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!

Hello!

I think I've been so tired for the last 2 years that I only posted on your thread about 4 times.

Hope you're all doing OK.

Anyway I thought I'd report that after 26 months of doing the just waiting lazy method, DS2 randomly started sleeping through.

He sometimes even sleeps longer than his brother!

He was down from about a million several wakings to mostly just one over the month before.

I am still not quite used to it and keep waking up all puzzled.

There is hope sleep deprived people!

I'd love another too (despite going quite mental with sleep deprivation), DS1 is not keen on the idea though...

Hello jaggy! All you crazy people with your multiple children. Really, I think you are all mad from lack if sleep. 1 seems more then enough effort to me :o

I fear you may be right...I had terrible insomnia while pg to so hadn't had a full nights sleep for almost 3 years.

Maybe the mad idea of having another will wear off after a few weeks of actual sleep...

DS1 was a much better sleeper (slept through most nights before age 2), I did not consider the next one being worse! :)

Sounds like there is a veritable epidemic of sleep all around! This won't do, people. One has to maintain standards here. In that vein, we have just returned from a wedding/mini break abroad where my DH was felled by food poisoning. I was consequently on baby duty 24/7 while looking after DH, packing up twice as we had to move hotels, etc. I just want to fall on my face and stay there.

Oh, crap Peregrin. Do you need to fight the urge to tell your DH to man- the-fuck-up when he's sick, even when his head's down the toilet? I do I'll snap and be exceedingly sorry for it one day...

Hi ladies,

I've read quite a bit of your last couple of threads. I have an 11 month old who's a bad sleeper. I'm interested in using Ann, who I've seen several of you recommend. Can I ask what sort of approach she usually suggests? I'm not at all keen on CC type methods, and would want something very gentle. Does she really offer an effective alternative?

Many thanks.

Peregrin, that sounds utterly awful, poor you!

Between your holiday and mine I think we can safely put every parent off the idea of ever leaving the country! "Holiday" is definitely a misnomer where children are involved.

If it makes you feel any better, whilst I seem to be having some success in project not feeding/rocking DD2 to sleep - the last two mornings she has gone down for her nap and fallen asleep without me even being in the room and no tears at all - she appears to have given up sleeping at night in order to compensate.

The other night I finally made it bed at 11 at which point she woke up and wanted to play for the next two hours. Then she would only sleep on my chest and howled at the slightest attempt to move her - even the patented roll-onto-side-without-moving-baby manoeuvre. The last two nights she hasn't bothered with the playing just the sleeping on chest all bloody night malarky and its just too bloody hot for such shenanigans. Result is me lying wide awake in a pool of sweat trying to resist the urge to kick OH awake so he can suffer too. DD2 then has a lovely long morning nap - 3 hours today! - to catch up. Wish I could join her!

Elph at broccoli actually being eaten! DD1 still maintains any green vegetable other than peas are the work of the devil. She did eat some cucumber the other day though, mostly because DD2 did and she likes to copy everything DD2 does. The other day she even had a go at breastfeeding which was very weird after nearly a year off the boob. Wasn't quite sure what to do!?!

Chocolate I am still fully expecting DS to demand boob once he sees his little brother having free access. I avoid letting him in the room when I get changed these days because he makes a bee-line for me, and demands a 'cuggle', especially if I'm topless, and buries his face in my boobs. He insisted I join him in the bath the other night and spent most of the time resting his head and face on my chest I'm sure the colostrum is triggering primitive scent memory, but then he never gave up BFing willingly anyway.

Pusspuss Ann is a miracle worker. She doesn't do CC. Her approach is extremely holistic and gentle. She most definitely doesn't promise no-cry but both Dreaming and I have had very little crying at all during the process, despite us both expecting tantrums. Highly recommended, but you'll be lucky to get a place with her! Just keep checking her website regularly if you find she's closed her web form for a bit due to high demand.

Thanks, Elphaba, that sounds encouraging! Is her approach basically a variation on the usual theme of gradual retreat, no feeding at night etc though? I was toying with using Andrea Grace, who a lot of people on here recommend, but I bought her book and tried it and found I couldn't hack it! Could you give me a general idea of what Ann would want me to do, so I can get a feel for it? Not expecting you to give away too many of her trade secrets on here, obvs...

Ooh ps, which of her packages did you go for, and would you recommend it? TIA.

Can't go into any detail about her methods sorry Pusspuss - I've had to delete posts on this thread recently as she felt it was breaching her copyright. What I will say is there's extra layers with her approach that Andrea Grace doesn't do. She has a very holistic method which she calls her emotional well-being approach which is what minimises the crying and makes it long-term effective.

We did seven weeks with her, but once you've approached her via the website, you'll have an uncharged telephone call with her and she will advise you on which package. She does not do quick fixes, but in my long and chequered history of quick fixes (I'd done CC, CIO and gradual withdrawal several times over before I went to Ann) they don't work or only work very briefly until the next illness or bout of teething.

I can't recommend her highly enough - I held off going for ages because I was sure she was just going to tell me to do stuff I'd tried and failed with a million times before. DC2 is arriving on Monday (hopefully) and if he's the determined non-sleeper that his big brother was, I'll definitely be going back to her sooner rather than later.

I see, thanks very much Elphaba. I will give her a call next time she has some space. Good luck with no. 2!

