Hi - I’ve never posted anything before... I’ve read countless threads, but things have got to such a state that I could really do with some advice.
I feel so low and I’m constantly on the verge of tears... my five month old has never really been a good sleeper - but every day I hope there will be some improvement, and then instead of getting better, it actually gets worse. I pick myself up and think ‘ok, well - we can do this and that to cope with this new thing he’s thrown at us...’ and then it gets even worse still...
He will only go to sleep if rocked. If I try and put him in his cot drowsy but awake, he screams. We have a good bedtime routine where he’s bathed at 6:15, fed at half 6 and then normally asleep in my arms by about 6:45. The problem is that he then won’t stay asleep when I put him in his cot. One time it took me 15 goes to get him to down once he’d fallen asleep... and he seems to be waking up more and more during the night and getting more and more difficult to settle and get back to sleep. The thing that’s really killing me tbough is that for about 8 weeks, he’s been waking up every 45 mins from about 3am.... every night, so I’m maybe getting 20 mins of sleep before I’m woken back up again and have to go through it all again before I can crawl back into bed and cry. On top of that, he has now started waking up every 45 mins after he’s been put down at 7.... so we’re not getting an evening anymore either.
A typical night at the moment is like this:
6:15 - bath
6:30 - feed
6:45/7 - asleep by being rocked (I’d then have to stand there for about 10-15 mins with him in my arms before even trying to put him down... and it’s a complete lottery as to how many tries it’ll take to get him to stay down
7:45 - awake, resettled by rocking and trying to put him down (this gets harder and less successful as the night goes on)
He’s now waking up another two times before his first feed at 10/11ish
11 - feed, rocked to sleep
12 - awake, resettled with rocking and trying to put him down process
3 - awake, feed, resettled with rocking
He’s then awake after 45 mins - I go back in, resettle, and from the moment he falls asleep, he’ll be awake 45 mins later. It’ll probably take me 20-25 mins to get him back down... so I get to sleep for 20 mins and then he’s awake again...
My partner and I work in shifts through the night so we can both get a block of a few hours sleep during the night. He does from 10pm til 2am and I do from 2am til the morning... when he then goes off to work and I have our boy all day until he comes home again at about half 6 when we do bath and bedtime together.
I know rocking is a negative sleep association... but we were in survival mode in the first few weeks and amongst the constant crying, screaming and grunting, this was the only thing that got him to sleep... from 2-3 months we did start to make progress with putting him down awake and him taking himself off to sleep... but at 3.5 months I think he started having his sleep regression and this completely stopped. I’d spot early tired signs and put him down, but he’d start screaming instantly, so I’d have to pick him up and rock him.
And, this is where we’ve netted out. I’m sure it’s all our fault and we’ve created a million rods for our backs... but I’m so sleep deprived and desperate, and emotional... all the time, I can’t see a way out.
We’ve now got him on a four hourly feeding schedule, so in the day he’s fed at 7, 11, 3 and 7... before that it was pretty much feed on demand.
I ebf for 4 months but have now gone on to formula to share the feeding load and to stop me from actually losing my mind.
He’s only ever catnapped during the day - whatever I do, he will never sleep for longer. By the end of the day, he always seems overtired. I’ve tried for the past week to resettle him after his morning and lunchtime naps to persuade his body clock into thinking he should stay asleep for longer... but this doesn’t seem to have done anything.
If anyone’s got any advice, I would be so grateful.
Sorry if this seems like a bit of a ranty ramble... my brain doesn’t work properly anymore.
Thanks everyone.