The non-sleepers are still not sleeping

[NinaMarieP]

New thread, guys!

I think the next to me crib is the best purchase I made. About 20 times a night I have to lean over to shush him or settle him or pop his dummy in, hold his hand, etc. But as it's all done in a half asleep state, I don't really count them as wakings. If he were in a cot away from my bed or in his own room then no doubt those 20 times would turn into full blown wakings. I dread to think of it. Those of you who have to get out of bed every time your LO stirs, I'm completely in awe.

So on that note, 2 actual wakings last night. 12.30 then 5.30, both for a bottle. Not too terrible. His naps are still atrocious. I have no idea what to do there. Feel like I've tried everything. I'm praying for one of his random 3 hour epic naps one day soon so I can get some shit done!

@Missonhartbaby I keep reading consistency is the key but we need to personalize it as well. Since yesterday I've no idea what's wrong with my DD. She slept fine her morning and lunch naps.although shorter. But now she wouldn't settle, just crying heavily until I picked her up. She is sleeping in my arms. I don't understand why she won't stay in bed sleeping as usual... I know we need to be consistent but also don't want to neglect her.
Regarding co-sleeping. I've given in a couple of times. Truth is it helped us both get some sleep. Sometimes that's the most important.
I never thought parenting would be this hard. Such a thin line in loving them and educating them, or spoiling them too much. I hope it gets easier after some point...

@flowerpicture that sounds like heaven to me! I've moved DD to her room and now I have to get up those 20 times. And I'm not even loosing weight!! So unfair. Hope his naps get sorted soon. I find it extremely stressful when all I seem to do all day is trying to get DD to sleep or not make noise so that she sleeps. So nothing gets done. "where did my day go?!"

Back to waking up every 2 hours last night. Woke up with a headache and my whole body aches. DH has been a fairly d h today, took Ds for a walk this morning, took us out for lunch and looked after him this afternoon so I could lie down for 30mins. annoyingly he's invited his brother round to play on the Xbox. I'm alternating ibuprofen and paracetamol but feel achey, my head hurts and I'm getting a sore throat... feeling quite sorry for myself.

Starting sleep training... DS went down initially within 18 mins, checking 2,4 and 6 mins... Didn't make it to the 8 min mark as he fell asleep by 5. He then startled and woke himself up, I went in once and he went back to sleep 5 mins after that. And he just stirred, cried for a minute and went down again. So fingers crossed it does work for him. I'm dreading the night time wakings though as he knows I eventually bring him into bed so do you think I should expect harder crying? Also my HV said to not feed him at all but he's only 7 months... I feel like he needs a feeds... But will this mess it up? Eurgh, whys it so complicated!

Sounding promising @Missonhartbaby! My HV said DS doesn't need milk but if I'm happy carry on and try and wean in a month when DS is eating more solids. He's 9 1/2 at the mo

My DS has woken four times in the last hour...

5 times.. DH has now made me 2 cups of tea that have gone cold

@Meepmoop oh no! Sounds like my DS normally. Up every hour or two throughout the night and takes me a good hour to get him to sleep with me going in multiple times, rocking him, feeding etc. I haven't heard anything since he went to sleep properly but it has only been hour nd a half. I'm hoping to get abit of sleep now before he next wakes up... I'm also seriously hoping he'll do a 6 hour stretch! I'm not planning on weaning him off boob yet by any means so I think I will do a feed or two in the night. I just don't want him taking the piss!! Haha. Anyone had any luck with dream feeds?

Just got him back to sleep and I've obviously just sneezed and woke him up. I just don't know what's wrong with him and why he's waking up so much

Havant posted in a while but have been reading. Good luck with the sleep training missonhartbaby

meepmoop sounds familiar, we have had a horrendous week this week, a couple of times I didn't make it in to bed until 3.30. Averaging 3 hours a night broken sleep. Yesterday however two more teeth poked through and last night I was up at 9, 1.30 and 3.30 so fingers crossed for tonight.

