8 wk old, nap refuser, broken night sleep, no sign of routine or pattern. Rant.

[MrsHY1]

Hello
My much longed for IVF dd is 9 weeks on Wednesday. I love her dearly but she fights sleep with every bone in her little body- from about 2 weeks she simply lost the ability to drop off herself, with the result that she becomes massively overtired unless we coerce her into sleep with the buggy, sling, or 30-40 mins of ssh patting. I watch the clock these days and put her down 60-90 mins after waking, then fight to keep her there. If I didn't she simply wouldn't sleep! I'm very envious of mums who notice tired cues and their babies simply drift off if they respond. Oh, FYI I have intervened at the first yawn, second yawn and every variant thereafter in line with baby whisperer bollocks. Naps have no real pattern in terms of length or timing. At night we 'force' her down somewhere between 9 and 10. On a good night she'll then go for 3-4.5 hrs but last night only managed 2.5. She then wakes for feeds (some of which are definitely for comfort only) every 1.5-3 hrs thereafter. She's more likely to fall asleep after feeds at night but not necessarily, so we have to ssh pat all over again. I'm co-sleeping to get through it but am trying to get her to take her first sleep stint in the basket. The books and the bloody NHS website indicate she should be more amenable to a routine now and should also be sleeping in 4-5 hr blocks at night. I'm a control freak and massive routine enthusiast so am finding this quite hard to take. Doesn't help that a good friend of mine keeps wittering on about how her baby responded perfectly to the Gina ford routine at this age and was sleeping through the night shortly thereafter, and that by co-sleeping I'm basically consigning myself and my child to a lifetime of dependency and sleepless nights.
Sorry, that's all sort of poured out! Think I just needed to get it out and know that it'll be read . X

But, MrsHY1- how does that differ from daytime sleep?

Oh love, I beseech you, from a fellow control freak- please forget about a routine for now. They really are just baby animals, they're totally bloody unreasonable I know but fighting it makes it a million times worse! Stop with the shush pat bollocks if you want to do something proactive: google maximum awake times for her age and feed, sling or cuddle to sleep bang on the hour for naps. Boob or cuddle to sleep is perfect for getting them to nap regularly.

I totally totally get the rage that one feels when a child won't sleep, I hope my post hasn't added to it...

MrsHY, there must be a short time between being awake and being asleep, but perhaps it doesn't look how you expect it to. She can't fall asleep in an instant, can she? Mine has a lowering down into sleep and although I can't say he looks drowsy in terms of drooping eyelids, etc., he has a slowing down of wriggling and whinging and looking a bit less annoyed!

I know how annoying it is when people don't grasp th problem you are having when you are in the eye of a storm of desperation... Hope I'm not doing that!

Curlew has it...I think of my DD, 6months as a little baby chimp and act accordingly. All these books and sleep experts are, IMO, a load of Pollocks. It's just about survival in the early months and you have to go with the flow, nothing else matters.

My DD wouldn't sleep at all during the day for the first 3 months - 9hrs at night with 3/4 feeds. She would only sleep in the sling if I was walking so .i took her on two 1 hour walks a day to ensure she got some rest. At 3 months she started to fall asleep if I walked around the flat rocking her in my arms, but only for 20 minutes at a time. We had - and still do - 3 naps a day of 20 minutes.

My advice would be: if she's been awake for over 2.5 hours, try and rock her in your arms for 30 minutes and keep trying this every day. Being rocked whilst held is like being in the womb for them.

Dd is not too bad at night as she will fall asleep on boob so I can get her down but naps during the day I have to rock, jiggle and sing for ages if I don't get her quick enough. She gets overtired in the evening and can be screaming for hours until she will feed and fall asleep. And she will only go to boob when hungry,no comfort feeding at all! She's getting grouchy now.
Will come back later when I've got dd asleep!

Quiet, do you have a sling?
My BIL once gave me a piece of information he had gotten from a paediatrician which really helped with that overtired screeching:

Babies quieten when they're in your arms/sling and you bend your knees and then rise back up quickly - like doing squats, except you don't need to go too far down. Apparently the slight change of altitude causes an endorphin rush or something (I know that sounds like total cod science, I could have the details wrong).

