The non-sleepers are still not sleeping

[NinaMarieP]

New thread, guys!

Good luck for tonight everyone. My windows are all open and baby only with vest and baby grow as HV advised . She does have a cold I'm hoping she won't get worse. Stay strong! :p

Oh tonight is horrendous I've had half an hour sleep. DS has just screamed and screamed for the last hour. DH has helpfully been snoring away in the bedroom. How he hasn't woken up I'll never know.

Finally got DS in a light sleep but don't know whether to transfer him or just stay up with him sleeping on me. DH has got a work party in the day tomorrow so he's going to out all day and then to drunk to function in the evening/Sunday morning so I do really need to sleep.

Sorry to hear about your night @meepmoop. You're not alone, it's a bad one here too. DS incredibly restless all night. I've given up trying to get him to sleep, it's pointless! I don't get it, he's had good naps throughout the day and lots of fresh air. He just hates to sleep at night! Nothing I can do about it!

Hope you can get some sleep

I've managed an hour block but he's up again. Sorry your having a rubbish time to @WhoAteAllthePercyPigs have you had any luck?

@Haypanky on this thread AH is asshole husband. I suggested it a thread or two back instead of people saying things like "my DH has slept in until 9am and is still complaining of being tired, and won't take the baby even though I was up every hour all night" etc etc. That husband is not dear!!

Sorry to hear you've all had bad nights, we had 2 horrendous nights followed by a slightly better one last night. By better I mean he slept 1.30 to 5 but was still up at 10 and11, as well as refusing to go down between 5 and 6. Maybe it's the heat/summer evenings? We are trying to move away from feeding to sleep for naps again as there is a chance I may be going back to work sooner than I thought. Also trying to get DS to take some formula for the same reason.

I've not been on for a bit and missed so much... sorry everyone is having a tough time.
Ds did a 3hour block of sleep for 2 days (that's really good for him) then last night was back to waking every hour and a half-2 hours. Although 3hours doesn't seem like much it makes a difference for me.

Hope you are all enjoying the sunshine and have a good night

I'm sure you are all past this point and have tried everything in your power to get your babies to sleep but I do find my boys go to sleep well in their cots at night, it's like they just know it's bedtime (compared to not sleeping in them during the day) every night I put on my scentsy wax burner with 'jammy time' wax in it, it has lavendar, chamomile etc I dont know if this triggers an association with bedtime? Along with their sleeping bags etc.. just a thought if you have tried everything else??? Try using the same scent only at bedtime and see if it changes anything?? Obviously might take a bit of time for them to associate it with bedtime... you may laugh at me because I'm sure everyone is past this point but there's no harm in trying

Freesia, lavender and sweet pea!

Hi everyone! So the new cot arrived yesterday and today I've put baby in the new cot and in her own bedroom. I had thought about doing this progressively (new bed in my bedroom and then new bed in her bedroom), but the cot is quite big and I would have to move the furniture around to fit it in my bedroom. So I've put her in bed drowsy but awake but as soon as she sees she is in bed starts kicking and moving a lot, like it's play time... I tried to do the sleep training but I caved. I pitted her, so many changes! I don't want to stress her. So after 20/25 min of crying, I rocked her to sleep and lay her in cot. It's been 5 min and so far so good. The room isn't as dark as I would like so I've been hanging sheets in the "blackout" roman blinds... It improved but not ideal. Just until we find a solution. What's your experience with new cots/moving baby to own room? I know each one is different but I would like to hear yours! Good luck for the night!

Another crap night. Why can't he just give me a break for one fucking night??

I don't know what to do. Feel like I'm at the end of my rope here. Wish I knew what was keeping him awake. I don't think it's teething, and we must be past the 4 month regression by now??

After we left hospital I had the choice of sticking with formula (as he wouldn't latch on and wouldn't take expressed milk) or persevering with breastfeeding. I really wish I'd stuck with ff now. He slept so well with it! I know that's not a good reason but I'm so tired and so fed up with breastfeeding right now. I just feel like I'm going to break if this keeps up.

Plus we are attempting potty training for my DD again and she's still not getting it.

I feel like a massive fucking failure as a parent. How do others make it look so easy??

Smoke, magic, mirrors, lies... I don't believe that anyone finds it all properly easy.

In my experience the people that are making it look easy are often struggling or have struggled too. I really struggled with breastfeeding and when when ds was born 3 friends I thought made breastfeeding look easy told me how much they struggled too. One of them had a baby who wouldn't sleep too, and there Dd was waking every 2 hours, again you wouldn't have known if she didn't say. You can't necessarily tell from the outside what people are going through.