We had an okay night last night, wake ups at midnight and 4am for bottles, but largely DD was miraculously settled and didn’t cry as soon as I left the room as she did previously. Obviously typical as DH was home and all geared up to help me through the night and then didn’t need to.

Tonight, however... DH away for work again and DD has already had one hysterical meltdown out of nowhere. Fed her a bottle and that seems to have settled her. I know at 11 months I shouldn’t be resorting to feeding her milk so much at night and should be thinking about night weaning and blah blah but she’s small for her age (5lbs when born and only just 18lbs now) so I’m rolling with it. She still seems hungry in the night and she’s not great with solids so whatevs.

Think I’m in for another sleepless night though... so I’m fortifying with wine. Feeling ridiculously anxious about the night ahead...

Sending sleepy vibes to your babies!

Hi all. Not been on here as been on holiday with no Wi-Fi and limited data usage (thanks to my toddler, long story). Sleep no better. If anything, it's worse.

Holiday was nice but in no way relaxing with two small DC although we had fun. DS cut his two bottom teeth so that explains some of the bad sleep. But he's still not sleeping! He's eating food and I'm wondering if that's upsetting his gut?

The first part of the night he wakes several times. The second part of the night he's up every hour. He now only wants to sleep on me, occasionally in bed next to me but not in his actual fucking Next 2 Me. Tonight I haven't slept. Between DS and DD, who's been moaning and whining for Daddy since midnight I have not been allowed to. Just went and woke up DH (the D stands for deaf today, how the hell he slept through that is anyone's guess) and made him deal with DD.

Sleep has just deteriorated since he was born. I'm at an absolute loss what to do. I don't think sleep training will work for us, he's still too small for it (imo) plus he will just wake DD. This boy is LOUD.

Anyone else feeling utterly miserable??

whoateallthepercypigs miserable here too! DS went to sleep fine at 7 but woke at 9.30 and wouldn't resettle until 3. I feel so hopeless Andrew zombie like

Oops thats was and I don't know how Andrew snuck in!

Well we made it through the night! I didn't give in, fed him twice at his normal times, think it was 10. 30 and 2.30. he did wake up every hour ish crying but I waited 2 mins, went in, soothed him and then he whinged for another 2 mins or so before putting himself to sleep. He never got to hysterical crying which was good! Hopefully it'll be the same tonight and he'll start sleeping better 😴😴
@tealandteal @whoateallthepercypigs I really feel for you!! How old are you little ones?

I really feel for your guys! Yesterday from 21h to 23h I kept thinking I would never reach bed, I was feeding DD with tears down my face. But to share the good news, it was the best night in months! I had suggested giving DD a bottle yesterday and my DH asked me why, I said perhaps she would sleep better. But he just told me to feed her and run to bed. So I went to sleep, when I looked at the clock it was 3h30!!! I was actually really concerned cause I woke up with DD talking on the phone, so came down and realised he was talking with the police. An issue with our neighbours house. So after that, night wasn't as good, because it took me some time to shut off from what was happening next door, but DD was wonderful. He had given her a bottle at midnight. Then he gave her another at 4am. Then she woke up and 5am. I went in, offer breast and put her back to sleep (I think she had to burp and that's why she woke up) . Which she was still half awake but didn't call for me again until 7h30! I think she was making a poo. She has been constipated which really affects her sleep. So thank you DH for this amazing help! He slept on the mattress next to her so that I could rest. The night before had been really bad. I'm really happy and positively surprised that he took the initiative! Well done husband!

