Loosing the will to live 🙁

[Katietay7]

This is my first time posting so apologies if if I waffle on a bit!

My DS is 9 and half months old and ha's got to have some kind of weird baby insomnia! He has never slept through a night, ever! He almost made it through at about 4/5 months old but then things started going horribly wrong 🙁 he sated waking up literally every 10 -15 minutes every night from start to finish. He goes to sleep at 7:30 in his cot, and he normally has a good 2 or 3 hours without waking but after that it just carnage! He's not teething, it's not separation anxiety because sometimes I get so exhausted with getting in and out of bed I just put him in with me and the DH but he still waked constantly, I've been through every possible cause with my HV and we are still no closer to solving our problem.

Since going back to work in February it's got so much harder, on myself and my DH and DD. If anyone has any suggestions at all it would be very much appreciated! Il try anything.

Thanks for reading!

What happens to get him from fully awake to fully asleep at bedtime and naptime?

How are his daytime naps? How often and for how long?

Whenever he wakes up he just usually cries and we put his dummy in and tuck him back in, although just recently when he wakes he pulls him self up in his cot which makes it harder to settle him . Half the time he'll go back to sleep OK but other he'll just be awake for ages so we have to put him in with us for cuddles to settle again, but as I said, still wakes continuously.

If he has woke earlier than usual he will have a 20 min nap after his 10am bottle (breakfast is at 8) but if he wakes at a normal time, say like 7ish he wI'll nap after his lunch which is at around 12:30 usually for around an hour. It's hard because if he does the morning nap he starts getting tired at around 5:30 - 6pm. If he skips that morning nap he is usually fine.

But no matter how he naps it never makes a difference to his night time sleeps

What did you'd with dd to get her to sleep through?
Personally it sounds like he has learnt that if he wakes up he gets to go in with you. Are you worried about him waking up dd?

She slept through from around 3 months without any problems.
Buy if it was that wouldn't he settle after being in with us as apposed to waking still? I don't know, because even in with us he can still get to a point of being inconsolable like in his cot, he doesn't usually as her room is quite far away from ours.

Why can't he put his own dummy in? At 9 months he should be able to. Is it that he struggles to find his dummy? I sew a ribbon onto the chest of out sleeping bags with a press stud at the end. That means dummy can always be found quickly and easily.

I would also suggest he's significantly exhausted and over tired. An well rested baby finds is easier to go to sleep, sleeps deeply and do wake a less frequently. An over tired baby will find it harder to go to sleep and then once asleep their sleep is fretful and light, so waking up much mo're easily.

9 months is very early to drop to 1-nap per day. The average is 18 months (my youngest was 22 months) for dropping to 1-nap per day.

For comparison, while no babies are the same, at 9 months my DD was sleeping 11 hours at night plus two 2h naps per day.

Just 1h as a single nap is not much daytime sleep any way. But if you add in the fact that his nights sleep is also broken and not restorative, I would suggest he needs a lot more daytime sleep. Chronic exhaustion may be the cause of him having so much difficulty settling into a deep sleep.

Could you have a focus on as much sleep as poss, any how and anywhere you can make it happen.

Why not push his bedtime back a bit? My 15 month old has been going to bed at 6.30 for months now - I find there's no difference in her waking time (6.30-7.15am) if she goes to bed any later. She gets tired at about 5ish too so we have dinner time at 5.30, bath time at 6, massage and bedtime for 6.30.

Hey I agree with the op try more sleep in the day. My 13 mo dd still has around 3 hours sleep in the day usually a morning nap and afternoon nap. She also goes to bed around 6.30, although (I think) with the lighter nights is taking a bit longer to settle down at night. I've found through a bit of trial and error especially when she was younger that the earlier she went to bed the better she slept. After 7pm she's usually overtired and takes longer to settle down.

In response to the dummy thing, I know it sounds strange but I don't think he wants to settle back down, it's like he refuses to, sometimes he will wake and cry with his dummy still in! He's capable of doing it throughout the day if it comes out though.

He is quite exhausted and grumpy a lot of the time but getting him to nap during the day can be just as hard as keeping him asleep at night, he will fight his naps for ages! Today for instance he was in his cot crying (along with me!) For about 40 min! There was no getting him to settle he just kept getting up. I even tried laying him on my bed with me and that didn't work either 😕 we have tried to get him to nap more frequently during the day as my HV suggested but as I said to her, he just seems to hate sleep 🙁

As for pushing his bed time back a bit, we have tried earlier and later bedtimes but it doesn't seem to make a difference. Yesterday he was exhausted after refusing to nap more than 30 mons during the day which resulted in a 6oclock bedtime as he just couldn't stay awake, only he was wide awake by 8pm and we didn't manage to get him to sleep until 10pm. He has dinner at 5, bath at 6 then a bottle at 7 with cuddles and a story/lullabies ect.. he has a very peaceful happy and sleepy routine for bed, it's just after that when we struggle 😢

I know this sounds really daft (and don't take it personally) but are you sure he doesn't want you to leave the room? One night a while ago my daughter was really upset crying (overtired) I was trying to comfort her before she went to sleep, she was getting more and more upset, I left the room to see if she could settle for a moment and as soon as the door clicked shut she went silent and was asleep in 2 minutes! That told me!

Aww I wish it was that easy! Definitely isn't that, we've tried leaving him to it thinking we might be distracting him, and also tried out 3 different styles of controlled crying

I'm not really sure but just wondering if it's worth picking one approach and sticking with it for a couple of weeks?? I wondering if trying too many different approaches is impacting on his uncertainties when waking??

