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 😂

Its awful isn't it @onone85 and it feels like your only solution is to leave them to cry which just doesn't seem right to me!

Dd still isn't asleep. I'm actually dealing with it quite well considering.

She's finally gone. That was a battle and a half. Who knows what kind of night I'm having

I wish she would just figure this all out herself!

Evening sleepless mamas! My baby has some sort of sensor fitted I swear. Dad is on wake-up duty until he goes to bed, then I take over until morning ( this is the arrangement by which I ward off CIO, which he has been in favour of since she was 8 months old - 14 months now and hasn't slept more than 3 hours at a time since 5.5 months 😴). So she lacks a 'big' sleep in while he's on duty and then as soon as o get really cosy in befits like she knows - DING! The bar's open! - and so begin the hourly wake-ups. Aaaaah! Juuuust as I slip into unconsciousness... I'd give very nearly anything for 6 hours sleep. I feel like I'd be a different person!

Wow, such typos - tired, sorry!!!

I'm having a bit of a moment. I feel like this is all my fault.

I asked a friend if she had ever done sleep training and she said no because her boy had slept through since 6 weeks :( I said that I can't leave her to cry and she said maybe we moved her out too soon and that's why she wakes so much - for security. It was early, 4.5 months, but she was too big in her Moses basket. I felt bad and agreed. Then I spoke to my husband and we're moving her back in our room in her cot.

Then my anxiety and pnd kick in and suddenly it's all my fault she doesn't sleep because I spent the first 6 months of her life in tears and she isn't secure enough because of it.

I really hope that isn't true. I feel sick :(

@FrozenMargarita17 I really don't think your friend is right. The 6 month guideline is for SIDS not for security. I really believe that you either have a baby that naturally sleeps well or doesn't. My sister has twins, they were brought up exactly the same One has always slept really well and the other hasn't.

DS is on hourly wake ups, not feeling the joy tonight.

Frozen margarita, your friend has a unicorn baby. She ought to know that and know it, be grateful, and know that it has damn all to do with her perfect parenting, and everything to do with her individual baby. And not make such STUPID hurtful and unhelpful remarks to someone who's clearly struggling!! Slightly ragey for you.
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Your baby's sleep is not your fault. I kept my daughter in with us until she was 8 months old - her sleep is shocking. I know women who have had several babies whose upbringings have been identical, some of whom sleep, some of whom didn't. I know women who put baby in their own room from birth, against medical advice, whose babies sleep like dreams. It's so hard to accept, it's nothing you've done,because that implies there's nothing you can do but wait for them to grow out of it. But o really believe that's the long and the short of it.

Sleep training? CIO is proven to work quite reliably, at least in the short term, but studies on the effects of cortisol during the process make me reluctant to consider it. I had a friend do the Little Ones programme, and it was hard but worked well - until the next illness or patch of teething, when everything would go back to square one and she had to go through the whole gruelling process again. So it's what you can stand basically. If you neeeeed some short term relief to survive, do it; but please don't pin all your hopes on it as a cure forever. It is rotten; and knackering and soul destroying... But it is nothing you've done!!! Xx

Hi All,

I've been avoiding the phone again overnight and stupidly busy in the days so have been trying to keep up but not posting. I'm sat in DS1'S room now while he goes back to sleep after a bad dream so need to keep myself awake. Hopefully he won't take too long as DS2 is due to wake soon and I can hear him coughing away.

@k567 we've just moved DS2 to his own room, so far so good. Not a miracle sleep cure but we aren't disturbing each other (did I mention DH flaps about like a dying fish in his sleep) and so DS2 seems to be doing a bit better with hat predictable wake ups for feeds. Still 3 a night so not brilliant but he's settling more quickly after and feeding better so the stints in between, especially at the start of the night are getting longer. Fingers crossed this is not just a fluke and he continues to improve. He's still gotta a dreadful cough that just won't go because as soon as it starts to get better we catch another cold and it gets worse again. I'm hoping once the bogs go it'll get even better.

@utterlyconfused111 hooray for your rest - well done to A/DH for taking the kids. It's a shame you had to be so distraught to get it but sometimes I think that's the only way they understand.

I'm trying some gentle sleep training with DS2 for naps, but he seems to like a shout or a moan before he goes off whatever I do! The no cry sleep solution was no help at all for him, I was already doing everything suggested and it's only naps we really struggle with, he just wakes A LOT at night but does go back down. At the moment I'm leaving him to grumble (not cry) but if he gets actually upset going back and picking him up to comfort him, and repeating until he will go down. It's hard work and back breaking because he's bloody heavy but I think I need to persevere with a consistent method until we get improvement. The cough doesn't help because usually it wakes him just as he's going off to sleep in his cot. Anyway, there are tears but when there are he is always being comforted so I think that is the best I can do.

Have made a floor bed in the nursery for me and the baby. He wouldn't sleep in his cot or in our bed and yet.. a fleecey blanket atop the carpet is fine. But at least he's restful at last.

Quite a lot of us seem emotionally broken tonight. I wish there was an answer for the sleeepless. But whoever is telling you that it's the mum's fault that the baby doesn't sleep is absolutely moronic.

Have made a floor bed in the nursery for me and the baby. He wouldn't sleep in his cot or in our bed and yet.. a fleecey blanket atop the carpet is fine. But at least he's restful at last.

Quite a lot of us seem emotionally broken tonight. I wish there was an answer for the sleeepless. But whoever is telling you that it's the mum's fault that the baby doesn't sleep is absolutely moronic.

