New SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK thread - are we still here?

[PavlovtheCatthatgottheCremeEgg]

Another thread. My didn't we get full quickly! night sleeping good. Naps...not even 5 mins so far today...

good luck!

ratfly - pu'pd is a form of cc so don't be fooled! it works for some but confused my lo at 4mths. hope it works for you though

evening all, just a quickie. ive only skimmed the posts, but ratfly, dont feel like a failure, it took me about 6/7 months until i felt i was in 'control' and i've been thru it once already. do ask for help if its on offer. i'm a stubborn old cow and people have to literally force themselves on me to get me to accept help. much better to accept it and keep afloat than refuse it/dont ask and feel crap x
tam poor ds, hope he feels better soon. one of those days when you should have stayed in bed heh? x
swizz - keep meaning to ask you how its going now you're back at work?

our naps have only improved recently, and we've been having some really substantial
2 1/2 hr ones, mostly 1 2/2 but today, shes got by on 2 x 30 mins. how does that work then? why do they change so drastically from day to day?

i hope everyone has a peaceful and restful night. sweet dreams

tibs they do it to keep us on our toes!

morning all. cruise how was your night?
we had a brilliant night. put ds to bed at 8 (even though he's slept until 5) and he went to sleep on his own( with me on the bed beside him) playing with his blanket and chattering to himself. Dh came in at 10pm and i'd obviously fallen asleep too! never do that. anyway Dh came to bed and ds didn't wake from 8 until 3.50 for milk then slept until 8am!
that's nearly sleeping through isn't it
apart from the 2 min bottle feed he didn't move an inch all night. I'm sur tonight will be pants but at least i feel well rested today

tam - that's great! my eve was ok. ds woke 45 mins after going to sleep. and screamed and screamed. i tried to do some shh/patting but he was not gonna tolerate that. i got so stressed and wound up that dh went in. he cuddled him, put him in cot - cue more tears ,and stroked his face till he went to sleep. he woke at 2:30, i bf to sleep(30mins later) and he woke at 6:30am..

cruise that doesn't sound too bad. It's good that dh managed to get him to sleep. if it is teeth/growth spurt it'll hopefully only last a few nights. ds was definitely out of sorts last week. they are soooooooooooooooo unpredictable aren't they. x

maddeningly so tam

Helo all!
for all of you who have been making progress. Luck things!
As for us, the weekend has been pretty dreadful. Going down at 7 as usual but then up at least three times a night for 'feeding' - he's not hungry and kind of half heartedly mauls at my chest! But the hugest problem now is that he has been getting up at 4am to start the day and nothing I do will re-settle him This is sooo not acceptable!! I can't function at this time of the am and am finding myself getting really cross with ds2 and saying some horrid things to him. (I wish you'd never been born was a new low last night ) He will fall back to sleep at about 9am - that's after breakfast etc etc. So now my day starts at 4am - great! Does anyone have any suggestions?
Also, out of curiosity are most of your wakeful babies breast or formula fed? I am still breastfeeding and am seriously considering formula feeding him if it would make a difference - or are some babies just wakeful regardless?

hannah - much sympathies - my DS1 has always been an early riser and went through periods of getting up between 4 and 5. Now it's more like 6am but whatever we've tried over the last 5 years nothing has made him sleep past 6am.

On the FF issue - personally I think that some babies are just more alert and wakeful than others - DS2 is still breastfed (14weeks) but DS1 was FF from 12 weeks and it made absolutely no difference to how he slept.

We had rubbish night - up at 10.30, 12, 1.30, 3, 5 then 6. Knackered (wish there was a tired emoticon with big bags under its eyes!)

Katierocket - my sympathies!!
DS1 at 5 still gets up at 6 every am as well - he was always very early to rise but at least he did sleep through which makes it more bearable! 6 am is more or less accepatable to me (god, I never thought that thoses words would come out of my mouth pre-children!!) It's the 4am nonsense that's not good!!
We co-sleep so at 4 he uses me as a plaything and when I put him in his cot with a few little toys to play with instead he becomes inconsolable that he's by himeslf, grrr - can't win!

Well, DS v floppy and lethargic yesterday, had high temp and was only happy clinging too/sleeping on me or DH. Lots of screaming, but finally dozed off on the boob (after feeding/crying/playing on and off for 2 hrs) just after 9pm. We had dosed him up good and he slept through until nearly 8am! He was still clingy and whingy, although less hot, so bf him back to sleep and managed to get him into his cot about 40 mins ago. Feel a bit guilty about the drug-induced sleep, but if he has got a bug I figure he needs the sleep.

Too tired to read any posts but top one,
Maewest sounds like us at mo.My LO the same,really poorly.Had the worst night in months.Hope your LO gets better soon.Zombie mode today.And had mother in law round this morning too! AAARRRGGGGHHHHH.

redbeki - i hope you got her helping out!

Ha,no chance cruise,she's got dodgy knees,so I had to supply her with tea and biscuits!That's this months visit over with though!
Hows your LO sleeping these days,thought you'd cracked it?

sadly we have taken a few backward paces. he has taken to waking 45mins after he goe to bed and will not settle. i hvae tried a bit of shh/pat etc, but to no avail. i tried a bit of leaving, revisiting (cc but very short gaps as i am such a pansy) but he just rolls onto tummy, wedges against cot side and screams. very upsetting and exasperating. find myself getting more and more anxious about it as dd is suffering too with my stress of it all. he wakes once per night (which is aVAST improvement) but has to be bf back to sleep which can take some time. very confused at the moment and dont know what to do next. go with it i guess . more later, gotta get dd from school

My dd did that last night too.She had 45 mins then was wide awake for 3 1/2 hours! she's never done that before.think it's because she's not well.your wee one only waking once in the night,that's good.But I know what you mean about the evenings,that's your time,and when you are used to getting that time before going to bed,it's really annoying when they won't settle.We do need that few hours of the evening to be baby free.When they are newborns it's different,it's constant,but now at 8 months,our time is precious.what to do ,who knows ,but just hope you get your evenings back very soon.Does he sleep long in the day?