You could be writing about my DS1 at that age. I really feel for you, it's so hard especially once you're back at work.

I've got 3 DS and I honestly think some kids just sleep better than others m, you're not doing anything wrong. He will get better but for now you need to find ways to survive it.

First thing is, as you and pp have said is that he's over tired. Does he sleep in the car? I would drive for hours with DS1 because he slept, likewuse walks in the buggy. if you can start to get him to catch up on sleep you'll see an overall improvement. At this point don't worry about creating bad habits, do whatever it takes to solve the immediate problem and worry about everything else later.

How much is he eating? Could he be hungry? Does he still have a night feed? If not you could try giving him milk when he wakes up after his 'good' stretch. Another thing we tried was introducing supper. We gave DS weetabix before his bath.

Have you got any family or close friend who would have him overnight? My mum would take DS overnight every couple of weeks, it absolutely saved my sanity. It's amazing how much better you feel after even 1 nights decent sleep.

Oh OP you poor soul, this sounds like torture. My lowest point with my son was a bit younger than this caused by not napping resulting in some pretty awful nights from being over tired. We ended up getting him to nap outside in his buggy (in secure garden). It worked a treat as strapped in so couldn't move and he seemed to sleep well with the fresh air and background noise. If it's an option for you, maybe worth a try. Good luck xx

I feel your pain. My DS was waking every 45 mins at 8 months. Within a week of stopping withdrawing his sleep prop (dummy) and sorting his naps and gradual withdrawal and he was sleeping through.

He needs to nap. He's just massively overtired.
Sort the daytime naps and the night sleep will follow.
Put him down 1.5-2hrs after he wakes in the morning. Ideally in his cot
Put him down 2-2.5hrs after he wakes from his first nap. Do anything to make him nap like others said. Pushchair or car anything to start so he forms a habit of those times if Day.

Then early bedtime 6-6:30pm as again he's overtired.
You said he's popping awake after 2/hrs that's because he thinks you've put him down for his 2nd nap. He's telling you he needs more naps. My DS went up to having 3 naps some days when we started solving the overtiredness.

As he's settling well in cot at night and once he isn't overtired you may be ok to keep the Dummy if his sleep gets better but I fear it might have to go.

Thanks blossom, every approach we've tried we've always tried over a period of time that enough for us to be able to see a difference, 2 -3 weeks it most cases and some longer!

I'm glad to hear that someone has been through something similar! Don't mean to sound awful but it's nice to know I'm not on my own with this. I've now resigned myself to the fact that this is it now, this is how he will always be! So knowing it will get better is a huge weight off my shoulders! When he naps it's either in his cot or in his pram but any way he naps it never lasts long enough.

He has a really good feeding routine, 3 meals, 3 bottles and healthy snacks in between. When we try him with a bottle at night he's just not interested 😕 so I don't think it's hunger.

My parents have him the odd night if we need them too and my husband is great we tend to take 2 nights each at a time.

So by the sounds of it its all in the naps! Il definitely try getting him to nap more and see how it goes 🙂

I agree with Ladylolly. You need to establish a strict routine/pattern as she has outlined. Alternatively you could wake/get him up at the same time every day and go with set nap times. Say;

Up at 7am
Nap 1 at 9am
Nap 2 at 1pm
Bedtime at 7pm

No matter how long he sleeps at naps you stick to this routine. Then within that you have a naptime routine. Nappy, sleep sack, bottle, cuddles, dummy, bed. Or whatever combo works for you. Same at night. Strict, same order for everything routine. Keep it calm, quiet and consistent.

I think you should ditch the dummy. But that's my personal opinion. They may help get babies to sleep, but my DSs both woke frequently searching for them and their sleep improved when the dummy was gone.

DS2 is a really poor sleeper, and 9 months old. I've done all of the above and finally got him mostly napping for 45 mins to an hour in the morning and 1.5 hours in the afternoon. We go with 7.30 bedtime and often don't have a wake up til well after midnight. This is a massive difference to the constantly waking and boobing to sleep if 6 weeks ago. We'll be trying controlled crying in the next few weeks as it's clear DS2 can't self settle. When he comes out of a sleep cycle too far he needs rocked, fed, patted to sleep. But it's the last thing we'll be doing to consolidate all the consistent routine and pattern we've been establishing.

So yesterday he had his usual 10am nap (a whole 2 hours laid on my husband!) after his bottle, then had his semi-usual nap after his 2:30 (just over an hour) I was so superseded he napped for ages because he's never napped that long but her had a pretty bad night the night before...

However, although we thought napping more throughout the day would make him sleep better at night... it didn't this time 😒 he went to sleep at 7pm, woke at 10, 10:20, 10:50, 11:10, 11:30... screamed for about 1 hour, went back to sleep, then woke again at 2:15, 2:45, 3:50, 4:15, then wanted to be awake at 6 🙁 had his bottle this morning at 9 and just crashe! He's been asleep since... I want to cry! 😢 I'm so tired

although we thought napping more throughout the day would make him sleep better at night...

You need to do this consistantly for a few weeks to see any benefit. One day/night will not have much of an effect.

Sorry if your expectations were wrong there. You need to do this level of napping consistantly, every day, for several weeks.

Your baby sounds significantly overtired after an extended period of not getting enough sleep. It's not going to be solved in one day. Your baby needs a lot more sleep, every day, say in day out, week after week. In time he'll catch up and stop feeling so exhausted.

Just keep going.

Yesterday was fantastic. Well done (you and your DH) on amazing process for your baby's sleep. Keep doing more of the same