Misery loves company: to ride it out or Something Must be Done- pick your camp :)

[DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep]

Hello again all- may the sleepers continue sleeping, the new arrivals due or here get the idea very quickly and the rest of us see the light at the end of the tunnel!

I'm with you Chocolate. I feel so un-festive it isn't funny. All I want to do tomorrow is have a lie-in until 11am then stay in my pyjamas for the rest of the day, mainlining chocolate and enjoy watching DS1 play with his new toy kitchen, not dance attendance on the in-laws after six very broken hours of sleep. The best I can hope for is an improvement on last night. DS2 was awake every 40 minutes or so from 1am, then wide awake and practicing his very best jazz hands from 5am. I just gave up in the end and brought him downstairs so I could at least have coffee and painkillers for my stonking headache.

I had a sleep chat with Ann on Monday and she had a long list of utterly genius ideas for DS1 which I started enacting with gusto yesterday. With the exception of one very brief visit to re-cover him last night, he slept through. Unbelievable. He's still nowhere near letting DH do bedtimes again or see to him in the night, but he responds so incredibly well to Ann's voodoo that I have every confidence we'll get back there in short order.

And now DS2 is fast asleep on my lap. Little sod cherub.

Merry Christmas to all and to all a better night than I'm anticipating!

Right finally got time to post.

Dd2 is better, been home since the weekend. She is completely traumatised by the whole experience and keeps having hour long screaming night terrors where she won't let anyone touch her :(

Ds is on tooth number 6, won't eat, just wants boob and also has bronchiolitis. He keeps vomiting all over his bed or me when he coughs.

The night before last we were simultaneously dealing with a screaming toddler night tantrum and a baby who had vomited all over his bed in his sleep, fun . All three ended up in our bed awake.

I have also worked a night shift and a 12 hour day shift since the weekend.

So glad tomorrow is a low key affair for us.

Elph glad ds1 is getting back on form. I can highly recommend suspected noro for getting rid of rellies at Christmas
I used to sit dd2 and ds in their bouncy chair/padded out highchair with a lullaby video on YouTube in the dark when they woke too early. I could grab 30 minutes or so snuggled on the sofa snoozing. Sometimes it would hypnotise them to sleep or chill them out enough to be boobed back to sleep.

Merry Christmas to you all. I told Santa that you had been good mummies this year so hopefully he will sprinkle sleepy dust down the chimney tonight.

Dear life, Stitch. Work must seem like a blessed relief after that lot. Poor DD2 And bronchiolitis again for Baby M? Poor little chap.

Sat here in the living room again after another 5am start from DS2. Waiting for DS1 to come down and discover Father Christmas has been. Quietly excited in spite of the ongoing headache.

Stitch, I was so glad to read that your little one is back home, it must've been such a dreadful experience. Hope things are better now.

Elph, hope Ann can tweak it back to normal really quickly.

Merry Christmas everyone, hope all babies deliver a bit of festive magic and start sleeping like angels

Hello everyone. Hello elph. I might join you in that corner.

I am really looking forward to dd going back to nursery. Her sleep is much better when she is there. I think they do a better job of exhausting her then we do. She even skipped nap a couple of times this week. Urgh!

We took her to the panto yesterday though and she got really into it. I nearly died of cute overload watching her clapping along and cheering

Did your mum make it to Christmas, lovely?

I don't know if DS1 would have the attention span or sufficient comprehension yet for a panto, much as I'd like to get him into a theatre ASAP. He was singing 'So long, farewell' from Sound of Music tonight and I gave myself a quiet fist-bump.

DS2 is provisionally booked in with Ann for late Feb. DS1 is back to letting DH do bedtimes after working her voodoo on him for the last week and a bit. He still won't let him go to him at night which is wearing (they tag-teamed me between 4 and 6am this morning, which was AMAZING and has made me feel AMAZING all day ) but I trust her crazy methods will work their magic soon.

It's good to see you to elph (or at least your typed words :) )

She has made it through Christmas and new year in a reasonable state (in that she is awake a bit and able to talk a little. She is still in hospice but everyone has now agreed that she will not be going home (I had been pretty sure this was the case for a while now) and they are encouraging my dad to sleep over there sometimes so he can be with her more. On the whole she is reasonably comfortable and calm, which is all we could hope for really, and the hospice is amazing.

