We're still not sleeping

[Meepmoop]

New thread for those whose babies are avoiding sleeping through.

My DS is now 11 months old today..

Last night was actually quite good. Bedtime feed then cuddles and he lay down next to me and held my hand while I sang to him and he drifted off then transferred and slept without any input from 8- 1. Then another 2 hour chunk. Bit crap after 3 but hey, the bedtime was actually rather lovely

Until 15 months old my LO woke up like 5 times a night. He started to sleep through since 2 years old:-))

@arbrighton that sounds like a great bedtime!

Our nights have improved but naps are a battle, currently sporting a couple of nasty bites from daring to try and rock DS when he's tired but doesn't want to sleep 😲

Hi. I'm at the end of my tether too. 7 month old refused to sleep alone, then at 5.5 months woke hourly to feed.

I sleep trained as I was about to throw myself off a bridge. It went really well actually as she rolled over pretty much instantly and slept. I thought that had been the oroblem: wasn't comfortable.

The last 6 weeks though it's been hell. She either goes down crying or down immediately then screams after 45 mins. I wish I could feed or cuddle to sleep but she wakes up on being out down and finds it all too stimulating. She's a mega alert baby. Too interested to sleep in a car or a pram.

Even if we could cuddle in this heat it's impossible , so we're back to just patting every few minutes. The last few nights it's taken an hour. It's horrible and I cry. Please tell me it gets easier. I dread bedtime.

Still not sleeping! Last night was particularly bad. Just had a text off a friend boasting that her 4 month old sleeps 12 hours a night and that it's all down to nap timing apparently. Yeah of course, nothing to do with luck. Does it not occur to her that I've thought of that and done everything I can to try and adjust naptime?? To no avail I may add...

On top of it all DD is restless tonight and has woken several times crying. Going to have to get DH to take her in with him I think.

Ugh. DS 9 months next week and it just doesn't change. It's ridiculous.

Rubbish night here as well. I've chucked some toys in his cot and am lying on the bed hiding. I've got baby sensory group, a play date then friends coming around today. Too much planned so I may ditch the group as DS has outgrown it really and I can't be bothered

My poor son had a fever in this heat last night so sleep was terrible but he’s woken up this morning without the fever so hopefully he’s on the mend. Seems like constant illness at the moment or if it’s not illness it’s teeth.

I'm ploughing into this again with DD2. She's way too young for any kind of sleep training at the moment but I sleep trained DD2 at 5 months and have no regrets about that at all and I'm planning to do the same with DD2 when the time comes. DD1 would still wake once or twice in the night (up until 14 months) afterwards, but crucially she got HERSELF back to sleep in the night without the hours of rocking, patting, singing and shushing.

Unlike some PPs I saw a sleep consultant with DD1 who DID advocate controlled crying (hence the sleep training) and given that this thread popped up, I thought I'd explain how we then did it. I am sure many MNers will think I am the devil's spawn for this but it may help one person at least.

1. Make sure there are two of you about (a support person if you're a SP. Clear the diary for the weekend and start Saturday morning. That way if it goes badly, at least they will be very tired by bedtime. If you have other children and no one to take them out, book annual leave and do it during a weekday if/when the kids will be out. With two people you can take each nap in turn. At 5mo my DD1 was a chronic catnapper so that meant 4 naps + bedtime to settle her for, and so DH "did" two of those naps, and I did two naps + bedtime. You need all your reserves so get in ready meals etc and leave the chores.

1. Do your normal nap time/bedtime routine, eg change, story, cuddle, song, etc, then put them down and say goodnight. Don't hang about. Leave. Leave and listen out for grizzling, but ignore it. When the crying starts (actual crying, not grizzling), get out the timer on your phone and time 1 minute. If they quieten, pause it and resume if it starts again. After 1 minute of crying, go in and pick them up. This is the "benefit of the doubt cuddle". Maybe they burp, maybe their nappy is wet again. Give them a brief but nice cuddle and if they're all good, put them down again, say goodnight and leave.

1. Leave them for 2 minutes, then 3 (crying). But don't pick them up when you go back in this time, only a quick comfort/shush in their cot. Once you've got this far, you start again: 1, 2, 3. But no picking up again.

1. If you've done three cycles of 1, 2, 3, abandon it. Calm them down, have a play, offer a top-up feed, etc. Give it 30 minutes, then try again.

When we did this, I got to the second cycle of 1, 2, 3, before DD1 went to sleep. With the stopping and starting of crying, that was about 25 mins from start to finish (but not 25 mins of crying, IYSWIM). DH took the next one and she went to sleep on the first cycle. By bedtime she went to sleep on her own. Over a weekend, DD1 went from an absolute misery to a delight and I'm pretty sure it saved my marriage too.

Hopefully that has saved someone the $400 it cost us

Thanks for posting what you did @Limpshade it's really helpful to see
what's worked for others. I really need to sleep train but have struggled with saying I'll do it another time

DH tried to get DS down for bed last night but he wouldn't have it. After a lot of raging, I ended up feeding him to sleep. I have a few evenings coming up where I have to go out and won't be around for bedtime and I'm dreading how stressful they're going to be for everyone

to all those who had bad nights. I've had about two hours of shit sleep. Cancelled plans for a book and song session this morning so DS can properly nap.

