1 13 month old, non-sleeper and 1 mummy-on-her-knees! Help!

[maldivemoment]

So she's never been a good sleeper but now I feel that we're past the tiny baby stage and I'm still not seeing light at the end of the very looooooong tunnel!

Here's the script;
-naps; not great. Will fall asleep in car/puschair but if at home requires me to get to sleep (she's breastfed)

-without doubt she will waken within 40/50 mins after going to sleep (crying. Standing up in cot). I could set my watch by her. Does this have anything to do with babies sleep pattern? She then requires me to get back to sleep.

-Wakens frequently through the night and won't settle without feed. (Well, I say 'feed' but there's no way she's hungry - it's definitely just comfort)

-in the past I spent a few weeks in the spare room so daddy could help out. We figured if I wasn't actually in the same room then she would perhaps settle more quickly for my husband. This appeared to work but then holidays/sickness/home improvement kicked in and we're back to square one!

-very good bedtime routine. She has a bottle at bedtime, which my husband gives her but if she doesn't fall asleep while taking it then she screams until I take her and help her off to sleep.

I am returning to work this month and I can't believe I've had over a year with very little sleep! (I should add I also have a 4 year old so we are also doing our best not waken him at night). Now I know there are lots of people who have it worse than me but I don't think I can keep going like this. I feel as if I'm not doing my little one any favours in the long run if I constantly help her back to sleep.

I'm not looking for a 12 hour stretch of sleep at night. I'm just wondering what I can do in terms of making slight improvements. Baby steps are fine! Do I take myself back into spare room and leave daddy to deal with baby? Do I keep doing what I'm doing in the hope that it gets better?

Can anyone offer me some friendly advice? If you can, thank you!

What time does she go to bed, wake and nap at?

Put her in bed with you, get rid of clocks in the bedroom and stop counting how often she wakes, go to bed 30 mins earlier yourself. I find the less I fight it the easier it is to bear.

It's normal. She will grow out of it eventually.

You have my sympathy, it is tough.

Thank you Sharon & Uneven for your replies.

Bedtime is 7, then will waken around 7.40-8pm. Once I get her back to sleep she will settle until (roughly) 11 or 12. Then every few hours until we're up at 6! Last night she woke at 12.30, 1.30, 3.00 then 5.30 - been up since then.

Uneven - we bed shared until she was around 7 months but I found the closer I was to her the more frequently she woke. I spent the first 7 months of her life going to bed at 7pm! I totally agree that the more I go with the flow the easier it is to handle. However, how the heck am I going to manage work???? My worry is WHEN will she grow out of it? We seem to to REgressing rather than PROgressing.

How long is a piece of string?

Generally work is actually easier than being at home all day, thankfully . It is normal whatever you've done in advance that when you go back to work they wake just as often if not more at night. Sometimes it's nice to be close for feeds when you've been apart all day.

We've found that as babies turn to toddlers it gets easier and easier for daddy to be involved at night and help settle them or cuddle them back to sleep in bed.

Many people find that teaching them to self settle minimises the night wakings (took them away completely for us). It also makes bedtime quicker and less stressful and when she wakes in the night she has better chance of falling back over to sleep. We did gradual retreat and DS now sleeps through 11-12 hours every night. He is 13mo. We just put him in his cot awake for bed and naps and he goes to seep by himself.

The myth of self soothing.

I would imagine sleep training a baby used to being are the way the OP has described could be pretty unpleasant for both baby and parent.

I feel your pain. I think we have the same baby.

DS is almost 13mo and here are some choice facts:

BF to sleep for both daytime naps.

BF to sleep at bedtime.
BF to sleep each time he wakes during the night, usually 2-3 times a night, can be 4 times.
He has woken up crying from EVERY SINGLE NAP and NIGHTTIME SLEEP in his ENTIRE life. Now there is the additional standing up or sitting up in the cot while he's crying.