Now, this makes me wonder... Is my milk weak? Does she just do several small feedings on the breast and maybe with the bottle she gets fuller in one go and can sleep longer? Does she swallow less air with the bottle and so wind is less of an issue? Hum... I've been quite proud to say that she is 8 months and breastfed, specially cause it was very hard at the beginning and I had to be really strong willed to carry on (I don't mean with this that women that bottle feed aren't strong willed, but the issues I had was really a matter of deciding to go through it or not) . We had tried formula before because she has a dairy allergy and in case I had to stop breastfeeding she needed to be familiar with the taste of the hypoallergenic formula, but she refused. Now I've been mixing it with food so that she gets used to taste and it seems she accepted it well last night as a bottle. Which is great and put me more at ease, cause I don't know if I'll carry on breastfeeding when back at work. So I don't know, maybe I'll start giving her bottles at night. If it helps us both sleep better why not?

@bartos there's definitely no harm in trying bottles! I've bought some follow on milk aswell to try him with. He's never taken a bottle though so doubt he will. But I did, like you, think that perhaps because I'm so rundown maybe my milk isnt enough for him. I think it must affect our milk surely...

Here we go again! Is it me or if it always evening time

1.5hours, about 10 attempts to put Ds down and I'm still trying. Exhausted. Hope it's going better for all of you.

Finally got him in his cot, ,20minutes later he's up again. What am I doing wrong?? I don't want to sleep train (not criticising people that do, if it works for you that's great I just know it's not for us) and I'm ok cosleeping if need be. But why can't I have a couple of hours in the evening to watch TV and not have to do anything??

Sorry for all the self pity!

I know I dread evenings too! I'm still sleep training and he went down in the same amount of time as he did yesterday... Roughly 40 mins with me checking in 2,4,6,8,10 mins. He's been asleep for over 2 hours now, I can here him stirring occasionally but no crying! Fingers crossed this is gonna work!

@MummyCuddlesSolveEverything how old is your LO? Its so hard I know, my DS is the exact same and it's only getting slightly better now that I'm encouraging him to fall asleep on his own. Aside from sleep training (we are doing controlled comforting and seems to be working for us) I've been making sure there's a consistent calm bedtime routine, he has his bedtime comforter, I got my DS used to his by having it between us when he fed so he would play with the tags etc as he got sleepy, and I've been trying to break the feed to sleep association slowly. Do you breastfeed? I've been doing all this for a week or so and it is helping abit I think, it's definitely helped him learn to self soothe quicker when we started the controlled comforting I think... I hope it gets easier for you anyway, and sorry if I'm not much help or its all things that you have already tried!

Missonhartbaby he'll be 8months next week. He feeds to sleep at night, my friend sent me a great article about why feeding to sleep isn't a bad thing but I can't find it. It would be great if he would settle without help but I don't think he is ready for it...I think it's a developmental thing.
That's probably my problem, he's not ready yet (but I am).
We have a fairly consistent bedtime routine (bath, PJ's and sleeping bag, book, milk, sleep) but I find having baths too often makes his eczema worse so he's doesn't have a bath every night.
He doesn't have a comforter, I like the idea of using it while feeding then him having it for while he sleeps. I'll definitely give it a go. Thank you!

I gave him some Calpol just in case, got him down again at about 940. He was up again at 1020 so I went to bed, like usual he slept better next to me, was probably up 3 times for very quick feeds before waking at 7.

@MummyCuddlesSolveEverything

I would happily continue feeding to sleep if I only did it the once at the start of the night, but it's when he needed it every time to go back to sleep, was waking up every hour or so, that I decided I couldn't do it anymore. I was mentally drained from it!

My DS has self settled himself on the rare occasions which is why I started sleep training as I knew he could do it and was ready for it! And fingers crossed its working, he slept 7-7 last night, took him about 40 mins to get to sleep, slept till 11.30, I fed him again then, he went straight back down, whinged abit at 1 but I went in once and then left him to it and he went back to sleep in about 5 mins and slept til 7!!! He has never EVER done anything like that!
I kept waking up to check on him though... My body clock is used to hourly wake ups!haha. I'm hoping it's not a fluke and he'll continue to sleep better!

Definitely try the comforter when he's feeding, it makes him associate it with being happy, safe and loved then.

Also I don't do a bath as our nighttime routine at all as he has eczema too.