Night time 'bad habits' ... the independent baby sleep - support thread for anyone trying to break baby sleep habits

[Millipede170]

This thread is for anyone who routinely 'helps' their LO to get back to sleep when they wake in the night, would like them to start being more independent, but doesn't relish the thought of CC or CIO. Or maybe you've been there and are out the other side and can share your journey/pearls of wisdom (you could be my new hero). What methods have you tried or come up with? Please share ...

Phew! Back in our home. All going well thanks although there is still a lot of sorting and some painting still to do. DS loves it - much more room here for him to play and explore. I brought his whole cot set-up including his fave pillow, mobile, red nightlight, lullabies ... even cot sheets that he'd slept on for a week. And it's like he never even noticed he's in a totally new room! Which is great.

He's now doing a colossal nap (2.5hrs today) every morning from about 9.30, then a short nap in the afternoon about 3. He's just sort of settled into that routine. I toyed with waking him from the morning nap to encourage a lunchtime nap, you know, like you're 'supposed to'. But he is enjoying it and it's nice for me too, I can get on with things in the morning and then we can go out and about after lunch. Dropping to 1 nap will prob be murder but he'll be at the childminder's soon anyway so he'll find his own way.

Now if DS and DH could both get rid of their coughs, things would be much better. I've been awake since 1am with one or other of them keeping me awake. Honestly, I nearly smothered DH in the night he was so irritating 🙄

Wow! Well done Milli!
We moved house before ds was born and still haven't got it all sorted. I would love ds to have any nap in a cot so I can do some jobs- well I'd love it if I didn't have to help him/ train him! I rocked him to sleep this afternoon because it was pouring rain so couldn't go for a walk, I thought my arms were going to drop off- he's heavy!!

We're still having half an hour of standing and crawling before he "gives in", and lies down and goes to sleep! I don't know whether to try a later bedtime, or stop his afternoon nap at 3 not half past? Or just hope this is a phase and it will pass.... although it's been at least 10 days, but in the middle of that ten days he had a night of 11.30-6.30 which we are desperately trying to replicate!!

I like the new thread title idea, I'm definitely too tired to think about not feeding to sleep at night wake ups.

Morning all, just checking in! Glad the move went well milli

Not much to report here, Dd has been doing 2.5 to 3 hr chunks and the other night did 3 and 4 hrs! (Almost more annoying as it shows she can do it!)

Cot naps are now officially a disaster, she is doing her best sleeps in the car. (Not ideal

Urgh sorry, Dd posted to soon!

Was saying not ideal as she is in car seat but I'm not prepared to wake her when that's the only nap she might have!

On the plus side I am starting to just shush and stroke her arm on the early wake ups to help her settle herself in the cot and not be fed/rocked.
That seems to be working ok so far so hoping when the time comes I'll be able to extend that to swap the feeds.

We're going away this weekend and she normally refuses to go in a travel cot so will see what she thinks this time!
Wish me luck!

Hello all,

good luck this weekend Chipmunk!

DS has been sleeping part of the night in his cot this week, which is a success.

Scottish do you have a sling? Then you could get on with some jobs while he naps on you.

I'm too tired to rtft right now but I will... Am commenting now in the hope you'll let me join in and to remind myself to return when I'm not aching with exhaustion.

My DD is 15 weeks and I am seriously hoping that what she is doing now qualifies as the 4 month sleep regression as I don't think I can hack it getting any worse than this. Tonight she slept from about 7.30-11.30 pretty well, at which point I dream fed her and went to bed myself. She was awake again by 1.30. I fed her again. 2.50 and she was up again, seeming wide awake. In exhaustion, I fed her again, hoping if she had enough milk she would just conk out. It worked for 10 minutes. By 3.30am I was literally lying in bed crying. Not long after I gave up and got up with her. Have been sitting in the cold dark living room ever since, and she's not long gone back to sleep in her sleepyhead. I know there are four straight hours between 7.30 and 11.30 but no matter how bad the day or night has been, I am simply not tired at 7.30pm. It's also super noisy where I live, so going to bed at that hour just isn't going to work for me. The 'I'm awake for an hour and a half despite not being hungry and it being 3am' is a once every few nights special treat but every night is a minimum of 3 post-midnight wake ups.

Tell it to me straight, is it going to get worse before it gets better? I'll be back to read through and hopefully glean some wisdom...

My huge, huge sympathies to everyone else in the throes of sleep deprivation .

Welcome mikesh!