Have made a floor bed in the nursery for me and the baby. He wouldn't sleep in his cot or in our bed and yet.. a fleecey blanket atop the carpet is fine. But at least he's restful at last.

Quite a lot of us seem emotionally broken tonight. I wish there was an answer for the sleeepless. But whoever is telling you that it's the mum's fault that the baby doesn't sleep is absolutely moronic.

Posts a million times. Awkward.

still no sleep, devastated

wanted to take the kids to a group in the morning but looks like I will be too tired. hopefully caffeine will do its wonders

I'm sorry so many are having a tough time, I've only read the last page so apologies if I've missed things.

@Frozenmargarita your post made me so sad, please don't blame yourself, some babies sleep well and some don't, I genuinely feel it's down to individuality. My DD was in her own room from 4 months old and slept through the night. I hand on heart have only had a few nights disturbed sleep from her since then. She's 7. When she was 9 months old, my husband left me for another woman. She and I moved in with my mum and I spent many months in tears. She has no memory of it neither was her sleep or attachment affected.
DS is 10 months old. He's still in with us because he doesn't have his own room. He has yet to sleep through the night. He was premature and spent a month in the NICU before coming home. I've been an emotional wreck. I cry a lot, have anxiety and been diagnosed with PTSD. He's the happiest, sunniest baby you will ever meet. My difficulties have not affected his security or attachment. He just doesn't sleep well.
Please be kind to yourself xx

My baby has developed into a wiggly worm over night! Took me ages to get his nappy changed and dressed as he was everywhere.

Feeling tired today after last nights million wake ups. Coffee definitely required

Know what I hate? Parents who smugly say their baby slept through from an implausibly early age.

Know what I hate even more? Parents who smugly say their baby slept through at an implausibly early age because they're just such super awesome parents and if you just followed their lead you wouldn't be having problems yourself.

frozen it's not your fault at all, your friend is just lucky to have a baby that sleeps and smug enough to think it's because she's such a great mum.

nina so true!

onone how are things? What did your dh say? Do you think he'll help more now?

Sounds like most of us feel like we've reached our limits...I know I have. Ds went to bed later than usual because of the clocks but was doing ok (3 wakes) until 3:30. Then it all went horribly wrong. Ds was soaking because his nappy leaked so I had to change him, then he wouldn't go back to sleep. I was crying and dh woke up, he gave me a hug and was talking to me then ds need his nappy changing again. I'd just been crying to ah saying I felt so tired my body was like lead and I couldn't move, but when I asked if he could change ds's nappy he said not really!! I ended up changing the nappy because ah wouldn't. Then dh told me he didn't realise how bad nights were....despite me telling him and me being completely exhausted, he must have thought I was exaggerating. He went back to sleep (I told him to because he was annoying me) and I stayed up with ds till he went to sleep at 5. Don't think this will change anything, ah will still let/make me do everything but he might understand a bit more when I say how tired I am.

Sorry for the long rant, tangry and not sure how I'll get through today.

Sorry to make you sad @Worlds0kayestmum - I have enormous guilt about how badly I dealt with starting being a mum. I cried all the time. I didn't trust anyone to have my baby. I thought they all thought I was an idiot and I didn't know what I was doing. They all wanted to take her off me. I thought nobody wanted to see me, I was just the person who brought the baby. They didn't like what I dressed her in so they all kept making comments and buying her horrible things that I'd never put her in. I know that some of that wasn't true now, but some of it was and it mixed up with everything. Put that with the fact that she didn't sleep and I really struggled.

I really thought that I'd got better with dealing with comments like that.

I've got dd's bug so I've been up since 4 being sick. Turns out my sick anxiety feeling was actually just a sick feeling! :(

@frozenmargarita I can relate to some of what you said in your post. Becoming a mum was a real shock to the system for me. I hope you start to feel more confident soon, I'm sure you're a wonderful mum. So sorry to hear you're now unwell, let's hope you fight it off quickly x

Hellooooo

I haven't been online much as DH was off all last week, do we were out and abput every day doing stuff which was nice.
We're doing alright on the sleep front, but DD is driving me mad when I try and feed her in public. She's so easily distracted!

@FrozenMargarita I am an anxious person, too, so I understand how the comment your friend made could trigger yoir anxiety. Last week a work colleague was talking about her baby (3 weeks oldee than DD) and how advanced he is; sitting up, babbling, singing etc. Since my DD only babbles a bit, it really set my anxiety off. So yeah, such comments don't really help, do they.

DS rolled over during nap time yesterday and ended up sleeping almost 3 hours! Once I'd settled him for bed last night and put him in his cot on his back as usual, he immediately rolled over and slept so well. He woke up twice and settled himself back to sleep both times which is unheard of, only needed a five minute feed at midnight and 4am and slept til 8am. Could this be the answer to my sleep woes? He went down for his nap at 11 and is still asleep on his tummy. Is it ok for him to be doing that? He can roll both ways with ease now

Eurgh a crusty snot nosed child touched ds2,s face in the park today! I was too late to stop her, he's gonna get ill isn't he?? We will be back to square one again aargh!

So tired today, no naps, had both Ds to put to bed alone past 3 nights and it's taken it out of me.

Ds1 is 2 tomorrow and we're going to the sea life centre, in Blackpool, in half term, help!!
Now I've just got tea to make, baths to do, bedtimes, wrap presents, put up a castle tent, blow up balloons an try and fit BF a baby 10 million times into that too, wash right?

Oh and make a cake!

Tummy sleeping is fine once they are putting themselves that way @Worlds0kayestmum. We had some really unsettled nights until he started tummy sleeping and then things were a lot better (well, until the next hurdle threw itself at us of course).