Try it! I nearly guarantee that after about 10 mini squats your DD will grow calmer.

9 weeks was absolute peak of witchery for my DD.

Just out her down for the second time and she's awake again. My back is breaking doing this all the bloody time. And when I've got ds (he's at nursery today) I've got no chance of getting her to sleep unless we are in the car and she can't be in the car seat all day. Going t try again.

Thanks claud, will try it next time. She's now asleep n my arms snoring. Will try and put her down in a bit so I can do some bits as bil and sil coming to stay for weekend. It's putting her down that wakes her so I can either wait til she's in a deep sleep but she'll never learn to self settle that way. What age can I start trying to put her down sleepy but awake? Can't do it now cos she just starts crying.

Quiet - fold up a baby quilt or blanket ( even a bath towel if you don't have one) and put it under baby when you're rocking her/walking with her. When she falls asleep put her and the quilt down, continuing to rock as you do so and finally pull your arms out carefully in pulses in the same rythm as the rocking. Works 95% of the time. The blanket softens the effect of putting them down. Mine used to wake everything e I tried to put her down before using the blanket.

Thanks balistapus, will give that a go too. Really appreciate the advice.

my DS is 7 weeks on Sunday and I'm getting a bit sick of people asking if we're "in a routine" yet. Never know if he's due a feed or a nap or anything else really-He just seems to do as he damn well pleases and I fall in!!! I think he''s just a bit little still. Will sometimes go in his moses sometimes not- will sometimes go in his chair sometimes not-I will try to implement some sort of routine eventually but I'm not even sure what that would be like!!

Hello, sorry for the delay in replying, I've been rather tired :)
Curlew we have tried some cuddling up - worked in the earlier weeks but now she sort of moves her little head about from side to side and kicks out every now and again which means I get even less sleep!
Thanks Cavort. When did it stop??
Claudekishi no - don't worry - you haven't added to my rage! I'm rapidly giving up on trying to find the perfect/ easy answer!
Rebecca I think you're right - there is a teeny tiny window of drowsiness but I have to bring it about if you see what I mean - so I have to cuddle her, rock her, bounce her gently, or feed her into it. Other than at her morning nap - where she does seem to put herself into the land of nod slightly more easily (still puts up a bit of a fuss though!).
Balistapus that's good advice. How long before she did more than 9 hours with 3-4 feeds? :)
Ninja how are you getting on? Have you tried the blanket trick yet?
NickyEds I know! That question also frustrates the hell out of me as I feel like a failure for not having one!
I started another thread in the feeding section as I also wonder whether DD is taking enough milk on board during the day. Surely if she was, she wouldn't need such frequent night feedings? So tempted to top each feed up with a bottle and see how we do.

Mrs HY, at risk of making you feel frustrated, I just wanted to share what I have been doing for the past four days. Because I know I will go mad with frustration if I shoot for a routine that DS will seem to wilfully sabotage, I have pinned up a basic GF routine so that I know what direction to head in. Then I drew a chart and started filling in when he does actually sleep. This, teamed with attempts to make him sleep at the "right" times, without getting too fraught, have shown up more of a pattern than I expected. The filled-in chunks of time are showing a morning nap, a longer lunchtime nap, a short afternoon nap and consequently longer blocks at night. I was in such a fog before that I actually had little clue what was going on other than that it was awful and unsustainable!

Now I'm not wetting my pants, because it's a very rough pattern (e.g. "afternoon nap can be anywhere between 2.30 and 5) but I'm more aware of how much sleep he's getting and can make sure it doesn't exceed the recommended 4.5 hours. It means I've finally had the balls to let him sleep from 7pm without fretting (or fretting less, anyway) that my only block of sleep is going down the pan while I'm having an evening. He does still sleep a longer block after sleeping 7-10pm (3-4 hours) bu thereafter it is still more or less carnage. So improvements, but far from ideal!

As to your report about your DD's head going from side to side when you snuggle, we have exactly the same thing! Plus kicking legs, which drives me nuts :-(.

I hope something here helps, and doesn't send you into a volley of fresh frustration. At the very least, I recommend the chart because you, like me, are probably in too much of a fog to remember to clock vague patterns.