DD was a bit unsure about the it for the first half but loved the second half of the panto. DH's mum paid for the tickets for Christmas presents so we agreed if she hated it we would just leave. Much less stressful knowing it wouldn't have been our cash wasted :o

Fingers crossed for Anne's magic skills working for your little night owls. You just have to make it through february....

Hi all, I've been lurking on this thread for a while. DS is almost 12 months old and still waking several times a night. All was going well until the dreaded 4 month regression and he's never returned to his former glory! He gives us the odd great night to throw us a bone and make me optimistically think we've turned a corner but then gradually deteriorates again, sigh...

At Elph's suggestion to another poster I've been checking magic Ann's website daily but a couple of weeks ago she put up a message saying she hopes to work with new families in the New Year

Does anyone have any success with other sleep consultantants? I'm hoping for as gentle a solution as possible.

Sorry, and Happy New Year to you all!

Hi Attitude

Yes, Ann is hard to pin down when trying to get her through the web form. Once you're in with her, though, you can get back in contact as much as you need which, thus far, has been brilliant.

Andrea Grace is another gentle sleep consultant and Sian from Sleep-somethingorother is another one I've seen bandied about. Bear in mind that there is no such thing as 'no cry' when it comes to changing sleep. Ann doesn't/can't guarantee no cry, but I think you most definitely get less cry with her. DS1 responds so freakishly well to her methods (that invariably make me think 'why the fuck didn't I think of that?') that I truly feel like a bad mother because I obviously don't know him nearly as well as this woman down at the other end of the country who has never laid eyes on him

Hello everyone and Happy New Year!

Hear, good to hear your mum is as comfortable as possible under the circumstances.

Welcome, Atittude - I think Ann was taking some type of part-time break over the holidays, but hopefully you'll snap her up in the New Year.

Elph you just made me laugh out loud; I've often thought exactly the same about Ann's effect on DS2.

Hope you're all enjoying the holidays and that plenty of lie-ins are on the cards for 2015

Hi all... finally joining in here but am another longterm lurker. Almost could have written Attitude's post word for word (sorry we're competing for Ann) though my DS is 9 months. Wakes between 5 and 10 times every night and has done since he was 3 months old. Am also only prepared to consider very gentle sleep solutions.

Happy New Year to all... am sure you will share my feeling that all you want in 2015 is some sleep!

Thanks for the welcome, I'll keep checking and trying with Ann for now and see how it goes. He's teething at the moment poor thing which doesn't help. He has slept through before so I know he can do it and hopefully will again.

Understand re crying. It's such a shame that they don't just learn on their own given some time and patience, I suppose some do. The frustrating thing is that I know he knows how to fall asleep on his own as he does it often but somehow can't do it all the time and needs or wants help. Unfortunately I feed him to sleep at bedtime and when he wakes at night. Generally he's not fully awake at night (his eyes are still closed and he wants to be asleep) but if left would wake fully. If he settles himself it's usually fairly quickly, otherwise I go straight in to try and avoid him waking properly and me being up for an hour or more with him.

Over the last couple of weeks he has started to often come off the boob at bedtime and fall asleep either cuddled up to me or sitting bolt upright in my lap . Whilst this is great progress and made entirely on his own it's not yet consistent and has so far not stopped his night waking and wanting to feed back to sleep then. He's definitely a comfort sucker but unfortunately after loving the dummy for the first 2 months suddenly rejected it and could not be pursuaded with it again. He also hates it when I try and rock him to sleep except when he has such a bad cold that he can't feed or is suffering badly with teeth cutting through.

Over the last couple of months his naps have improved, again of his own doing, as for months and months he would generally only sleep for 30 mins at a time. Morning nap is 30-60 mins (although on me, not in the cot) and lunchtime nap around 90 mins falling asleep being walked in the buggy. This does not seem to have improved his night waking either.

On a separate (perhaps related) note he is thus far completely unimpressed with formula (was always a bottle refuser too until I just gave up trying). I really would like to wean him, does anyone have any tips? Do I just have to keep offering it and eventually he'll drink it?

Sorry, that was really long! Well done if you've read this far!

