Feel like I’ve failed as a mum

[HidingUnderTheSofa]

First time mum to a four month old baby, exclusively breastfed. Night time sleep was gradually getting better week by week until 11 weeks when he did a five hour stretch at the beginning of the night.

It was like a switch was flicked- he went from two wake ups/feeds on a good night to anything from four to eight. Longest stretch of the night is generally two to three hours and wake ups are anything from one to two hours for the rest of the night. Night feeds are generally ten to twenty minutes long.

Naps are also a disaster. He wakes up between 25 and 45 minutes after falling asleep. Will generally fall asleep without too much fuss in the pram but naps in the crib involve much more settling.

After six weeks of very broken sleep (and four months in total of poor sleep) I am exhausted and I feel like an utter failure as a parent. I am crying a lot out of both exhaustion and feelings of worthlessness because I feel I am failing so badly. I am surrounded by mum friends whose babies are sleeping much better than my son. I

I am feeling especially awful because my in laws are staying at the moment and of course all of their other grandchildren are/were champion sleepers as babies.

I have read so many sleep books and have tried to extend daytime naps with the hope of improving night time sleep- I can’t get him to settle back to sleep after the 45 minute wake up however hard I try but he’s clearly still tired when he wakes up.

I’ve had a bedtime routine since he was six weeks old and put him down to sleep when he’s sleepy but still awake...but it makes no difference. Last night he still woke up after two hours and four or five times after that.

I’m finding it increasingly hard to settle him down to sleep for naps or at night which is really upsetting too.

I am so, so sad. I feel like I’m failing my son.

Have been crying quite a lot this morning have had two bad nights with long (2-3 hours) wake ups in the middle of the night. My mood is crumbling again. I don’t know why the wake ups are happening, I don’t know what to do about them.

I am so stressed about keeping my husband awake and also the neighbours. Yes, people expect newborn babies to make noise at night but DS is nearly a year and I don’t think it’s fair to disturb them in the middle of the night on a regular basis. DS’s bedroom isn’t against an adjoining wall but cries so loud that they can definitely hear. They must think I’m a crap mum. I think I’m a crap mum.

I don’t know if I should do a controlled crying approach of going in every few minutes. I try offering some water the first time he wakes up and sometimes calpol. He will often be quiet when I put him back in the cot but will start crying again anything up to 20 minutes later. I don’t know what’s wrong so then I go back and forth for anything up to 3 hours. It’s crazy and it’s exhausting.

He’s seemed pretty happy during the day lately although it feels like he’s clingy at the moment (maybe it’s normal and I’m just finding it claustrophobic being with him all the time). Wants to constantly practise pulling up to standing on me. Like all day.

I know that sleep is up and down but these random long wake ups have been happening for more than two months now. It’s not every night and I just can’t work it out. Sorry, rambling now.

@PuffedupPufferFish I know exactly what you mean about the ‘hating being a baby’ thing. DS is much happier now that he can crawl and hopefully he will be even happier once he can walk.

I had wondered about dropping to one nap but he always seems very ready for his morning nap so I assumed that was a sign he definitely still needed two, but maybe that’s not right. How early are the early wake ups at your end?

@NeurotrashWarrior thanks for the reassuring words. He is upset when he wakes up and cries really loudly but is usually calm pretty much as soon as I pick him up.

Sometimes after a quick cuddle he will go back in the cot without any resistance. And if this happens early evening then usually he will go back to sleep, all good.

But if he wakes up in the middle of the night he will either go back in the cot quietly but start crying again 5-20 minutes later....or he will kick his legs and start crying as soon as I lower him into his cot.

He’s definitely not playful when he wakes up. I don’t think it’s hunger as he dropped his night feeds gradually himself (I didn’t actively night wean) and he doesn’t seem desperate for milk or food when I first get him up for the day. I do offer some water at night when he wakes up for the first time and he will generally drink some.

The only book anyone needs with non sleeping babies is 'The Fussy Baby Book: Parenting Your High-need Child from Birth to Five' by DrSears and not because it tells you how to parent but just explains why your baby is like they are and what they need. Makes you understand and not feel like a total failure, I found it a savour with my first.

No baby is to big to carry with the right sling. And a side car cot is a life saver. Pist other mums lie about how well their babies sleep. It's seems to be like some sort of competition.
Some children will wake through the night for years sorry. But they all do seem to get there in the end.

