The great non-sleepers... continued (again 😴)

[Jellybean2017]

New thread for night (and daytime!) chatter for those awake more than they'd like with a non sleeping baby/child 😊

My DS is six months. First baby likely to be only baby if I don't start getting more sleep! He is a nap and sleep fighter but incredibly cute so I choose to forgive him 😂

Thanks. DS was 9 weeks early and was in the NICU for a month, he's been quite poorly the last few months and has needed a blood transfusion for severe anaemia. He's a bit better now but I was having severe anxiety about going to work so my OH decided he would rather work overtime and let me take extended leave until the end of the year. He does work very hard for us all but when I'm at the point where I can't even lift a water glass for shaking so much, you'd think he'd let me have a bit of sleep.
I just don't think he understands what it's like to literally never switch off. Since he was born, my mum has had him for an hour while I've had a hospital appointment and that's it, the total time we've been apart. He won't take milk in a sippy cup, he just finds it hilarious

Sorry to hear this @Worlds0kayestmum I thought it was just my AH that didn't get it but after following this thread I've realised its a lot of men just don't understand how awful the sleep deprivation is.

How is your lo doing with weaning? Does he drink water from a cup?

Will your OH really not even help out over a weekend maybe when he doesn't have work the next day? Just to see if he can settle baby without you needing to feed him.

I had gone back to work when Ds1 was 9 months, he never took a bottle either but he survived without my boobs for the 5 hours a day I was at work. (He drank water and loves his food, usually have him porridge to fill him up)

At 10 months you should be able to get a few hours free for yourself, can your mum or a friend have lo?

@londonfeather my ds2 is 5 months and an awful sleeper, never slept thorough or for more than 4 hours in one go. The sleep regression is an absolute bitch, his coincides with illness too and he ended up in my bed and now I can't get him out of it!
He doesn't even really sleep that much better in my bed than his cot it just means I don't have to get out of bed to feed him, it's been a life saver and the only way I can get any sleep but it's killing my back and I'm so worried he will be in my bed forever!

We had a bad night last night, I think because he had some formula yesterday and he's not used to it, he's been trumping all night long and squirming around shouting and whacking me in the face.

We have no plans today at least and AH is off work so he might let me nap.

Happy Sunday everyone hope you have a nice day.xx

@worldsokayestmum I think utterlyconfused is right, there's no way our AH DH's can ever really understand. I hope you manage some rest today.

DH and I are shattered, DS2 woke every 1h45 with his cough and would only be settled with boob. I spent most of the night going between feeding him to camping on poorly DS1'S floor so DH was up every wake up too. He is so tired and has not even done half of what I did the previous night, he's being a trooper getting breakfast and coffees now while I sit with the kids.

Typically DS1 is feeling loads better now and full of beans. And to add insult to injury DS2 hasn't wanted a feed yet either! Now we're all in quarantine - at least we have snow to play in.

No, he won't do any of the night stuff because his job is too important for him to be tired apparently. To some extent I don't mind doing it because he does work very hard and long days but I resent him making the assumption that he has it harder than me because I get to 'sit around a lot' during the day. DS is lovely but very full on and extremely clingy, he doesn't like being on his own and although I'm working on being able to leave him to play on the floor without me being next to him, and he's improving, it's still mentally draining.

He's doing ok with weaning, the anemia wiped out his appetite so it's only recently that he's started to eat and if we are out and about he can go around 6 hours without a feed from me which is good.

We moved when I was pregnant so there isn't really anyone around who can have him for me to be honest. I can ask my mum but she lives an hour away and is dealing with my long term ill sister so I don't like to ask. My OH would look after him if I asked but would make me feel guilty about not wanting to spend time as a family (despite him regularly going fishing) and honestly, I don't know what I would do with myself because I don't know anyone round here.

It will be fine, I just need some sleep!!

