Every night feels likes a lifetime

[ThursdayLastWeek]

DS is nearly 7mo and his lack of sleep is getting me down.

I feel like I have troubleshot everything, but nothing works.

Dummy worked for a while - no longer.
In cot/co sleeps - still wakes frequently.
BF or FF - wakes frequently.
In the last week I started to put him down on his front which worked for two nights (well he still woke twice for feeds, but that's good for him) but now that's stopped working too.

I'm really at the end of my tether. He's currently rolling around my bed, chewing the dummy and squealing. And I keep thinking 'I hate him' - and then of course I hate myself

I know people will say it will get better he won't be like this forever, but every single night feels like a lifetime right now. And I can't cope.

[ThursdayLastWeek]

Watching the nurse when she gave DS his oral vaccinations, she pointed the syringe toward his cheek and that seemed to encourage a sucking reflex. And not the spoon, those spoons are worse than useless!

averagebear that is such a good logical approach to CC - and actually that's what I do sometimes if I've mistimed the start of a nap.

[CheckpointCharlie2]

See if it works, you have my sympathy, despite the fact that she is almost 8 now I still remember the bone draining tiredness when dd was like that.
Would a help at all!!!

[Laquila]

Ahhhh I feel very at home on this thread! OP, my two are the sane age as yours and the elder one frequently wakea the other one by screeching about how there's too much sand on the floor/he wants an ice cream/he wants to go on the chuffing buggy board at 3 o'clock in the bastard morning. He's pretty much got asleep so I think it's night terrors, and they are an absolute sod. Of course it's always when I've just managed to transfer the 7-month old, like a bloody land mine, from my arms to his cot. GOD FORBID I should put him down awake - it's like the fucking apocalypse if I attempt that and I don't see how he'll ever be able to be out to bed awake. I actually can't remember whether my elder son ever managed to whilst I was still feeding him, or did I just feed him to sleep every night til 19 months?! That sounds crazy, but I haven't a bloody clue at this stage.

Also I don't know how the hell we'll get the 3-yr old to ever give up his dummy - he only has it for sleeping but he is WEDDED to it - and it worries me that we'll have the same problem with this one, but sometimes I'm desperate and don't have the willpower to hold it back if I think he needs it. We've tried the odd attempt at controlled crying but it was horrific every time - I know it's supposed to be but seriously, I could feel my boobs aching.

Oh God I can hear the 3-yr old wailing now (as I'm rocking the baby back to sleep) and my husband is out. MARVELLOUS.

[rebeccahazel]

I don't know how you mummies of more than one do it. I mean, I want more than one eventually but the thought of starting all over again with another shit sleeper makes me want to puke.

[ThursdayLastWeek]

Laquila DS1 has night terrors too, luckily they are more often than not in the earlier part of the night, usually if he goes to bed too early. They are certainly freaky as fuck.

The secret to DS1 successful sleeping was his thumb, and he still sucks it a lot. So don't feel bad about the dummy, at least that will go eventually - I'll pay for the good sleep of three years ago in orthodontists bills in a decade.

rebecca I think it's the old survival-of-the-species amnesia that does it! It's certainly not any fucking common sense that I can make out

[Laquila]

Yes Thursday I do think that about the orthodontist bills - I had a dummy til very late and had to have 7 teeth out years later. I've always wondered whether it was related, and whilst I obviously would probably be hysterical/terrified if DS1 had to undergo the same thing in the future, in all honesty I don't know if I'd be selfless enough to go back to the sleepless nights, to turn back the clock. I'm rambling somewhat but you get my drift. It's getting to that stage where I NEED TO BE ASLEEP and am getting cross at myself for faffing about on MN rather than banking lovely solid sleep.

[rebeccahazel]

Laquila you've just made me realise the same. Must put phone down.

See you on the other side ladies. Over and out.

[user1474026214]

Arrgggghhhh, I am still awake!!!! Keep thinking that DD will wake in a minute , so I am delaying sleep, but she hasn't woken since she went down at half seven, which is unheard of. Why am I not making the most of this spell of sleep???? This time last night we were on wake up number 4, and i longed for this. Perhaps my body is getting used to not sleeping. Argghh. Night all. Heaps of luck for tonight x

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Well it's 3am, ds has to be fair slept until now, but has woken screaming at the top of his voice, not crying just shouting. So I've brought him downstairs lest we wake the neighbours. He is annoyingly sleepy but not asleep! Has just had 6oz bottle but I'm about to do him another. I'm wondering if it's a growth spurt as he hasn't had night feeds for ages until last week but has had gallons of milk in the night recently.

[tangledg]

Had an AWFUL night. DS1 woke up around 11pm, had a drink of milk and went back off. Then he woke up at half one screaming and refused to go back in his cot, took a while to settle him, so I put him in with me. I the. Proceeded to get slapped in the face, kicked etc... (Not because he was being naughty he's always been a fidget and it takes him a while to settle into his sleep) Once he'd finally gone I put him back in his own room.

