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.

Sorry it was another rubbish night for you hiding. With regards to night formula feeds, we had a perfect prep machine which took about 90 secs to make it all up. However, within about a week of starting formula, DD no longer needed night feeds. I would give a dream feed at 10pm and then that was it until morning. Prior to this I had been used to feeding every 30 mins-2hrs overnight.

At 4/5 months, a formula fed baby would be unlikely to need many night feeds (unless they were fed / settled to sleep with a bottle).

(Not trying to persuade you into formula, this is just my experience!)

As much as I am probably formula’s biggest advocate, I think you are truly amazing to EBF for this long, when you are so exhausted.

Hope tonight is a better one for you all.

Dude.

You are finding so many ways to be hard on yourself. You have got to give yourself permission to Just. Try. Less. Hard.

It's honestly ok. There is no such thing as linear progress with babies. When his sleep and naps were improving it seemed like good progress and like you'd made it happen. You hadn't - it was just the phase he was in. When he hit four months and became a sleepless mess you thought you'd failed. You hadn't. It's a phase. A long, hard, shitty phase. It's normal and it is NOT related to anything you're doing or not doing. Honestly.

Soon he'll sleep better for a while. You'll be tempted to think you finally tried the magic thing that cracked it. It will be a coincidence too. Another phase. Give yourself a break, stop fighting to control his sleep and start fighting for some sleep of your own. Exploit anyone and everyone who will take him for a walk so you can nap for an hour or two. You will feel so much more able to cope if you rest even a little.

For what it's worth, my baby is exactly the same age as yours and for the last 6 weeks she has doing exactly the same things. Fighting every nap, waking in 45 minute cycles on the bad nights, 2 hour cycles on the good ones. At 2 months old she was practically sleeping through; now she's wired 24/7 and a terrible sleeper. Thing is, she's my second child so I know it's normal and it'll pass. It will for you too. Meantime, try to stop fighting your baby and just get through the weeks together. Enjoy the good moments. You're not failing him. You'll be fine.

Solidarity, from one knackered mum to another.

Hi @HidingUnderTheSofa, oh no it didn't LAST 9 months - it started about 4/5 months old and ended overnight at about 9 months old. So a pretty painful 4 months-ish where I was up every couple of hours. Then, after I'd exhausted the possible 'fixes', it all changed one night and she just resumed sleeping through, the weirdo! Lol. Been a really good sleeper ever since, maybe that's my reward?! I'm sure you'll get it too!

Someone said to me at the time 'she's slept much better before, and will do again'. It's very true (doesn't feel like it at the time though!)

I had a terrible sleeper, and it is so tough. Like you say it was the uncertainty as to how long it would go on, whether I needed to do anything to "fix" it, whether it could get even worse that drove me crazy! In hindsight I think you do just have to accept it as unpredictable - I have some friends with rubbish sleepers who kept going and eventually things got better without them taking any particular action, and some friends who got to a point where they knew they could not take any more and resorted to sleep training.

I fell into the second category - eventually when she was 14 months after 10 months of pretty awful sleep I was broken, my husband was broken and my DD was constantly knackered and we knew we just had to do something. So we did some gentle sleep training (some crying but didn't abandon her) and honestly we fixed it in two nights. I think what I am trying to say is you will know when you have reached your limit and need to do something more drastic, and until then just muddle through. I think when she was around 7 months my body did just adapt to less sleep so I coped a lot better.

What I would say is would it be worth a chat with the GP about PND? I refused to accept that I had it, and felt all my issues were down to lack of sleep. I realise now that I had PND triggered by lack of sleep, but still very much PND. I received treatment when she was 7 months, which made so much difference. She wasn't sleeping any better but I was much better able to accept it and go with the flow. Some of the things you say about how you feel really remind me of my state of mind at that time and recieving support and help made all the difference.

Hope tonight is a good night!

Hope you’re doing ok @Hiding. I agree with @octopuslimbs post above- the peak of my despair was around 5/6 months and then I just adapted. I also suspect I had some PND but I didn’t think the dr could prescribe anything for it with me breastfeeding and then things improved so I didn’t bother.

After her first wake yesterday I left her to settle for a bit on her own, left the door open and just watched her on the monitor. I went in after a minute or so of slightly annoyed crying and settled her, then left another couple of mins and she eventually settled, with a little more complaining. She then did a 4 hr and a 3 hr stint.

I wouldn’t leave her to get really upset but she was no worse than if I was next to her. That said she is nearly 8 months- quite a bit older than your DS- I wouldn’t have done it earlier as she wasn’t ready and would scream the house down and send my blood pressure rocketing.

I think you need to trust your instincts and do what you feel is right for both you and the baby. If you don’t feel ready to sleep train that’s fine, if you do then that’s also fine.

How are you doing @HidingUnderTheSofa?

I've read this thread through and my god, OP, you are an absolute hero. Your dedication to being the best mum you can be really shines through, despite the toll it's taking on you. You're amazing, honestly. Please give yourself a little cheer daily, you deserve it.