She is settling a bit better but I have to catch her at the right time otherwise its impossible to put her down. I tried the blanket trick ut got in a muddle and she still woke up so not sure I was doing it right. Feeling bloody knackered today.

Hi Rebecca don't worry you're not frustrating me! I have been writing down DD's naps and feeds for some time as once a fortnight I'm having a night nanny/ sleep consultant come in to provide advice and give me a much needed good night's sleep. I've been trying to encourage a nap after 90 mins of wakeful time but there doesn't currently seem to be a pattern - e.g. sometimes DD will stay asleep for the 'textbook' longer lunchtime nap, but sometimes the longer one is in the morning/ late afternoon and the others remain catnaps. And then it goes completely haywire once I try to factor in feeds etc! To be honest though, regardless of the daytime nap pattern the nights are still rubbish! I might follow your lead though and encourage an earlier bed time. You never know, it might work. The night nanny's on duty tonight so if she ends up waking every 5 mins she can deal with it, not me! :) xx
PS are you dreamfeeding at 10 or is DS waking naturally?

Ninja it does sound like some progress is being made there. Sorry to hear you're feeling knackered. If it's any consolation, so am I :) x

Hello, I just wanted to check in, in case anyone is in a similar situation and following this thread. I'm not counting any chickens yet as it's very very early days, but DD (now 10.5 weeks) has been following a nap pattern for the past 4 days, of 40mins to 1hr in the AM, 2 hrs at lunch and 40 mins to 1hr in the PM. Her sleep cues are non-existent as I have said before, so I've been watching the clock a bit between naps and putting her down around 1hr50-2hr10 between each one. I'm putting her down to nap in her basket or pram, sometimes I give them a bit of a jiggle to settle her, sometimes not. I wrap her in a little purple blanket for each nap which I wonder whether she's associating with sleep. She might grizzle a bit when first settling, but this peters out very quickly ( under 2 mins) or the 'jiggle' manoeuvre might do it . By managing these naps quite closely I'm hoping to see a nighttime improvement and might have spotted this for the first time last night, but am well aware it could all unravel as quickly as it started. Last night she went down easily and without fuss at 8.15pm (having woken at 8.15am) and slept until 8.30am this morning with three wakes for feeds, which for her is amazing. Better still, she resettled quickly each time in her own basket so DH and I had our bed back for the first time since 4th December. So, we're roughly working on a 8.30-8.30 schedule while I see if I can build up her first stretch of unbroken sleep, meaning I can go to bed at a slightly more adult time and we can pull back her day bit by bit until she's on a 7-7. Of course, if she wakes up at 7 tomorrow (highly probable with my volatile little feeder/sleeper!) the plan'll go to pot and I won't quite know what to do when/where!

OP - how did the night nanny work out for you? What did she advise?

My DS2 is 8.5 weeks and is pretty good in the day (has to be as he has Ds1 and a fussy black lab to compete with) - isn't yet getting the hang of going to sleep at 7pm. I know it is just a matter of waiting it out til he is ready, ds1 got there eventually (he's now 3).

Best advice I had was not to worry about creating any rods - DS1 still has a dummy at night but it means he sleeps really well (touch wood) and I used to feed him to sleep every night until he was 6 months and then one night that stopped working and we gave him a light up seahorse (fisher price) this one here he still has to have this each night - now part of his "team" of teddies and toys who guard his bed. Very useful when we go away as he selects which team members can come along.

So dS2 has a Ewan the dream sheep which I am hoping will become his sleep cue. We put it on when he goes down after each feed. But I will also be getting him his own seahorse eventually

So feeling you pain - writing this after putting ds2 down after the first 1.5 hour stint of tonight - but equally as you've shown, it will get better over time

Meant to say DS2 is currently bathed with ds1 at 6.30, into bed at 7pm after a feed, usually wide awake and pissed off so he then comes up to help put Ds1 to bed. Occasionally I get 20 mins from him which is just enough to this I have my evening back! He is then up in swing / bouncer while we cook/eat and then on one of us on the sofa til he drops off again. Normally this is around 9.30-10pm.