Right everyone
I have some GROUND Breaking news. After 24 weeks, last night, DH did the night - the whole night with DD2!
Guess who slept like a dead person from 9pm :-)!
I asked him to do the dream feed for the first time in weeks; he agreed and then when she woke up at 2am he just moved into her room (we have a single bed in there which I sleep in) and just stayed there doing the dummy drops all night...

@worldsokayestmum
Welcome! It sounds like you have it tough. I can sympathise a lot with what you are saying. My husband and I work in a similarly demanding job; when I went back to work after maternity leave with DD1, I was working very hard, earned a big bonus, was regularly flying back and forth to the US on a huge project and being a big swinging dick etc. Nobody but nobody gave a flying fuck if I had been up all night with a poorly baby or that I was sometimes doing conference calls while feeding a baby etc.
However; DH apparently has a “stressful” job and must get his sleep and rest on the weekends (my old fashioned mother in law was explaining this to me when I complained to her that DH normally does fuck all with the kids). That fact that my job brought in as much money as him and that it too was as high profile as his....well it didn’t matter because I’m a woman.
I have sadly grown to accept this; and learn to adapt to doing as much as I can without dropping balls.
Sorry for the long rant.
I too moved to this area when pregnant. Baby groups have been really good to get adult company and make friends locally; have a try - it’s good fun...

@Utterlyconfused wow you are amazing to be juggling so much, I'm bloody lucky to be at home because I just wouldn't be able to function at work at the moment. I do, perversely, miss my identity of being at work.

I've made a few friends from baby groups which is nice, but nobody yet I feel confident to invite out for a few drinks and a bemoaning of our OH's session

Well after his all day sesh on Friday, yesterday was spent with him being a total martyr!
I adore DH but Jesus he winds me up sometimes, the tiredness certainly doesn't help!

....and we're not napping this morning either. Ds2 has a right bee in his bonnet about something today.
Tangry. So Tangry 😩

Another pretty bad night for us yesterday. He is really fighting his naps just lately and waking way too early at 5.30! We are out watching DH play sport this afternoon and I've actually managed to rock DS to sleep so I'm enjoying tea and chocolate in the bar as my reward 😂

So we've still got crap naps & multiple night wakings.. dd has how added into the mix... refusing to feed.

Sorry I know it's off topic, but does anyone else have any experience of this? She's ebf. 15 weeks yesterday.. she does have silent reflux, but it doesn't bother her enough to medicate. She keeps down most of her feeds & is gaining weight fine. Just recently though she's started screaming & arching her back at feeds even though it's been 3 hours since last feed.. usually she eats every 1.5 to 2 hours. Now it's a struggle to get her to eat much at all during the day.. we're talking 2/3 minutes every 3/4 hours then screaming.I've tried changing breasts, feeding in a quiet dark doom, walking around feeding her but nothing works. So far at bedtime & through the night she feeds fine, and it's not even day she does it.

This on top of the sleep deprivation is grinding me down. It feels like a complete rejection & I don't know what else to try! I've not had her weighed in nearly a month.. taking her Tuesday but I'm scared they'll say she's stopped gaining or worse lost weight!

Bleh. Motherhood is crazy difficult

Hi @DiscombobulatedWomble u has this very similar with ds1, ds2 does it every now and again too. I don't know what the answer is but my HV told me it could be that their face or ear hurts from teething and to try a different position. Whether that's what it was or not I don't know but I tried lying in the bed with ds1 and he then fed like he hadn't eaten in a week lol.

I hope you find what's up with your lo soon, it's so distressing when they won't eat, especially BF because you feel like they don't want you but I'm sure that's not the case!xx

DS is fighting sleep. His eyes are dropping so I think he's going and then boom he's wide awake.
My watch said I had 1hr 50mins deep sleep last night. I'm hoping for an improvement tonight

I feel like I'm about to break and ask DH to do controlled crying. Whenever I go in now, she just wants me and won't go back to sleep. But during the day with white noise she will go to sleep next to me and I sneak off. I've totally mucked this up haven't I?