Hannah, I bf but I know bf babies that have slept through from about 4 weeks old so don't think that has much to do with it.

Mae, sounds like he needed the drugs. Wouldn't worry about giving them unnecessarily. Babies can go down hill quite quickly with a temperature apparently so good to keep it down.

Cruise, hang in there. Sounds like a blip to me.

Well, DD slept from 7 - 12. I was going to try and resist that feed to but she wouldn't settle so I fed her. Straight back to sleep until 3.00. Brought her into bed because she wouldn't settle. Sleep until 6.30. Doesn't seem too bad. I've set myself a new goal post and that is to stop the night feeds first then get her in her cot. A friend has just gone cold turkey on her LO and she doesn't feed from 7 - 6 now. Apparently after a week of her DH patting the LO she started sleeping. Still too many tears for my liking but she was worse than my DD so now I feel trully on my own. You guys are my only salvation now. Hope you realise how important you are.

Haven't got time to comment on everyones nights but thinking of you all. Hope those suffering the mega three four or five wakings with the younger members of SIFTW are holding up.

redbeki- his naps vary wildly in the day. it can be 2 x 1.5hrs, a couple of 1 hour long ones and then a short 30min around 3.30pm. never can tell. today he did 1hr15 mins this morning, 1hr 30mins before lunch and then another 30min during the school run! that is a lot for him but he obviously needed it. i have no doubt that tomorrow, even in identical circumstancs, they will be different! go figure.... it doesnt seem to make any difference to nights. but then again, they can vary wildly too.
ginger - dont feel abandoned. in a way, though i really hope we all get our nights sorted, as i see familiar names disappearig with wonderous nights i feel quite scared that i will be the last man standing! your night sounds ok. hard to cut the night feeds when you know they do the trick isn't it? everyone keeps telling me that the antidote is to stop bf and move to ff. It really gets on my tits tbh (literally!)wtf do they know? grrrrr

Hello all sorry its been a while.
I should have come back before now, but I have been back at work, and DD has been sleeping through and I was scared you would think I was just gloating.
But, I love this thread. I have found you all so supportive over the last few months so I wanted to come back.

DD is sleeping mostly through the night now. She is like a different baby. Once upon a time I would not dream of going in to check on her at night, but now, I can go in and look and be amazed at her while she sleeps. Day naps have mostly sorted themselves out, although are a bit more hit and miss, mostly 45mins x 2, sometimes 1-2 hour stretches but not often!

However, get this. Friday night. For the first time in a long long time, I go out. I feel confident as DD no longer needs any night feeds and DP can settle her if she wakes now. So, my friend at the last minute gets free tickets to see Paolo Nutini, do I wanna go. 2 hours later I am in wine bar, loverly.
Come home, DD is asleep, as expected. Nice. Have a nice large glass of wine and a late night. 1:30am I am just off to bed, DD wakes up, wont settle. Try PU/PD, not working, give bf, not really interested. Eventually settles, 30 mins later, the same, then again and again. DP is poorly and not able to see to her. And she wakes up at 6:30am. Just to make me into a liar.
I was very unhappy. Really upset, its like she knew I had gone out and was punishing me!

So, there, I can come back.

pav - ha ha! not really . i am sure things will be back to normal before you know it! hope you enjoyed your night out. just remind me of how you got your lo sleeping through.

NOw, I ger very upset if my sleep is disturbed!

She did it herself really, I just provided the structure for her to do it. I kept her routine the same every night after a long period of travelling across the country. I then stopped feeding her before 3am regardless of how she was, as she had an 11pm feed and I really felt by 7months she did not need a night feed. I used PU/PD, and this worked great for about 4-5weeks then she stopped wanting me in the room, and I did a vague gentle version of CC. I let her cry for 10 mins with resolution of going to see her if she cries longer. She never did. Then I was very tired one night and went to sleep before 11:30pm and she woke at 1am, then 2am, and then through the night. Woke on occasion at 4am, but no feed, and sometimes wakes during the night cries a bit and back to sleep.
It seems to be also combined with her teeth coming through and her eating much more, which I think is because her teeth dont hurt so much.

pavlov,sounds like you've cracked it.Brill.
We are at same kind of stage,but my dd still wakes for a bottle at some point during the night,but then goes straight back in cot until 7ish.now she's not well,so routine seems to go out of the window.
Cruise-don't feel pressured to give up breast,but in my case,it worked in settling her at night.I think it does make a difference.But getting up doing a bottle in the night is a right old P.I.T.A.!

Yes, DD is also unwell so woke last night and spent an hour waving at DP!

Hello Pav, how is it being back at work? Glad it's still working

After initially settling DD by sitting by her cot tonight she woke about 30 mins later (as ALWAYS don't know why) and hucked a bit of a wobbly. Had to hold hands so don't know if it's jinxed us, we'll see.

Our naps are so much better than they've ever been. I don't know what has changed but in the last two weeks she's gone from being a hardened 30 min napper to often having a 1 - 1 1/2 hour nap and a 30 minute nap in the day so she naps on average of 1 1/2 to 2 hours in total. I think she could do with a bit more but hey, it's an improvement and I've done nothing. I think all those books that convince you that you've got to do this and that are b@ll@cks. When I did try all those things nothing worked and now I'm not doing anything and she naps! So my advice to anyone now is, don't try too hard.

Anyways, here's to better nights for all