Also wanted to second the suggestion of talking to your GP about what's going on and how you're feeling - if only to rule out PND or any medical issues with your baby.

Wholly agree with PPs that have recommended concentrating on what babies actually do, rather that what the books say they should.

Lastly, I really don't think there is any shame for an otherwise EBF mum using emergency formula to enable you to rest. Just one night might help reset things, and at least give you a few more hours and the feeling of being human again.

Please be kinder to yourself, you really are doing an incredible job.

Thank you for your kind words @brogueish. I am absolutely sure I don’t have PND- I think I am ‘just’ exhausted and feeling sad about that. All the time. During the brief week or two when DS was sleeping pretty good at night (2 or 3 wake ups, settling straight back down) I was really happy and enjoying motherhood. I just about remember feeling good.

Feeling pretty dejected right now. I’ve just come back from walking DS in the pram for nearly half an hour trying to get him to nap. Failed. He’s been awake since 2.30pm and is miserable. Constantly whingeing, sorry I can’t think of a nicer way to put it. The same yesterday. I’m having a little cry hidden away in the bathroom.

The sleep is no better. I am very lucky if I get a two hour stretch at the beginning of the night. More recently I’m struggling to get back to sleep between his wake ups, partly because I feel so stressed knowing that I may be woken up again pretty much as soon as I drop off and partly because sometimes I’m up feeding for so long that it wakes me up, despite all those supposedly ‘sleepy’ breastfeeding hormones.

My husband is working late tonight so I won’t see him til tomorrow night. Hoping that DS goes off to sleep ok at the beginning of the night at the very least.

I am sleep training at six months. One month to go. I hold my hands up; I can’t cope on this amount of sleep for much longer.

Feeling very low. I tried for more than 20 minutes to get him to nap in his cot because he wouldn’t sleep in his pram, despite that being how he’s napped every day since he was born and despite being obviously tired.He just cried and cried. I had to leave the room twice for a couple of minutes. Carried on screaming, tried to soothe with my voice and with touch. No use. Had to bring him downstairs. So he’s been awake for hours, is ridiculously upset and all for nothing because he didn’t sleep anyway. I feel so, so alone and like a terrible mother. I have strapped him in his bouncy chair and am sobbing my heart out in the next room. His little face had tears running down it. I don’t want that. He won’t sleep. I’m so tired and so sad. I’ve just sobbed down the phone to my husband but he has to go back to work til late. DS probably hates me. He is miserable 90% of the time because he’s always tired.

Sorry this is garbled. I’ve had so little sleep for so long I cant articulate things very well.

This may not be relevant but I weaned ds at 5 mths as his sleep had changed and he was more settled. I know advice has probably changed since

@gandalf456 they now advise to wait until six months unless explicitly advised otherwise by a health professional. So a month to wait. Counting down the days til then.

Thanks for checking in @thingybobwotsit not been the best day

@Cottipus thanks for your support and I’m so glad to hear that you’re getting some more four and three hour stretches. I know you are a few months on from me so you’ve had longer to wait for those better stretches. We are sleep training in a month of no improvement. It doesn’t feel ‘right’ for me but I don’t feel able to cope like this for any longer than that don’t know what method we will be using but it will be one where I stay present with DS as I don’t feel comfortable leaving him alone to cry. Well, don’t feel comfortable with him crying full stop but I feel more comfortable with it if he has me or my husband by his side.

@hidingunderthesofa you are absolutely not a terrible mum! You’re doing a fantastic job. I know what you mean about the “momsomnia” I had it last night and wasted a 4.5 hr stretch. The pressure to sleep is immense and I could hear the church bells ticking the hours away. Had to go back to newborn advice and snooze when she napped today.

Up until about a month ago DD would NEVER nap in her cot. Now she will with little protest, we found putting a low sidelight on in the evening seemed to calm her when she woke. I do think it’s an age thing.

Babies do complain- I’ve had whinging all day as I’ve failed to entertain her sufficiently! He certainly doesn’t hate you. He won’t remember the tears but it is utterly frustrating dealing with a grumpy baby on little sleep yourself.

Sorry to hear your husband is away. Please feel free to post/message for support x

Wow @shirleyschmidt that’s astonishing. I don’t hold out much hope for DS suddenly improving one day but you are proof it can happen.

@OctopusLimbs wow, I am in awe of you managing to survive on 10 months of such awful sleep. I simply don’t think I could do that. We are going to sleep train when he six months old. In my ‘defence’, my husband is hardly around and I don’t have local family or local friends who don’t have young children themselves. So I don’t really ever get a break. I think if I had family nearby who could pop over every so often to take DS for a bit, or if my husband was around more, then this situation would be slightly more bearable.

@tinymeteor I so admire and respect chilled second time round mums like yourself. So zen in the face of pretty crappy sleep by the sounds of it. Wow! Thanks for the solidarity and wishing some decent nights for you soon. I am hard on myself but you know there is a constant voice in my head that I don’t deserve my baby, that I’m failing him by not being able to help him sleep more.