Recently, it takes me 3/4 attempts to BF him back to sleep each time he wakes up. He feeds, falls asleep on me, I put him in cot, he wakes up screaming as soon as he touches the mattress. Repeat. So frustrating I often end up in tears.

A few months ago I started putting him down awake at bedtime, using the No Cry Sleep Solution. Worked a little bit - took best part of 1.5hr for him to go to sleep, but he was starting to drop one of his wake ups as I think putting himself to sleep helped. In the past few weeks its all gone to pot. Was taking hrs to get him to sleep, and he would still wake up throughout the night. No evenings in peace, and shit nights. Worst of both worlds.

Have gone back to feeding him to sleep at bedtime as I can't face the battle and its quicker, even if I think this is part of the problem.

I go back to work in a fortnight, and he starts settling into nursery tomorrow. Maybe the days at nursery (where he has only one nap....) will sort him out at night as I've heard it has done for a friend. Maybe it'll be worse before it gets better. Last time he skipped his second nap, he woke up every 1.5hr. All. Night. Long.

In the meantime I feel trapped by the situation and too exhausted to think what I should do about it :-(

UnevenTan - can you check your link? its something about Body Mass Index...

Oops, wrong link!

Try this

Flip flop - that sounds so hard .

Dc4 is 12 months, and I have been working for several months now. Exhaustion is my friend! I don't know when things will get better for each of you, but I know for sure they will.

I think your post illustrates why I think fighting these natural stages is just to worth it. They honestly do grow out of everything eventually, no matter what you do or don't do. This too will pass.

I was in a similar situation to you with my DD when I went back to work and 4d a week with 2 wake ups a night and your DH working abroad a lot was not a good mix.

We eventually found the book "the Sleepeasy solution", tried that and within a couple of nights she was much better and we had our life back. Maybe worth a try. Good luck, I really feel for you.

We tried no milk between 11 and 5 and whilst he eventually did settle without it he never stopped waking up and it was taking longer to settle than a quick feed would so we have given up and will try again in a few months. Ds is almost 13 months.

Sorry no help there but your not alone.

Flipflop - we are clearly clones, as are our babies. I could have written your post word for word. Let's hold hands and weep together...

How was your night?

My dh was away last night, so I was flying solo. Dc4 woke as I climbed the stairs to bed at about 11.30 , as did dc3 . Thankfully dc3 (age 3) settled fairly quickly after a drink of water and didn't wake dcs1&2 with her initial shouting for daddy . Dc4 unusually fell back to sleep in my arms whilst I brushed my teeth and even went back n her bedside cot. Half an hour or so later she was awake again, and then in with me swapping boob sides all night until both she and dc4 woke for the day at 6.40am (which is a lie-in for them!). So about 6.5hrs of constantly interrupted sleep, yawn. Hey-ho, dc3 stayed in her own bed asleep. After that one wobble, dc2 (age 6) slept until 7am with no help from me, and I dragged dc1 (age 8) out of bed at 7.45 to get him ready for holiday club!

Ps I gave p trying to put babies back in cots after nighttime bfs with dc2. My experience was just like yours, that as you lower them they wake and you start all over again. A bedside cot on a level with our mattress was a godsend before crawling, but isn't now safe until dc4 learns to safely climb out of our bed, which will be a while!

maldivemoment - happy to hand hold. DS woke 4 times before 11pm and then every 1.5 hrs yesterday (teething??). DP went to get him at about 5am and brought him into our bed where he slept til 8am. The other day we got back from holiday all jetlagged. We brought DS into our bed at midnight as he wasn't settling and he - and we - slept through til 9am.

I can see why people co-sleep....!! Proves DS can sleep through when he wants to too.

DP is wary of cosleeping too much as doesn't want to substitute one prop for another. My feeling is we didn't buy a super king size bed for nothing, and as the one who gets up every night and deals with it I should get to decide what we do and don't do..! I think we'll keep it as something we do when nothing else is working, rather than the default option.