I can also confirm that I had tried a . multitude of variants on the gradual withdrawal type technique. I gave 6 weeks of my life in one week blocks up to help get him sleeping better. total failure. My dh took him to a caravan for 3 nights 7pm-7am to try him away from me. No joy. We never even managed to break the most frustrating waking of all, the 10pm Every. Single. Bloody. Night.Of His Life. That's gone now I think with Ann. We finish on Tuesday. he's not usually sleeping through. he's waking once and needing me there for up to 30 minutes. He still needs a lot of help to stay in bed past 5:15. Yet he's gone from an evening waking and being impossible to settle and.then in.wirh me and nd kicking, wriggling and pushing me all night to this. I'll take it!!! We never thought he'd sleep through yet anyway. Tonight he didn't cry at bedtime. first time ever (& he's not left crying and has never, ever ever fallen asleep by himself before) Worth a go!

Not much time to post, hope you're all doing well and getting more sleep than us

I think I've cottoned on to what DS is doing now - he throws in the odd night of giving me no sleep at all. Any improvement on that is then greeted with enormous relief ("I can't believe he slept for an hour and a half there!").

Then we're too knackered to consider any changes, until a week or so later - and then he goes for the all-night approach again.

And that's why I have an right months old baby sleeping on my chest, day and night...

He's cunning, I'll give him that!

Eight, not right months old - I stand by the rest, though!

Dreaming - it sounds like you've done wonders! Every single baby I know outside LLL meetings supposedly 'sleeps from 7 to 7'. I do hope they're all lying! :-/

pusspuss they are all lieing or at least exaggerating heavily. I reached a point once when dd was really bad of being completely open and honest with people about how awful her sleep was. I just couldn't be bother pretending anymore.

Interestingly I found once I was open about having a bad sleeper (this mainly involved me laughing hysterically when anyone mentioned sleep) I found other people who I had assumed had dc who slept perfectly started quietly confessing to me that actually this wasn't the case at all. Not many were as bad as dd but not that many actualy slept from 7 to 7 every night.

In a recent discussion, all four of my 'mum' friends who still breastfeed at seven months report that their babies wake up for a feed every two hours or so.

Granted, that's after a long sleep initially and much, much better than what I'm getting, but it's not exactly sleeping through the night either.

I think you're dead right about the lying, my HV even advises that to get people off your back! (as in interfering relatives, not friends)

In Scandinavia people ask of you're sleeping, as in all of you, and of you do that's great. None of this sleeping through at six weeks stuff, but then most people breastfeed.

It is good. Though my phone has corrected 60 minutes to 30 minutes (why does it do these weird things? every time.i wrote 7pm it changes it to 7th even though I rarely text/wrote dates? ! so annoying) I do have a minor whinge though which is that after standing on the landing or pipping in to reassure if needed til. dt1 goes back to sleep I am cold and just wide a bloody wake... so I was with him 3:20-4:25am this morning and then couldn't get back to sleep myself til well after 5, maybe nearer 6. Then dd got up and got dt1 up Today was also the Total Warrior which was an obstacle based 10km race. We survived (team of 4 of us with 9 children under 5 between us) minor injuries only but man I'm tired now. Hoping for an easier night

8 months I.was still mostly in tears of exhaustion every evening, definitely grateful for any sleep and totally unable to implement A Plan. I hope your non sleeper becomes more adept soon!

My 3.11 month dd is still up regularly btw as are many of my friends dc that age and almost all of the youngers. I'm lucky to not be surrounded by the smug parents of sleepers

You did Total Warrior?! Holy shitballs. We always used to say at uni that the physio girls were butcher than the OT boys

Thanks elph I think yep came 308 th out of 2032 women, 1613th out of 4886 overall. Quite pleased with that seeing as I only managed to run twice a week. Was pretty tough though but for our team of 4 who have 9 children aged 5 and under between us we did ok. Especially as I'd spent 3:20-4:25am on the landing shushing dt1 (with about 5 attempts to go back to bed in that time too) then was cold and awake, couldn't get back to sleep for ages, then dd got him up with her at 6:30. Still can't believe they made us go under the water in basically water, mud and quite clearly cow shit. Bleurgh. At least I can impress the children with some . of . bruises

Oh. I've started repeating myself. A good sign.

How the hell do you find the time and energy to exercise? I was such an exercise junkie before DS but just didn't have the hours in the day or enough sleep to do it afterwards.

I've only been doing any mileage since signing up for the Total Warrior. I was also an exercise junkie. Ex being the appropriate word. pre children I'd run the nearly 3 miles to running club to do the session, do it and run home, and I'd run 5 nights a week . Every weekend was mountain climbing or fell walking or mountain biking or even just a bike ride or wet run for bad weekends. My life now is unrecognisable

So I'd say

1. Sign up for a difficult event with a team.to stop you backing out
2. panic train at weekends, every evening you can drag yourself put and any other free time (for me I occasionally got to go when my mum was here and my dts napped but can't now dt2 only has 20 minutes)
3. prepare to be disheartened. I'm utterly crap compared to what I used to be able to do. Not helped by still looking pregnant with a big abdominal wall muscle split after the dts. But I'm not far off pre pregnancy weight, could do with losing half a stone maybe but on paper I'm fine (I'm 5'4" and 8st 10). Yet I'm soooooo slow. I thought I'd run a fast 5km the other night. It was a bit over 28 minutes. In a previous life I'd considered 25 minutes really slow and that was only 'fast' as it a short and level run. Can't think about it too much or its too dispiriting! And I dread to think when I'll ever mountain bike again... dh struggled with dt1 while I was gone doing this thing.