Thanks for posting @limpshade. Glad it has worked for you. Like @meepmoop, I'm always saying I'll consider sleep training of some sort but keep putting it off. I'm just too damn tired! The nights with DS are all on me. DD is a light sleeper and has been waking a lot to her brother's crying, which means she's in a cycle of waking now, so I just can't risk that getting any worse. He's so loud! DH is very busy at work and doesn't have much annual leave left, and we don't have family support nearby. So it's just not practical for us right now. I can't do it on my own - as you rightly say, you need support with it - so I'll just have to keep hoping things will get better...

@thingybobwotsit we have a wedding coming up, for which I'm bridesmaid and DH best man. Plan is to leave kids with grandparents but I have no idea how we are going to manage that with DS's sleep being the way it is. Suspect I'll have to leave early

Oh no @WhoAteAllthePercyPigs - have the grandparents tried to get him to sleep before? A friend of mine feeds her baby to sleep and he won't have it any other way from her... but will settle for other people. Sadly my DS doesn't seem to be that flexible!

Nope not yet! They were going to try for my birthday last weekend but in the end DH was ill so we never went out. Feeling guilty like I should have tried harder and it's my fault we are where we are. I just keep waiting/hoping his sleep will improve and for him to do longer stretches. He used to do a decent 3 or 4 hour stretch for the first part of the night, where did that go!

If all else fails, my dad says he'll just take him out in the pram and let him sleep in that till I'm back

I wish I could just get in the car and drive off for the night. DS has been awake for 2 1/2 hours and I just don't know what to do. He's had more daytime sleep then usual today but much less than what he's 'meant' to be doing. I also gave him cows milk instead of his afternoon breastfeed.

Sorry to hear that @meepmoop. Did he go to sleep at all? I hear you on wanting to drive off. Something I feel frequently.

Yet another bad night. I don't know why I bother to write that actually as we so rarely have any 'good' nights! DS very restless and DD still waking and saying she is scared. She's exhausted during the day and had a full blown meltdown during the nursery run.

Today I'm meant to go to my buggy fit class. I've been managing to go despite the sleep deprivation, but I just don't feel capable of it today. I just want to lie down and eat Malteser buttons all day...

He did go sleep eventually for a couple of hours not that I feel like I had any. I was meant to meet a friend today who has conveniently had to cancel. I'll join you in lying on the sofa eating crap @WhoAteAllthePercyPigs

DH has come home so I've left DS with him while I sort the washing. I'm actually lying on the bed eating an ice cream

Love putting the washing away!!! 😉

Oh man @haypanky I hate it. It just seems to last forever

DS had a good night last night. Only 3 wakes and took about 5 min to feed to sleep at 7 as he's absolutely knackering himself cruising everywhere at the moment!
We watched a whole film on DH projector/ screen without interruption.
He's probably teething again though so it may not happen again :(

DS only had one feed all day today as I was out and about and I'm trying to avoid the wake up one by getting straight up.

It's just an excuse to have some quiet time pottering about putting clothes away, while dh manages the wind beasts downstairs!!! Sometimes I even have a sneaky lie down on the bed!!! Shhh

Sleep update... nearly 15mo, post sleep training, post sleep consultant, still random sleeper. Sometimes he goes through, sometimes he's up once or twice for a quick drink of water. Sometimes he is tossing and turning and crying out all night. Sometimes he's up all night. Cuddling does not work. Nothing works. Regularly have to repeat controlled crying. We are now pulling him out of nursery and putting with a childminder. He doesn't nap well at nursery and has a very different Mon Tue Wed to the second half of the week. It feels like the last thing to try, if it doesn't help then we're in grow out of it land.

Hi everyone. It's been a while.

Dd is now 1 and she has been sleeping a lot better but I believe she is going to drop a nap very soon so that might be a spanner in the works. She has also slept in our bed every night for a long time now so while she's sleeping better I don't feel like it's a real victory.

I go back to work tomorrow. She is going to nursery. @kiwiblue I've mentioned to the nursery staff she is a non sleeper non eater but I kind of feel that what happens, happens. There's absolutely nothing I can do to help, and I really hope she sleeps there.

The good thing about nursery is that they'll only try and put her down for one nap a day, so this might assist with dropping the morning nap. It also hopefully will mean she is so darn tired that she will actually sleep for them.

They put them on little mattresses on the floor, I can just see dd going 'sod this!' And crawling off.

I'm sure they know what they're doing.. I'll update when she's been a few times.

I'm anxious as hell!!

DS has been awake since 2.30 he's just now closed his eyes as DH's alarm has gone off. It's very depressing getting into bed when he's getting up.

Good luck today @FrozenMargarita17 I'm sure it'll be okay and they'll have your DD napping in no time.

Well apparently she had 2 30 minutes naps. She usually has way more than that. My husband said 'they pulled the face' and I was like 'what face' he said 'you know, the awkward face' and I was like 'why?' He replied 'because she wanted to be touched the whole time so now we have to get her back in her cot, no cuddling etc' and I was just devastated. I wasn't even out of work yet. Suddenly I'm being made to feel like my baby is too much work and that I'm not allowed to even comfort her to sleep. Fucking hell what am I doing wrong.

When I've been at the beginning of nap time to pick her up, there's been a lady with two babies laying on mats rocking them so why can't dd's keyworker just put her hand on her until she's asleep? I know she's difficult to get to sleep but it's her first day, she's never slept there before. How would she know what it would be like? Surely they should give her a chance to get used to them before being a bit funny about her sleeping?

Also, they said her clothes were too tight. So bad mum all round. I burst into tears on the way home.