through tiredness. Fact. I rang DH to come home after his home visits to rescue me for 20 minutes. First time ever. But DT the Angelic (who's not always that angelic, oh the whinging!! Plus one night feed often) wouldn't nap and it nearly pushed me over the edge.

elph crap. No advice. If you boob him does he go back to sleep? The 10 min thing is what Dt1 the Terrible does, it cracks me, I can't take it. I can't even sleep in the evening either so I'm not functioning on enough brain power to think outside the box...

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Oh, and drugs for all, now there's an idea. I'm tempted to try piriton...just to break the cycle maybe. I have actually enquired among friends and it seems it doesn't help for many . I've dried booze for myself, loads. Made no difference.