it cant be normal for a baby to fight sleep this much. help!

[spillyobeans]

Ok, so some of you may have seen me on the 4 month sleep regression board, but i am convinced this is not it as he has been like this from 3 months and he is now 6 months.

Ds fights sleep like you wouldnt believe. He can quite easily go 8+ hours without a nap, and then when he does go down it will sometimes only be for 10 mins. After posting a thread and having got some ideas i thought maybe he was over tired and started to try and put him down earlier, this hasnt helped and just means im trying for longer.

Things i have tried:
-rocking
Patting back
Pick up put down
Singing
Breastfeeding to sleep (works 50% of time but you cannot remove him from boob at all and he will not take a dummy at all)
-white noise
-caming music
-baby tv
-walking round in pram (from 3 months up until now this is the only way he would sleep but has just stopped this as well)
-sling
-laying in cot awake and drowsy
-swaddling
-checking if hes too hot or too cold
-clean nappy and no rash

Nothing works, its at the point now that i will start trying to put him down from 6-7 and he will not go down untill 2am. He then wakes at 4, is up for 2 hours and then had another 2. And thats it! That cannot be normal! Sometimes he will have a 2 nap between 11 and 4ish sometimes not.

Has anyone had a sleeper this bad? Did it eventually resolve??

Nottheop- been a few up and down days! Had 3 nights of such bad dleep that me and dh had to take turns on alternate nights to we could sleep! Between 8pm and 8am he slept 2 hours and was grumpy the whole time.

Ive started more rigid routine, up at 7am (wake him if he is asleep, which he is normally awake anyway) up and dressed and feed and some babyrice, then play etc untill 9, then nap time (this is the easiest sleep - he would sleep 4 hours sometimes if i let hom atound this time), wake up at 11, up untill 2 and then try for another nap so far he will only nap in pram for this and really fights it but is v tired. Then ive been trying putting him down to bed from 7 (bedtime routine starts at about 6.30), but its not going great.

I rang health visitior and she came around, she saud i should start sleep training/cry it out. I hate the idea of it but i am at my wits end so me and dh have decided from tomorrow we are going to start

That's a rough few nights!

If the first nap is going well but he fights the second I would try putting him down a bit earlier. I suspect it is overtiredness so that by the time you get to 2pm he is passed it so I'd try 1.30 today.

Are you going for controlled crying or CIO? I would maybe start with the naps for this as the crying is a bit more bearable in the daytime, for me anyway.

Good luck - hopefully he catches on quickly. When they're ready it really is 3 days for a total transformation.

Op, we did sleep training at this age. It saved me! Read some positive stories about it, stay away from the negative threads if you decide to do it. Good luck!