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Original poster

Sleepless of Mumsnet - join us if your LO consistently laughs in the face of sleep!

999 replies

Purpleboa · 05/12/2015 13:53

Hi everyone. I thought I'd create this thread when I saw that there were quite a few of us lingering on the 4 month regression thread, with babies that clearly didn't get the memo about things getting better!

I've seen another thread for parents whose children are long term poor sleepers but I think it's been relegated to zombie status. So I hope nobody minds if I start another one! If your LO consistently struggles to sleep, whether it's down to diet, night terrors or just sheer bloody mindedness, please pull up an armchair and join in! I'll supply the espressos, hugs and chocolate, wine and tears served after 4pm.

I'll start: my DD is 25 weeks. She's gorgeous, adorable and the absolute light of my life. Unless it's between the hours of 7pm and 7am! She's struggled with sleep always. I thought things would improve following the 'fourth trimester' but she got a cold, reacted badly to her jabs...and before I knew it we'd cruised into the 4 month regression. Which she's either still in, or she's teething, or developing, or wonder weeking, or fck knows really!

The past two weeks have been particularly painful and I feel I'm reaching the limits of my endurance. I love being her mum, I love spending time with her...but not sleeping makes it oh so very hard.

I have found Mumsnet to be a wonderful source of support during those dark and lonely hours when you feel like you're the only person in the world going through this. So I wanted to give back and support others too.

I'll put the kettle on...

OP posts:
thinkfast · 20/01/2016 04:09

Oh zombie hope you managed to transfer him in the end

thinkfast · 20/01/2016 04:30

Dd is coughing like crazy. No wonder she was so clingy yesterday. Feeling guilty

fluffikins · 20/01/2016 07:02

What a dick thing to say, indeed! I hate that, or 'have you tried baby rice?' Feck off!

In an attempt to find some positives in life:

Positives last night:

  • I think she dropped a feed, neither of us can remember but we think she didn't have the usual 10pm one.
  • She was able to settle once without the feed
  • She didn't have 'party time' where she was up for ages at 3am, she fed and went back to sleep (even if I did drag her in with me)
  • When she did wake, she wanted full long feeds so I can assume she's waking for hunger and not JUST to be resettled.

Negatives:

  • Woke a lot, I think it was 1.30 2.30, 3.30 then I pulled her into my bed.
  • I have no resolve and couldn't cope with her crying so gave up with the whole plan of not feeding her right before bed.

Apparently the planets have aligned today so I see that as a sign of hope. Plan for today is solely to feed feed feed and try and get more calories in her during the day. Tonight I will aim to do more resettles without feeding, even if this involved crying I'm hoping it may mean she starts to drop feeds, even if I get her to take them 10 mins later each night - eventually that'll be several hours later, right??

zombiemeow · 20/01/2016 09:17

1.45 I managed to get him back in his cot, two more wake ups after that then up at 5. I am exhausted

Hope the cough passes soon think when ds had a cough the other week it really put me on edge because you just know they will be waking up Thanks

Fluff that's good about the dropped feed..... I think? Maybe she will drop more now. Fingers crossed the planets are all in our favour Grin

Oh and on about shitty things to say, a lady at the baby group I go to was on about her 12 week old, she was moaning about how tired she is as her ds still has one night feed. She was saying she's trying to drop it and it will solve all her sleep problems, apparently 'sleep can only get better after the 12 week mark' Grin Oh how I laughed.

thinkfast · 20/01/2016 11:49

Someone told me all these parents who say their babies sleep through are either lying or just leaving them what do you think?

AlexTaylor17 · 20/01/2016 11:50

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

fluffikins · 20/01/2016 13:40

Think, I have a friend who swears blind her kid has always slept through. I think she's lying or has unintentionally CIO by missing the monitor. I like to think my dd is too sparky to sleep Grin

thinkfast · 20/01/2016 17:15

I have no idea. Perhaps they're just lucky

fluffikins · 20/01/2016 18:24

My sil had one great sleeper and now has one that's up every night, but she's just gone to hungry baby formula so that may change.

Dd has had 3 naps today (not sure if that's good or bad!) and has eaten really well - first time eve she's actually engaged with the food and swallowed more than a tiny bit which is great, it'll either help fill her up or keep her up all night with a sore tum. I've also fed fed fed her today so going to see if that makes a difference.

starfish12 · 20/01/2016 19:11

My first slept thru at 4.5 months because he suddenly discovered his thumb and that was that. No wonder weeks or regressions bothered him after that.

DS2 is totally different... God knows when he'll learn! He's had loads to eat today so will see if that makes a difference.

Groan re the lady at baby group.zombie. Well done for not punching her!!

Pyjamaramadrama · 20/01/2016 19:43

My ds1 sleep through reliably from 6 months. Even before that he'd sleep until 4am. He sucked his thumb and there were no sleep regressions or anything.