Frozenmargarita I found it has taken 4 or 5 weeks of really working on daytime naps before there was even a slight improvement in nighttime sleep. That was before teething mucked it up so I'm hopeful to get back to 1 or 2 wakeups

See I have no idea what it is that makes her sleep well. She has 3 hours of naps in the day. I can't get her to have any more. And by the time she wakes up from her last one it's too late to have any more. Arghhhhh

I have started waking DS in the morning to make sure we have enough time to fit the naps in. It feels crazy and means I have to wake up if he hasn't woken me but he is much happier around naps in the day. Not sure if it is the right thing to do but might be worth a try? I started off trying it for 2 weeks but am going to stick with it.

@tealandteal
I have to wake up DD2 in the mornings by 7, to fit in around DD1 breakfast and then the preschool run. It works much better for naps....

She wakes up at that sort of time anyway. I think any earlier and I'd be a dead woman. Dh trying to say I'll be back at work soon and what will I do then. I asked if he was going to get up in the night and do controlled crying then and he was like no the night is different just do whatever then. I had to tell him you have to be consistent. It's like he thinks if we put her down and ignore her she will magically start to sleep through.

Goodness me DS is totally wired... his little legs are going like mad - he is lying here next go me on the sofa, I was feeding him but he’s al over the place and won’t calm down. I was watching Boolyn but have turned it off otherwise I’m never going to get him to sleep. He’s not slept a lot today, lately he’s been going to sleep around 7-8pm so I don’t know what happened... could be a long night...

DiscombobulatedWomble sounds so difficult. I don't know how I would feel if ds stopped feeding, it must be worrying. www.laleche.org.uk/nursing-strikes/ this might help, they also have a helpline that I found very useful when we had problems establishing feeding. I know someone whose little boy went on a nursing strike for a week, but they got through it. Hope he starts feeding soon.

Good luck everyone, hope you get good nights.

She's not settled tonight. I just don't know if I can sleep train. While she doesn't need feeding in the night, I don't want her to learn that if she cries I won't come. It feels so mean. She's 8 months and I keep trying to google and some website are talking about how it's cruel, or that she SHOULD be sleeping from 4 months. When in fact, 4 months was when it all went to pot.

DH thinks she won't learn herself, and that it's up to us as parents to 'teach' her. But all I think she will learn is to not cry :( which while I would get more sleep, I don't want her to learn that. DH also keeps saying about when I go back to work. Anxiety is high.

I think I've inadvertently sleep trained my LO for naps.

He used to nap on me most of the time but it got to a point I was sick of being stuck on the sofa and it was becoming more of a fight every nap time.

So I started putting him in his snuzpod in the living room with his dummy, a comforter, a blanket and the white noise on.

At first it took anywhere between 10 and 40 minutes for him to fall asleep but at least I wasn't getting kicked and scratched and stressed out as I could step back whenever and take a breath.

He's now taking naps in his snuzpod in our room and for a while I've been putting him down and leaving him. He generally falls asleep on his own now, unless he's overtired.

Even if he cries/moans a bit he's usually
asleep in under ten minutes. I just found if I was there putting the dummy back in and patting him etc it just went on forever, he almost played up knowing I was there and wasn't picking him up. So I'd leave him, let him cry for a few minutes (didn't time it, just judged it myself and went back when he either got too upset or it felt like long enough) and gave back dummy, tucked him in, and repeated until the final visit he was so tired he'd take the dummy and fall asleep.

Sleep training doesn't have to be leaving them to scream for hours etc. I lots always horrible hearing them cry but if it works then in the long run I think a little bit of crying is worth it if it improves their sleep. A baby that's slept well is always happier!

This is the 4th time I’m up with ds tonight, he’s only sleep 1/2 hour (twice) and did 1 hour before he wakes -each time he looks really uncomfortable though, pulls his legs up or stretch them to the edge. He does trump a lot always have really, any suggestions? We were going to put the cot up this weekend but postponed to next weekend as I need to empty a chest of drawers first to make room for the cot... As soon as ds is picked up he’s fine, he has a quick feed and falls asleep on me... is this the 4 months sleep regression?