Then around half 2, DS2 woke up crying and screeching, wouldn't go back to sleep and this carried on for half an hour. It wasn't even that he was awake, he wouldn't stop screeching. He did the same thing at half 3 wouldn't go back down at all and wouldn't stop whinging and screeching (he is really loud!). He then woke DS1 up again who I had to go and re-settle. He eventually went back off, but has been up since 5. DS1 has just woke up. I'm exhausted

[ThursdayLastWeek]

147 I hope you got to sleep. This has happened to me as well, I'm too highly strung awaiting a wake up I can't fall asleep as easily as I used to!

tangled that sounds a nightmare. Remind me again how old your two are? for you

averagebear why do they have to be SO LOUD. If they're hungry all they gotta do is say - they don't need to make such a fuss!

My own DS slept until midnight, when I went in to feed him. Then I must have fallen asleep feeding him (lying down, don't worry!) because next thing I new it was 2.30am. Tried to leave, DS wasn't hav ping any of it, we both fell asleep again until 4.

Now here's what's funny. I tried to latch him back on at 4 and that just made him more grumpy. So I picked him up, gave him a cuddle to calm him down and plonked him in his cot. He went to sleep straight away! So it seems that even my clingy little mamas boy sometimes needs a bit of space!

Then he woke for the day at 6 but DH tried to resettle him so now he's downstairs with him and I'm wide awake.

So it wasn't the best night, but because I fell asleep feeding him I don't feel too hideous this morning.

[thenewaveragebear1983]

I know, they just roar don't they?
I did give him the 2nd milk. He then promptly threw up all 12 ounces of hot milk all over both of us, so I stripped him down, cleaned him up and we sat under the blanket watching Phil spencer. He fell asleep again at 4.30 ish but was snoring so loudly I couldn't settle so I left him in the cot upstairs and slept on the sofa. He woke for the day at 6, and is now happily eating Cheerios while I wonder how I'm going to get through today.....

[tangledg]

18 months and nearly 6 months. What are the chances of having two extremely shit sleepers.

[TwllBach]

Please may I join in? I'm lying next to my first DC. He's 4.5 months old and when I had him he would have a last feed at 11, sleep till 4 when is feed him then wake at 8am. This changed to sleeping through the night, literally 7.30 - 7.30/8 without a feed for around six weeks. Not anymore.

For the last weeks he will go to bed at 7.30 as usual but then after midnight it's free game and he wakes to either feed or have his dummy put back in. The other night he was up at 2.30 so I fed him and DP is having mental health issues atm so I stayed in with DS on the camp bed so as not to wake DP. He (DS) kicks and writhes and flails and whimpers in his sleep. He woke again st 4.30 and 6.30 and this has been a pattern since then. Tonight he went down at 7.30, fed at 1 and 5 and 6.30 and is now awake watching me type on my phone to you.

It's breaking me and I had a good six week rest. I don't know how you cope long term. I'm going back to work in January and I'm terrified. He won't take w bottle. I tried weaning him on to solids for a week but I don't think his tummy was ready because he started waking up screaming in a god awful way, so I went back to just milk and he stopped the screaming.

He is teething... Nurofen is the only thing that touches it but then after s solid week of nurofen to sleep I started to feel guilty that I would overdose him. I don't even remember if it made a difference to his sleep.

DP is having mental health issues and this isn't helping me look after either of them because I'm fucking shattered so beginning to get irrational. I actually left DP yesterday morning, packed some stuff and left because his illness (I'm hoping it's his illness anyway) made him question our relationship and I couldn't be rational about it with the sleep deprivation

[ThursdayLastWeek]

Oh Twll you poor thing, you're very welcome here.
Sounds like you might have hit the 4mo sleep regression? DS1 slept right though it but this time DS2 was awake for what felt like basically all night every night for a month. Maybe look it up and see if it resonates.

I'm sorry for your DH problems too - think concentrating in yourself and your baby is a sensible course if action.

[Namechanger5432121]

Hey OP, I couldn't seem to see anyone else mention the dreaded sleep regression which supposedly starts at around 6 months (5m for us!) And it is relentless. My first ds was a crap night sleeper from day he was born but my dd was so good at night until she hit 5 and half months and is now up all the time and wide awake where she is laughing and joking around! I am back at work already and it is HARD, I hear you completely!!
My DH has had to come in a few times to whip her out of the room when he has heard me shout 'just go to sleep!' I'm not proud but in that moment I just don't know what to do. I would never do anything other than shout but that in turn then gets her upset then she really won't go to sleep.

We have found that if we bath them both together and then DH will sort ds out for bed, I go into our room and get dd sorted. When he is not around at bedtime, I bath them both thenew ds goes In his to room and looks at books until I have got dd to sleep. I feel guilty that he is sat in his room by himself but it works so I stick with it.

Also 7 months is separation anxiety time. They are learning that you and mum and dad and they do not want you to leave them. I'm not sure if you have noticed any upset during the day if you go in another room? It's hard but you have to try and just be there all the time to reassure them.
Exhausting but we are in it together and posting definitely helps, just to vent how you feel and not be judged I find lifts me a bit.
Sorry for mammoth post!!