Yeh we were pretty much the same - she seemed pretty tired by nap time so I wasn't sure if she was ready. I hung on for probably 2 months with 5am wake ups before I decided to give it a go. She adjusted over a few weeks though, and it was fine. She was no more tired than before once she had got into a new pattern. Having said that, if he has only been doing the early rising a few weeks I would probably persevere a bit longer with two naps to be sure it's not a phase. My DD seems to go through random phases of sleeping less that last maybe 3-4 weeks, then goes back to what it was before.

After the 5am wake ups once we went to one nap we had an amazing maybe 6 months where on non nursery days she would lie in until 7.30-8.30am. It's gradually been creeping earlier though consistently over the last few months and it now at 6-6.30 am. I realise that time is fine but I suspect it will get earlier and earlier now until she drops her nap. I'm not saying any of this to boast by the way, just to reassure you a rubbish sleeper at 1 y.o. won't necessarily be rubbish at 2 y.o.

My D.D. was also the same with the massive long awake times in the middle of the night. So frustrating! The only thing that fixed it was some sleep training (kind of CC but we didn't leave the room, just reassured her from the side of the cot). One of the posters here recommended a method which we used, I can try and find the thread if you like? She was about 14 months, and it basically fixed it in 3 nights, and she has been on the whole a good sleeper since.

Hi @MigGril I’ve read some Dr Sears stuff in the past and liked it. DS has been in his own room for a long, long time now so I wouldn’t want to move him back into my room and go for a side car crib arrangement. He definitely likes his own space. When sleep has been particularly ropey I’ve tried to co-sleep in desperation and he hasn’t liked it at all. Doesn’t understand why he’s not in his cot and gets all worked up.

Thank you @PuffedupPufferFish always really reassuring to hear that others have been through similar...and come out the other side.

When your DD was waking up for long periods of time at night was she distressed or wanting to play? Yes please, if you wouldn’t mind digging that thread out that would be marvellous. I have been agonising over how best to deal with long night wake ups and wondered if a controlled crying approach is best. The only thing making me hesitate is that he falls asleep by himself at night ok and I thought controlled crying was more aimed at babies to teach them to fall asleep without parental help? Was that the case with your DD?

Am trying to keep a record of what DS has for dinner each night to see if I can spot a link to that and his sleep. Last night we had no wake ups so I’m convinced that he’s not teething right now. So baffled by it. I was awake from 3am staring at the baby monitor, waiting for it to flash on and just really really hoping it wouldn’t.

Hi hiding, I'll reply more later but I must say I gave up on own room simply because I couldn't deal with the unpredictability and then having to fully wake up.

My first was not a happy bunny during the day till he went to school tbh; desperately bright and extremely short attention span. Frustration central!

Number 2 is horizontal.

She was rarely awake and wanting to play. I think she had a phase of that when we tried co-sleeping, but otherwise not so much. She would normally wake up and then initially when we picked her up she would fall into a light doze in our arms, but be wide awake again if we so much as moved an inch, let alone tried to put her down. But the longer she was awake/lightly dozing she would get more and more tired, and more and more upset. On the really bad nights she would just end up so exhausted she would be screaming in our arms for hours until she eventually conked out from exhaustion, and we could put her in her cot, or shifty into a more comfortable position when co-sleeping. But usually we would have been awake 2-3 hours at that point.

This was my thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/3068349-One-year-old-still-poor-sleeper. We followed the 2nd post by Fate. Although admittedly out situation was slightly different to yours because 80% of the time we had to rock her to sleep. She did cry doing it and I did feel pretty shitty about it, but even the first and worst night, she cried less than she had cried in my arms on many other nights. And she has only ever really cried in the night since then if there is something concrete wrong, (illness, teeth, phase of being scared of the dark) which makes it much easier to identify and attempt to help with the problem.

Hi OP. I'm sorry I haven't read your full thread so apologies if this has been mentioned but have you considered food allergies? My DD woke multiple times a night and occasionally cried for hours on end and turned out she had a cows milk allergy. She settled immensely once I cut that out of her diet. I know you are BF but it could still pass on to him. Also please don't be afraid to take ADs. My (lovely angel of a) GP assured me that they are perfectly safe to take while BF. I only ended up taking them for 8 weeks but it really, really helped me. Sending hugs and , sleep deprivation is the absolute worst thing in the world.