Is this the 8 mo regression? End of my tether, help, help, help? : (

[FifiFerusha]

So DS could self settle for naps and bedtime but started to be really fussy for afternoon nap so had to help him to sleep, help him sooth. In the past two days and night it has gone haywire. He refuses to nap full stop. I have rocked( but he finds any shadow in a glimpse of light too interesting), I have fed to sleep with no sleep as he is refusing milk. . .bottle also and he can transfer between the two normally, I have shh patted, pick up, put down until I gave up and thought I could do CC. He cried for 20 before I went in and tried to rock him again. DP tried to help, made it worse. In all today he has had 50 minutes sleep(that is on and off added together) and 8 hours broken last night. His over tiredness is making him look ill. I gave up on his afternoon nap today as he bit my nipple twice and scratched my face to fight me putting him to sleep. I am heart broken as I can't make him happy. . And I had nearly cracked it.

I put him to bed tonight at 5.30 ( no sleep today and thought go for it as clocks going forward) and was asleep by 18.10 unable to take his usual bedtime bottle. He will be hungry tonight as refused milk today, even morning bf. Anyway, he woke 20 mins later and went back to sleep easily but I know I am in for a heavy night with his OT and refusal to feed today. This week he has started to crawl, sit from lying, and cut two teeth, he also had a cold but that is getting better. How can I get over this without creating any bad sleep associations? So worried, back to work soon. Is this a regression that will pass? Argh, so tired and feel so bad as I have put so much work into his sleep. Anyone else going through the 'oh look, I can move around' regression? Please hold my hand x

So sorry you are this tired. Not sure if you have this option but I still take my toddler and baby out in the car for a nap if they areally overtired and playing up. Take a magazine, get a drink from a drive thru and park up for an hour of peace for you and sleep for them. Have done it since my toddler was born and it keeps me sane on difficult days.
If no car then a long walk in a pram? Cup of coffee in a coffee shop halfway for a rest for you? Prams always send mine off as well even as a toddler, good luck x

Can you post your nap schedule (roughly?) - or what you were doing before it all went crazy?

Are his teeth still hurting him? Does baby nurofen or calpol make a difference?

Your poor baby sounds like he's had a lot going on this week - and you as well! Will he still sleep in a pram or car? As Brummiesue said, that might help him with the OT during the day?

Hi,

Unfortunately he is a terrible pram napper but will fall asleep in the car.

Our not quite routine is usually like this( it normally has to work round the school run):

Night waking: 3.30 or 5ish(feeds)
Wake: 6 to 6.30 (doesn't bf, refuses)
7.30 breakfast
9.15 bf( but refuses now)
9.30 ish naps for 1 hr or more.
11.30 lunch
13.00 bf( 2 or 3 mins)
13.30 until 14.15' he naps. Sometimes on a good day he will nap for longer or I extend by rocking so he wakes nearer to 3.
Then, school run.
16.30 tea
18.00 bedtime bottle( used to take 8 oz, now it is fight to get 4 into him, I try to bf as well but he isn't interested)
Usually asleep between 6 30 and 7.

I put a lot of milk in his food as he shows little interest in it now.

Last night he was up between 10 and 12.30pm. Ended up co sleeping. I haven't done that since he was newborn. However his naps have been great today. Self settled for both and slept over an hour for each. Bedtime felt really early with the clocks but has gone down ok. .finger crossed tomorrow is ok

How old he is?

DS is 1 year (just) and for the last couple of months I've had to gradually stretch the time between the morning nap and the afternoon nap to nearly 4 hours to get a decent (1 hour plus) nap. Since about 10 months old he's been doing a 1 hour nap in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon but the afternoon nap has always been the one I've had to watch. Every so often I need to put him down later or else he'll play around massively instead of sleeping, or just do a 45 min nap and wake happy and ready to go! I'm now at the stage where I'm going to have to very gradually cut the morning nap as I can't push the afternoon nap out further or the day will get too long.

Your DS may just have not been tired for his afternoon nap....and now is really OT so napped well today. The early bedtime was probably really good too. Hopefully he'll have caught up a bit and will sleep well tonight. When he's caught up a bit maybe you could try giving him more awake time between the morning and afternoon naps and see if this helps, but I know this is difficult with the school run.

I'm not sure about the milk, but DS only breast feeds 3 times - morning, when he wakes from his afternoon sleep and at bedtime. If he were to feed at 5am then he almost certainly wouldn't be interested again at 6:30am or at 9:15am. Sometimes he only wants 2-3 minutes as well (not sure how much he takes as he's never taken bottles) but I just let him decide. Like you, I try and give him milk and dairy products for his meals in case he's not getting enough.

Not sure how much this helps!? DS was a terrible pram and car napper - he'd even wake up at traffic lights or in slow traffic!!

Thank you viola. Yes it is avgreat help. I think I could try shortening morning naps so awake time is longer in the middle of the day and things will still fit in with school run, that might be key. I will let him catch up on OT now it is school holidays( clocks changing etc..) and start playing around if he settles. I think a mix of OT and developmental changes are to blame also. However as clocks changed today he had less awake time before his morning nap and that helped. This wouldn't be possible on a school run day though, unless he woke later. . Let's hope tonight is ok argh..the dread of the night x

Also meant to add that he is 8 months and one week x

How did he do last night and today?

I think that babies change so much - we have to keep on tweaking naps/night time so keep on top of things with DS and even then he's always 1 step ahead of me!!! You think you've cracked it for a week or two and then they do something different and it feels like it's back to square 1!

Night before last he SS for bedtime, woke up once and then straight back to sleep after a feed, so all good. His naps were a bit haywire. Point blank refused to self settle for every one of them. Had 35 mins in the morning and luckily over an hour in the afternoon. I think his morning naps are long when he wakes for a period of time in the night. He also refused to self settle at BT and took me an hour to get him to sleep. He keeps trying to settle himself but ends up sitting up and crawling at which point he cries, I go in, lie him down , he tries to settle, then the same pattern repeats until I pick him up and rock him. This is no good. I don't want to leave him to cry but not sure how to get him back to understanding how to settle himself with moving round his cot and if he is sitting up he isn't likely to get himself to sleep :) Any tips? X

Has he only just learnt to crawl? There is definitely a sleep regression around this time when they learn to crawl and start doing it at night! DS started this on Christmas Eve!!! One night I literally resettled him for a 3 hour stretch as he kept on crawling/'sitting/standing etc. and just couldn't work out how to get back to sleep. I just laid DS down and stroked him until he was calm (repeatedly!) - but he hates being picked up out of his cot anyway. The advice I was given was to give DS tons of practice during the day at crawling/practising lying down from sitting/standing up etc. so he was able to then manage by himself during the night. I think it lasted for about a week and then calmed down but took a while for DS to totally get the hang of it. It will get better! Also if they are under/over tired then they are more likely to play around (silly babies!!). They are so tricky sometimes! :)