Ds2 is a different story, he's 7 months and has slept through maybe 2-3 times.

fluffikins · 20/01/2016 20:13

Wonder if I can force dd to suck her thumb Grin

Pain to get down today as she napped up until 5:30 I knew that was a mistake but otherwise she'd have been up for 6 hrs by bedtime Confused

zombiemeow · 20/01/2016 20:16

I don't know think, I think maybe I have made ds worse as when he was tiny he only ever slept on me and if he so much as made a squeak when he wasn't on me I went running to him. I think that didn't help with his sleeping. Maybe 'tougher' parents babies sleep better? Who knows!

Fluff that's great news about the naps! I heard 'sleep breeds sleep' somewhere. No idea if it's right or not. Hope tonight is a good night for you.

Hope the food helps star! Ds hasn't ever been interested in his thumb. I was hoping not to get him too reliant on his dummy when he was born but he went straight to scbu and had to have a dummy as he had to have a lot of painkillers and apparently that was the only way they could give them Hmm

Pyjamar did ds2 have a dummy? I'm wondering if that's one of the problems for me? But ds has a sleepytot and 9 out of 10 times can easily find it in his cot.

I can tell tonight will be fun Blush ds is on his 5th wake up after going to sleep at 6.30 Sad

Pyjamaramadrama · 20/01/2016 20:29

Yes ds2 has a dummy. I'm not sure what I think to dummies really, I kind of wish I'd never given it to him. I think if I hadn't he'd either be sucking his thumb or feeding often throughout the night. Some babies just need to suck for comfort.

I bought a sleepytot and although I'm not sure it's helped ds find the dummy yet, it's helped me find it and stopped him knocking it out of his cot.

thinkfast · 20/01/2016 20:35

On first wake up after just half an hour Angry

Feeling hard done by 2 bad sleepers but dd is much worse than ds ever was. By 5 months we could give ds a dream feed and he'd reliably do 1030 to 5. Dd won't take a bottle unless she wants one and don't reliably do any stretch of sleep. Which naturally just adds to my anxiety

Good luck to those of you who've had good eaters/nappers today!

zombiemeow · 20/01/2016 20:41

6th wake up here Sad

zombiemeow · 20/01/2016 20:42

And by the time I got him to sleep and got to the top of the stairs to go down he woke up again Sad heeeelllppp meeeeee

zombiemeow · 20/01/2016 20:49

He just won't settle Sad

fluffikins · 20/01/2016 21:55

Dd actually kind of self settled tonight.
I put her in and she kept on blinking at me while I sang and eventually went to sleep.
But then she woke again so much that she was crawling so don't think it really helped Sad

starfish12 · 20/01/2016 21:59

I wish I'd given DS2 a dummy pyjama, but he tricked me by sucking his thumb when napping in the sling so I thought he'd get into it but never did at night and has now stopped. Boob and rocking only seem to work.

Good luck everyone!

fluffikins · 21/01/2016 08:45

Oh I feel awful. I woke up at 12.45 by DH saying 'the baby!' and I could suddenly hear her crying, but it wasn't coming through the alarm. God knows how long she'd been crying. And we have no idea why it wasn't coming through the monitor. I went to her and she had tears running down her cheeks Sad

I fed her and brought her in with me as I don't trust the alarm now. DH thinks I'm being silly wanting to buy a new one as it was 'probably just one of those things' but now I'm paranoid. She did sleep well with me, just had one more feed until 6am which is the best night yet, but not sure whether to put that down to tanking her up on milk yesterday or her learning that I won't come Sad

starfish12 · 21/01/2016 16:08

Oh fluff poor you! Don't feel awful I bet she wasn't crying for long and that really good she had a good stint after you got her. There is no way she would have learnt you aren't coming - more like hurry up where's my boob!. Do get another monitor... it's worth it for peace of mind x

fluffikins · 21/01/2016 16:31

Dh is saying no to a new monitor but I've lost all faith ij this one now and feel like I'll be up all night in case it fails again Sad might tell him my mum gave me the money for it! Or take it out of dd's account as she'd obviously want to pay for me to come and meet her needs Wink

zombiemeow · 21/01/2016 19:43

Oh fluff, that must have shook you up. Did you accidentally silence/mute it? That happened to us once then eventually I realised i had accidentally turned the sound off.

fluffikins · 22/01/2016 08:05

No hadn't muted it. I think the sound is dodgy on it. It says at sensitivity level 5 the microphone should always be on so we should hear constant white noise (as leave it on with her) but we don't do think it's broken in some way. I brought her in again last night and Dh says I can go ahead and buy a new monitor. Can't decide whether to get a cheap sound only one though or a video one. Not fussed about sensor.

It's a pain as we just put all our accounts into one so I can't sneak-buy anything anymore.