Dc1 was a pretty good sleeper as a tiny baby and at four months it all went to pot. Dc2 on the other hand was always a terrible sleeper and nothing changed at four months. It sounds like your lo is in the latter category so hopefully it won't get worse for you. Has she always been this bad or has it got worse recently? The other thing is that sleep regressions apparently go by due date not birth date so if your dd was overdue then she might have already started it. Could you try co sleeping? That's how we survived.

Ps we had a good night, ds slept in his cot until 5.30am! This is unprecedented. Unfortunately that was him up for the day. Oh well clocks go forward tomorrow so that would be 6.30am.

Morning all, sorry I've been a bit absent. Welcome mikesh, I too joined the thread after my DD hit the 4 month sleep regression. After an absolutely horrendous start to the week, we've actually had 2 nights of sleeping through. 8pm-5am!!! Might go to pot again tonight but I'm enjoying it while I can. Only difference being, I introduced some purées/baby porridge. She's 24 weeks so nearly 6 months & is up on the 91st centile on milk alone. Anyway, I'm sure there's some correlation.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Hi all, welcome mikesh and hugs to you - the time around 4 months is absolute murder (4-6 months in my experience, sorry) you are not alone. I agree with Lotis you need to do whatever works best to get some sleep at this point. I stupidly agreed to move DS out of our room around that point, which meant more sleep for DH 🙄 but I was out of my bed more than I was in it I think. I would do that differently if I had my time again. We also got DS into using a dummy at 4 months, gently holding it in his mouth while we rocked him to sleep. It really did help him to settle. Does yours take a dummy?

I think really the mantra at 4 months is 'sleep, by day, by night, by any means necessary'. I underestimated how much daytime sleep I should be aiming for at that age - during the day I think I tried to keep DS up too long between sleeps. If your LO is awake more than 1-1.5hrs at a stretch it's probably too much. When the nights are so unsettled she will be knackered just like you, I think it's just a time for feed, a little playtime/cuddles then change nappy and back to bed (or out in the pram/sling if that works for you). Rinse, repeat. What are your days looking like currently?

Glad to hear some progress in amongst the shite! MrsE 2 sleepthroughs?! 😆 I am literally excited for you!! Lotis the stretches of sleep in the cot are a massive improvement on where you were a couple of weeks ago!

Scottish are you going to try playing with your DS's nap schedule? Mine did a 2.5hr lunchtime nap the other day and that was it for the day. He then slept in til 7.30 which is almost unheard of around here. Could be a one-off but all I'm saying is it's worth experimenting every now and then!

Chipmunk I'm with you in travel cot roulette tonight. Can't imagine it will go well but sometimes he surprises me!

Have a good weekend everyone. A hug to all mamas and babies 😀

Morning.
Just a quick one to report that the cot has been ok.
But... It's an old fashioned wooden drop side travel cot so has proper bars and a proper mattress!
Not that I'm complaining!
Last night had only 3 wakes at 10.15, 2 and 5.15. She is obviously benefitting from fresh air, swimming and shorter naps!

DS did astonishingly well in the travel cot too. Went down with no fuss at all and only 1 wake up! Amazing. I wake up hideously early though these days even if he doesn't - like, 5.15 this morning. Urgh. Is that a Mum thing? Does that pass???

Happy Mothers' Day everyone x

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

Good news on the travel boys ladies and the better sleeping. We didn't have a third night of sleeping through but only one wake up at 4, fed easily and settled straight back until 7. So still can't complain!

DS's Mother's Day gift to me ... slept through the night. Properly. 7 til 7. First time ever.

Let's see what happens tonight... 😉

Hello, and thanks for the welcome. Hope you all had a nice time for mothers' day with good sleep all round. Millipede that is a great gift! Fingers crossed for it being replicated tonight.

To answer a few questions.... She is never awake more than 1.5 hours. I generally take note of the time whenever she wakes up and then get her back down for a nap after 1.5 hours. Often, this happens with little or no intervention from me, she just gets tired at that point. The 1.5 hours is something I've picked up on rather than decided on if that makes sense. At night she sleeps in her sleepyhead inside the cot, and will happily sleep there, or in the buggy or carseat or in my arms during the day. I have been working on trying to get her to take longer naps lately, as they are typically only around 45 minutes. I've had some success sitting quietly next to her and waiting for her to stir, but I can't do it at every nap or I would literally get nothing else done! Her natural preference for a 45 minute nap means there are at least 4 of them in the day. My instinct is it would be better to have one less nap but have each of them (or one of them?) longer but I'm not sure how to get there...

The nights are tricky too. I know there are various things to try but they all require effort and willpower and I am not so strong willed at 3/4/5am. If it were truly awful all the time I suppose I would find some strength from somewhere but some of the time it is OK. But the line between OK and weeping in bed with exhaustion, it turns out, is a thin one.