[thenewaveragebear1983]

I didn't believe in sleep regression until ds2 but now I'm firmly a believer. There's a book called the wonder weeks as well which is an interesting book about baby brain development and the time Windows when they have the biggest development leaps- the first thing to go is their sleep when they are building up to developments like separation and understanding categories and patterns. It's really interesting

[ImSoVeryTired]

Poor you Twll. I had an ex who was BiPolar and I can imagine how hard it must be to have to deal with mental health issues plus babies. I could never have had a child with him, trying to help him was like having a sulky toddler already ( partly the bipolar and partly just that he was a dick. Took me a while to realise it wasn't just that he was bipolar).
To all you other ladies, hang on in there. All your stories have helped me so much.
Thanks for the tips on calpol. Appreciated.
I also don't know how people cope with more than 1 child. My sister has 2, 2 years apart but they have a much bigger house and space to take a screaming sibling away from the other. Even then, it seems hard. She is so lucky though, her kids get on well. It would be just my luck to have 2 and for them to fight.
I sympathise with all of you struggling to switch off. I do the same. Only I've been going to bed super early for months to try to get enough sleep, as he used to sleep better at the beginning of the night.
Thursday, I did a similar thing last night. On purpose. After 7 wake ups from 6.30 to 9.45 I couldn't face anymore of it so took him into bed with me. He slept on me (or next to me when I could move him) for the whole night till 5.30. I then did my usual hand over to daddy and snuck am extra 2 hours. Baby slept a lot better than me cos I was not comfy but it was still better than the constant up and down. I still feel tired but a darn sight more human today.
I don't want to have to do that every night, he's going to end up getting into bad habits, but I also have to do whatever means we sleep.
I don't know what to do for the best really.

[bumblingbovine49]

Sorry I didn't reply but went offline yesterday after posting. I am sorry for scaring you, I think I was just trying to reassure you that it is survivable. DS didn't wake hourly/two hourly all the time but I have to say he did it a lot in the periods I mentioned. He did have short periods of sleeping better (ie waking once or twice for a quick feed) but they tended to last a few days and then he would backtrack again.

In retrospect, I can see that I was quite depressed (undiagnosed PND I think) and this contributed to the problem in that for the first time in my life, I would have trouble falling back to sleep after being woken up. This meant everything was compounded by not being able to sleep easily even if DS was not crying or upset in any way. If he was awake, I would wake and just not be able to sleep again even if all he was doing was just lying awake/fidgeting etc.

It was a vicious cycle really of anxiety about not being able to sleep and about DS's sleep keeping me awake in the short periods when I could sleep. This then made me more tearful and tired and depressed and so on.

If I could go back I think I would absolutely prioritise dealing with my anxiety about the whole sleep thing and try to "go with the flow" more. This would have been way harder than it sounds I know and I really don't want it to sound like I am saying you are doing anything wrong, as I am definitely not saying that. I do however think that for me, I focussed too much on trying desperately to solve DS's sleep difficulties and not enough time on trying to relax and deal with my anxieties about his sleep (most of which were really about me being a bad mother etc),

I would still have tried things to get him to sleep better but I would have tried to let go of the desperation for it to work and tried to accept that it would pass and in the meantime I needed to get as much sleep as I could whenever I could.

You really are doing well and I hope he does sleep better soon.

[ThursdayLastWeek]

Thanks bumbling, in my rational moments I understand that no phase lasts forever. Thise rational moments are few and far between after about midnight though

How's everyone feeling tonight?

I had to do an extended bedtime with an overtired preschooler this evening, and left DH in charge of DS2. I think he's just forgotten all the progress we made in the last week, because when I came out he was jiggling him unsuccessfully on his knee trying to keep the dummy in the baby's mouth

We swapped.

[ImSoVeryTired]

Good luck tonight Thursday and everyone else.
So far I'm ok. The boy is asleep...... For now. We will see how long that lasts. He napped really well today, so I hope that helps. If he wakes a lot tonight, I may well just have him in bed with me again.
Will be thinking of you all.

[tangledg]

Dreading tonight. DS2 had a video swallow today at hospital (which did not go well as he spluttered and screamed throughout), and has been a nightmare all day. HE WILL NOT STOP CRYING. He's refused his dummy, his milk, when I pick him up he's squirming and arching his back grabbing my hair, pulling it out etc. He's even managed to scratch all my neck an make it bleed. Now don't get me wrong, he's like this usually anyway, but he has not stopped for more than a couple of minutes. I feel totally defeated.

[ThursdayLastWeek]

Oh my goodness tangled that sounds ever so traumatic - mind if I ask what's being investigated? Poor both of you - can you get some drugs into him?

Thanks verytired! Once more unto the breach, dear friends

[user1474026214]

Good luck everyone! Waiting with baited breath for wake up number one...

[ImSoVeryTired]

Poor you Tangled, that sounds horrendous. You have my sympathies. I hope he sleeps better tonight.
I'm on my first wake up, which isn't bad as he slept for about 3 hrs. I, of course, didn't, as I couldn't drop off. I was expecting him to wake any moment. I still got about an hour though so not complaining.
How's everyone else doing?