@WhoAteAllthePercyPigs so sorry you are feeling so down. I know the feeling pretty well. Why don't you try and give him 1/2 formula feeds, so that your partner can help and you get a bit more rest? I know breastfeeding is like the best for baby and mother but when the mother is starting to get desperate sure it's worth trying other measures! What I was doing with husband is 2 nights a week he would say with baby and would call me only if she needed to be breastfeed. Of course I would wake up with her crying but there were also times he would just put the dummy and she would settle and I wouldn't be aware and just kept sleeping, sometimes I would even get 3 hour sleep (rarely, but still!). I moved my 7 months to her own room and a bigger cot and actually the night was better! Maybe you could try that if you haven't yet...sorry,i don't know your situation well but I was feeling like that 2 days ago and I'm just trying to help. It's agonising! Try the health visitors maybe? Friday I called them twice and it was helpful, gave me courage to move baby to own bedroom. Hope it improves soon!

whoateallthepercypigs I know exactly how you feel, we topped DS up via syringe with formula for the first few days and then ebf until 6 months. I wish I had ff or combi fed as I am finding it very hard to be the sole person he relies on and we seem to be stuck in the trap of feeding to sleep 8 months later I went to the GP and she referred me to the peri natal mental health team as well on top of the meds we are trying to see if reflux is the issue or part of it. I can't remember how old your DS is?

We have had some really rough nights but last night although I couldn't settle him in his cot from 10.30 til midnight, he then only woke at 4. I don't know what made the difference though.

We're on day 16 of proper sleep training, with support from the sleep consultant. Shhhhh don't jinx it, Ds has properly slept through for 5 nights in a row!!! Naps have gone haywire (he's previously been an A grade napper), so we're working on that now. But, I'm feeling cautiously optimistic this might stick...!

@Haypanky can you share some suggestions or changes you made in order to improve your baby's sleep? I'm glad things are turning for the best for you! Hope it stays like that!

Thanks all. I do of course realise everyone has their struggles and there are many who are far worse off and face awful struggles. Hard to keep that perspective though at 4am in the self pity zone I know how lucky I am to have two healthy happy DC and feel so guilty for whingeing. It just gets a bit much though. I'm in that zone (as many of us here are) where I've moved beyond the newborn 'bad sleep is inevitable for first few months' stage and into the 'okaaay so it looks like my baby is not going to get better at this any time soon!' stage. Add to that I've had 2 years of DD being a sleep thief and it's feeling relentless.

Unfortunately DS is refusing a bottle and dummy. He has proven that he can take a bottle at least (unlike DD who never took one) so I just need to try again. As soon as he hopefully does, I'm going to gradually start doing more bottles and cutting down bf. It's sad because I do love bf, but it's been harder this time round.

We also have no family help nearby and that can be hard.

But I know I'm not alone in this, and appreciate the support. I do promise to shut up and get on with it though! I can't help feel though, things would be a bit easier if I could get a bit more sleep. I'm fed up of feeling constantly anxious, mega irritable and ill. It's so hard to function let alone parent!

@whoateallthepercypigs argh, sorry you've hit a really tough patch. Can you nap in the day if the opportunity presents itself. Difficult with 2 I know. And get other half to get up at the weekends and let you lie in. If your sprog is old enough you could skip a bottle and go straight to a sippy or doidy cup? Mostly just a hang in there message. At some point they've got to sleep... So I've heard!

@bartos I did post a longer description before if you want to scroll back, but the potted summary is, ds is almost 1 and would be up I'd say x3 a night with one time being 1-2hrs. Dh and I argued about what to do. I went back to work and cried. Dd did x4 nights with ds and cried. Sleep consultant called in. We were being inconsistent so the main thing was an agreed plan. She said that he has an accumulated sleep debt to catch up on, so stress hormones being released and contributing to night wakings. We've done controlled crying (interval checks) at night (I agree with this approach as we have tried everything else, and ds can already self settle), been strict about nap timings and been putting him to bed very early, 5:30 some nights. At the mo morning is 6-7, nap 8:30 (feels so early but I've had to eat humble pie as its working!), nap 13:00, bed 17:30-18:30. Bedroom dark. White noise. Comforter.

Ds is currently rolling around excitedly screaming and babbling. He had a 10minute nap on the way home at 6 so wonder if that's the problem. I thought he was tired so got him ready for bed at 715ish, and now he's wide awake. Think I just heard DH switch the Xbox on so looks like I'm on my own no change there.
Hope this isn't a sign that tonight will be bad.

Now he's having a meltdown and so am I. Hopefully that means he'll feed and go to sleep soon, either that or we'll both just be lying in bed crying...
Hope you're all having a better time than me!!

Dd was absolutely shattered today. She (we) had an epic 2 hour nap this morning and she then had another half hour in the afternoon. We had a bbq so lots of sun, lots of moving and watching all the other children and she also finally got in to eating too! I'm really hoping it's a good night.

Another crappy night here. DS wont stay asleep and it's taken me an hour to resettle him! It's so frustrating, I just want to sleep

My baby had 4 amazing nights in a row and I was like: HE IS CURED. But I should have known that there is no permanent fix,just a few days of Mother Nature cutting me a break. 2.30am crawling practice has now resumed.