Some questions for you post-4 months sleep experts...

I'm currently dream feeding her right before I go to bed myself, around midnight usually. This used to mean she would stay asleep til around 4am and then again until 7.30 or 8. That was a very manageable setup. Am I doing myself no favours continuing to dream feed at this point?

Does anyone else's DC sometimes just wake up at a time that is not morning by anyone's calculation (e.g. 3/4am) and just decide to be awake and full of beans? It is this that makes my heart truly sink when it happens. I know it will be an hour and a half until she is tired again. I endeavour to make those 90 minutes as un-fun as is possible, with only the barest minimum of interaction. The fact that it only happens maybe once a week puzzles me. Any insights would be welcomed!

Hi mikesh. The amazing sleep-through night wasn't replicated unfortunately, but things are still the best they have been with DS - and particularly for me as I've stopped bf'ing at night so DH has no excuse but to help during the night!

Re naps, we were on 4x 45 min naps for bloody ages. We tried sitting with him and pinning him down 'holding through the jolts' to try and get through to a second sleep cycle, walking with him in the sling, driving ... all worked to get him sleeping a longer nap but the second we stopped doing it and left him to it he'd be wide awake again at 45 mins (which became 30 mins at about 7 months - urgh). In short nothing stuck. Eventually he just started cranking out long naps all by himself, but I think it also helped that I put blackout blinds up in his room (www.easyblindsonline.co.uk - seriously, they're a revelation).

I totally hear you about losing your nerve in the early hours of the morning, and honestly, at this age I think you should just be doing whatever gets you both back to sleep as quickly and for as long as possible. Otherwise you'll just be making yourself more exhausted for no reason. I promise whatever your DD wants in the night now, will be totally different in 2 months' time. Then you can maybe start tackling it. By all means, if you are feeding her to sleep, try periodically putting her back down awake and see how she takes it. But be kind to yourselves because this is a shit time and you need to rest - can't keep pouring from an empty cup, or whatever it is they say.

I never dream fed so I can't really comment on that one. I know some people say it can be hard to drop a dream feed but I don't personally see what the problem is 🤔

And finally, yes the early dawn wakeups are the devil. The only way I have ever dealt with them is to get to DS as fast as possible (ie before he has fully woken) and feed him back down. I'm not proud of that but it's the only thing, short of full-on sleep training, that I have found works. Just one thing, have you checked the temperature in her room at that time? I did find it would get really chilly in our house around that time and DS's hands were freezing.

And I meant to say, feeling beastly miserable when you've had a rotten night is totally normal and a good howl in the shower followed by a strong coffee is ok. But please do talk to your hv if you're feeling blue/alone/jittery/resentful more often than not. I probably should have asked for help for PND at certain points but I didn't, and I regret it now because I have wasted parts of our first year feeling so low x

Hi all,
This is the fourth message I've started then the page has reloaded, so Hi!! And I'll catch up properly tomorrow, sending sleepy vibes xx

Welcome mikesh - I would say it's lovely to have you here but I suspect we would all rather not be on this thread!! Still it's good to talk to everyone

I dream fed mine for months, just keep going if it works for you - I eventually dropped it when it didn't seem to be making too much difference. Mine now wake if they want some milk but sometimes (very occasionally!) sleep through.

And I second what Milli says about it being fine to feel rubbish the morning after a crap night!! If there's anyone who could help you occasionally so you can have an extra nap, please take them up on it - I don't and really miss that, wish I had some family close by. OH's family are nearby but are rubbish at getting the boys to nap when they need to so I dread leaving them there, always get them back either not tired at bedtime or massively overtired; had to reach a compromise of only leaving them there when it's not nap time…..

Mine are pretty much the same - one or two wake ups per night for milk - but going 8.30pm ish to 7am ish 'asleep' (I would say in bed but usually in our bed for at least part of the night!). I am absolutely shattered though and can't shake off the sniffles - think 18 months with no full night's sleep is catching up with me

Morning all, sounds like all the little ones are doing a bit better with only a couple of wake ups. We're still doing pretty well I have to say. Feeding at 11ish then going until about 4/5.

In answer to your question about dream feeding mikesh. We did it and it worked when DD was really little (initially cluster feeding so when that stopped I started the dream feed). Then at about 3.5 months the dreamfeed failed to make much difference so we stopped. However, the last few nights she's started to disturb about 11 so I've fed her. She had one night being wide awake and then last night she pretty much slept through it.

Hello..