Anyway, once DS is settled into nursery will see where we are and go from there.

UnevenTan - you really have your hands full - both literally and metaphorically!!

UnevenTan - ps I agree with you that there is an argument to do nothing/just do what you have to do. By the time you've put all the effort into sleep training with whatever method suits, they've changed again and you have to start over. My attitude has always been to pick the path of least resistance and not give myself any additional work. Having said that I do just wish I had a good sleeper. But then I feel immediately guilty for even wishing I'd want to change my baby in any way :-(

After 2 fabulous sleepers (both DDs) DS is a nightmare. He's 4 next month and has maybe slept through 10 times in his life. Nursery didn't improve things.

Co sleeping is impossible now too as he's too big and kicks me out of bed :(

Hope things get better with your DC!

on a lighter note, we like to sing the Daft Punk song "Get Lucky" to our DS in the mornings. He loves to wiggle and dance, and we change the words to "he's up all night to get milkies".

Keeps us sane ;-)

We have a superkingsized bed. There have certainly been occasions when 5 of us have been in it, fairly regularly four and possibly even six on one occasion. Thankfully, mostly it's just 3 nowadays. I think having a big family can be like living "a squash and a squeeze". I'm just bloody grateful it's only the baby in our bed now that it doesn't seem a problem at all! I realise that's a v differenterspective than I had when it was just us and dc1 and we could still remember what life pe-DC was like.

Last night - went to sleep at 7pm and...wait for it...ready?...DIDN'T waken at all after her usual 40/50 mins! Shock horror! I spent the next hour tip-toeing around just waiting for the crying but it didn't happen. Flew around the house tidying, etc and then crawled into bed. Lights out at 11 and, yep, you've guessed it...baby woke up. She was awake for 2 hours. 2 BLOODY HOURS!!!! (I should add that she's still in our room. It would probably finish me off if I had to drag my sorry arse out of bed and actually into another room. I can just about manage to 1.5 steps to her cot!)

4 year old woke up at some point (couldn't face looking at the clock so I have no idea what time it was) and ended up between us, little electric eel that he is.

On the plus side baby slept till 6 after her 2 hour marathon.

Back to work tomorrow for me and regardless what the night throws at us, I'm opening a bottle of wine. Care to join me, anyone?

urgh I hate that! nothing like just drifting off to sleep yourself when...wwwhhaaaaaaa!!

I have every sympathy with you. My twins (yes, two of them) had the same pattern, 12.30, 3.00, 5.30 for ages and ages except they were slightly offset, so was six wakings between 12.30 and 5.30. Have erased this from my mind, hence crossings out.

I coslept and fed them time they peeped in the night. It was the only way to get through it.

Interestingly, I felt better after I returned to work. I kept up this waking 6 times a night routine for over a year after returning to work, and felt better for going to work as I got 8 hours a day where I wasn't responsible for anyone's survival That relief was enough to make it all easier.

In my case, the 3 times per night each settled down to just once per night shortly after they turned 2 years old. Then from 2yrs 6mo DS slept through more night than not and from shortly after that DD managed it too. At 2 yrs 10 mo they both reliably sleep through, though cosleeping still helps them settle very quickly of they do wake.

Once you're back at work and have got into a routine so your DD understands that's where you are, I'd try and set it up so that someone other than you does the entire bedtime routine from nursery pick up (or whatever) to bed on at least one of your work days. It is difficult not seeing them on that evening, but mine learnt to settle for other people that way, so it lets me have nights off. It doesn't work if I am there in the evening and then go out - I have to stay "at work" for them to settle for DH or my mum.

Good luck with whatever you try. And I hope your first day back went well :)

Oops, sorry!

I hope your first day back goes well

TWINS????? Bloomin heck. Someone give that woman a medal (or at least some and )

Happyas - you are my inspiration! Thank you.