Attitude - almost 12 months and you're trying formula? Well, don't bother with that for starters. He can just be on normal cow's milk from 12 months.

Hear, Dreaming and I just went 'ENOOOOOOUUGH!' at a certain point well past 12 months and went cold turkey. A few days of rage and that was it.

Had a parenting fail this morning. One or the other DS has had me up for the day on or before 5:30am for a few weeks now. DS1 was obviously rostered on this morning and I was woken up by that fuckingfuckingfucking moan down the monitor. I got shitty, which I never do and said, 'You're going back to bed or daddy's taking you downstairs.' Stamped his feet, refused to go back to bed, cue DH being summoned to carry a kicking and screaming child downstairs. Naturally, I was only just about asleep before DS2 woke up. Should have just stayed calm Earth mother in freezing cold hallway after all...

5-something starts to the day are grim aren't they, especially when you've been up during the night. You're doing well if you manage to always keep calm.

I guess I thought formula would be an easier transition for him as it's sweeter than cows milk, plus I have a box that needs using up. I'm a bit apprehensive about giving up cold turkey as I have a couple of friends who found it really painful. How did you find it affected you?

Oh, double mastitis, but since that was only one of the seven times I've had it... At least it was the last for now

Ouch, that sounds awful. I'm hoping to avoid that if at all possible but I'm starting to think that cutting feeds down gradually is as practical in real life as that old chestnut 'put them down sleepy but awake' it never worked for me anyway

I stopped bf at 18 months but had already cut down to just a few feeds by then. It was much easier then I could have imagined, but she was older.

Dd was also a bottle refuser so in the end we just got her using a sippy cup, so you might want to just give up on the bottle and try that.

As a veteran of multiple attempts of 'cutting feeds down gradually' with DS1 the boob monster...no. Impossible, especially with night feeds. Cold turkey is the only way. Dreaming did it with twins and got sore, but no mastitis. I just have to think about a missed feed and I get mastitis so I think it's probably one of those things you'll get or you won't.

Surely he's been having cow's milk in food, though? I would have thought BM to cow is just as much of a transition as formula to cow so you may as well cut out the middle-man as young as you can.

I'm giving him formula in a sippy cup but when he tastes it his nose wrinkles and he shudders and won't have any more! He is having cows milk in his food so I'll try him with some tomorrow and see if he likes that any better.

Thanks for the advice

I'd tend to agree with skipping formula.

Can you express and mix breast with cow's milk for a little while and dilute further as time goes by?

Hello all! Happy New Year.

Yes, cold turkey bf stopping for me. I was pushed over the edge by 6 night feeds by the Terrible Twin and one for his brother. Occasionally 2. I was already dairy free then realised at 17 months DT the T was also soya and egg intolerant plus his blood tests came back borderline anaemic and he was a boob monster with little in the way of 'real' food. I stopped cold turkey BUT had a shit hot breast pump. I pumped between 10 and 20 oz a day for the first few days for comfort then went down to 10, then 5, 3, 2 very quickly over about 2.5 weeks. I stayed mostly dairy free so gave that to DT2 but ate and drank soya stuff so totally cold turkey for DT the Terrible. I did appreciate how awesome my supply had been for boob monster twins though

Sleep is returning to post-Ann bliss after weeks of illness and the dreaded 5am starts. I took to getting up, quick nappy as he always has a poo first thing, milk, dvd, go back to bed myself with instructions to him to come and get me if needed. My other 2 sleep til between 7 and 8 usually so I hate the early ones even more.

Very impressed you never get shitty elph . You go straight up the hippy Earth mother ranks for that. You're still just below hear for her silent meditation retreat though. Glad to hear your mum is peaceful and calm at least though hear and that your dad is being well supported. Bloody awful thing to watch I imagine .

I stopped feeding directly at 17.5 ish months; so totally stopped pumping and everything by18 months ish

I have accepted now that I will never be as crunchy as Hear I no longer have two in cloth, though, which was one of my bargaining chips. About a month after spending a fortune on upping my stash to accommodate both boys, DS1 only went and housebroke himself in three days Swings and roundabouts. Doesn't sleep, will poo and wee in a controlled fashion the second a Thomas the Tank Engine potty is purchased.

I'd probably get shitty more often with two toddlers. Seriously. Can't get my head around how you cope.