Thanks for the welcome & encouragement & insights. Things have not been as bad as that night since and, as usual, I have reverted to pretty much doing what we've been doing and not worrying too much. It's only when things get terrible that I am spurred on to change something. But then I'm too knackered to think about it properly, much less implement any changes. And so the vicious cycle continues. I do think your point, Millipede about things changing so quickly is a good one. Perhaps it just isn't worth too much concerted effort at this stage.

SleepyMrsE and RubySlippers, how old are your DC? My DD is approaching 4m, and I'm wondering if the dream feed is doing anything much for her these days. I have no problem keeping doing it - it's probably the easiest one of the day for me - but I wonder if it's possible that I'm actually bringing her back to a level of wakefulness that then sets the tone for the rest of the night. There are just so many variables it is hard to determine what led to or influenced what else!

To those who co-sleep (or have done so), have you had any success starting this at / around 4 months? As a newborn, I wasn't comfortable having her in the bed. Mostly (selfishly) because we live in a freezing old flat with single glazed windows and I needed my huge wintery duvet, which would not have been safe. Now Spring is here, and she is bigger, I feel better about the safety aspect, but I'm not sure DD is on board. She thrashes around and doesn't seem all that comfortable if I fail to return her to her bed after breastfeeding.

And the naps... Like you Millipede I've had some success trying to help her get into a second sleep cycle. Everything I've read says that after a week or so they should start doing this on their own. Nothing to indicate that that's going to happen here. Left to her own devices, it's 45 minutes almost to the minute, 9 times out of 10. When did the longer naps eventually start for you? It's not that the 45 min ones are so much of a problem for me, I suppose the only frustrating this is how much of the day I spend a. putting her down for naps and b. doing calculations of 45 + 90 + 45 etc etc.

Finally (sorry this is so long) I've been wondering if she is not getting enough food during the day and so compensating at night... I cannot get her to eat for more than 10 mins during the day, often only 7-8 mins. I try to keep things as unstimulating as possible and we are mostly just at home with no-one else here so it's not hard to do! It's so hard with breastfeeding to know what she's actually consumed! Her weight gain is right on track so I'm not worried that she's not getting enough... Just wondering what to do in that case?! Again, books suggest increasing daytime feeding... how??

Hi mikesh

I suppose it's possible she's not feeding enough in the day but it's very difficult to do anything about that until you start weaning (and don't be tempted to do that early in order to get her to sleep, it doesn't work, immature gut etc leads to stomach discomfort at night). You can try keeping her focused with a toy or something brightly coloured to stop her unlatching because of distractions, offer feeds frequently, and do breast compressions. But beyond that I don't know what else to suggest. Has she always fed as frequently during the night or have the wakeups increased over the past month? My DS went from 2 nightly feeds at 3 months to 6(!) at 4 months - I don't think it was just hunger, it was also developmental changes, mental alertness and his inability to settle himself back into sleep that made him crave the boob!

You mentioned in your post that you've been reading up on baby sleep. I'm the same - have read everything I reckon. I get pissed off though with most books that claim to be the authority on sleep. The one book I actually like is called 'teach yourself baby sleep' by Andrea Grace. It distils the main info about sleep and the main sleep training techniques without bias, and gives case studies which I think are extremely useful. I got a copy for about a pound on eBay I think.

My DCs are 17m (twin boys) and tbh the only reason they don't sleep through is because they're hungry….. they're certainly tired enough as they barely wake up for their milk, but as they do around 10oz each overnight I think they still need it!

I bottle fed so can't help much with the breast feeding queries (although would/ could you try adding a bottle feed in there too? If nothing else it would mean someone else could do the feeding and you could have a break!!), but if you think the dream feed helps, keep it until you change your mind - from memory we dropped ours at about 6 months. There's an app called Baby Tracker you could use to measure naps to see if there's any patterns, but the main thing that helped with mine was to find regular groups to go to and try to get them into morning and afternoon nap routines (around an hour at 10am and 2pm). We're just coming out of that into one longer nap per day.

Like Milli I read loads of books about sleep (but not the Andrea Grace one!) - none of them helped much. The best advice I had was to tire them out and feed them as much as possible before bedtime; the tiring out is easier than the feeding up for me, my boys are enormous and like to eat lots!!

Could you try extending the naps by popping your LO in the pram and walking for an hour or so - or driving if the weather's not great?

Braced for a grim night here. DS still has his cough and cold, and now conjunctivitis in both eyes and threw up all his supper He's so unsettled poor lamb. If he's still as bad in the morning we'll be off to the GP.

[Although at our surgery you have to queue for a same-day appointment and it's dog-eat-dog; there's no "oh let's let your baby go in front of the queue" around here!!]