Hello! I also had a terrible terrible sleeper, I fought for hours to get him to nap and he slept for 45 minutes on the dot every single time. I tried bottles, sleep training, comforters, swaddling etc etc etc.
It gets SO much better! It did take a very long time for him to ‘sleep through’ but 4-5 months is the worst and it will get better soon. Have you ever researched the ‘high needs baby’? It’s the most accurate description of my son I’ve ever found and it helped me through so much knowing that I wasn’t doing everything wrong and it was just his personality.
I coslept, moved our mattress on the floor and slept on there with him and a very light blanket to my waist and no pillows. I didn’t keep one arm up, I’m a tummy sleeper and he was always happy at the other side of the mattress until he was ready for a feed. I instantly went from having a baby who woke up screaming every time to a much happier little boy. I napped in bed with him at least once a day and went to bed at 8/9pm to catch up on sleep to get me through.
Now that we are at the other side (he’s 1.5) I can say that he genuinely needs a lot less sleep than other babies. He went down to one nap a day at 10 months old and that nap naturally extended to more than 45 minutes (Hallelujah!). He now would often go days without a nap, whereas I know many 3 year olds still having a 2 hour nap midday.
Unless you really like the mums in your group I would honestly limit the time you spend with them. It’s not helpful to hear how great other kids are sleeping when yours isn’t and I received a LOT of judgement on the choices I made by someone who’s kid slept through at 8 weeks old. I quite happily never spoke to her again. If you have a local BF group, or Facebook BF local group they can be super helpful to meet mums who are going through similar struggles.

@hidingunderthesofa I know that voice... the one that says it's your job to teach them to self-settle, and if you can't do it you've failed them, but also to never make them distressed because you'll overload their stress receptors and damage them forever?? That voice is a judgy bastard. It takes all the conflicting advice that the internet has to offer and mixes you a massive guilt mojito.

Tell the voice to fuck off. Your son has a mum who loves him and is trying her very best. He's already won the lottery. You're not a staff member who's failing your probation period, you're his mum and you and he will figure it all out as a team. With sleep-resistant babies like ours it's the work of months, not weeks, but you'll get there. Build routines slowly, be patient and believe in yourself.

Btw my DH would in no way describe me as zen! Easier to give advice than to follow it

@Jent13c Id read about high needs babies before and thought that wasn’t like my DS but had another browse this morning and I can certainly see traits in him- very ‘forceful’ personality right from the start. I’ve lost count of the times his head has clunked me painfully in the jaw because he’s lunging around in my arms (which in itself feels pretty crappy- you’re trying to comfort your baby in your arms and they are trying to wriggle free from your grasp but also cry if you put them down. That happened early this morning. Bit of a kicker.)

So last night was horrible. First wake up was after two hours and didn’t manage any stretches of sleep as long as two hours after that.

My husband woke up shortly before midnight, having got drunk and forgotten his keys. So I had to get up to let him in and he was really rude to me. I was really upset and wired and I didn’t sleep til after 2am then (there was a feed at 1am), and of course I was both raging and upset that I wasted precious time being awake when I should have been sleeping.

I don’t know if it’s just the exhaustion but I feel so, so upset by his behaviour. Earlier this week I asked him essentially to put all his own wants out of the window for the next month (before we look at sleep training) and just do all that he can to help me survive the sleep deprivation, and to make life as easy as possible for me. So stepping up to do more round the house, no doing his (time consuming) hobby at the weekend and not putting anything on my ‘to do’ list. I said it was really important that he carried this on for a whole month and not just make a show of doing extra for two or three days and then stop once he got bored...that was maybe two days ago. I’ve had a very short apology by text but it really doesn’t cut it. I desperately want to have a big sob but my food shopping could arrive any time now so trying to hold it in.

Last night while I couldn’t sleep after being woken up by my husband I decided that every time DS woke up tonight I would go into the bedroom my husband is sleeping in and would turn the main light switch on. Not only will it wake him up in a highly irritating way but he will also have to get up out of bed to turn it off every single time. Wont touch the sides in terms of making him as tired as me but it would give him a little taster. Seriously considering doing this.

DS is a bit grumbly again today and I realised that one of the things I’m finding hard is I feel I’ve lost the ability to read him and know what’s bothering him. So I feel useless on top of exhausted.

This is one of the many, many days since DS was born that I wish my mum lived round the corner and could come round for tea and a hug.

Sorry that should have said my husband woke me up

It all sounds so tough. You really don't need to 'defend' your decision to sleep train at 6 months to me or anyone else - we all just muddle through as best as we can and make the best decisions we can with our individual circumstances. And it sounds like you are doing just that. I only held off as long as I did because I had a very supportive husband and DD was mix fed so he could take the pressure off at weekends. And when I did finally sleep train her it was so quick and easy and she was so much more content that I felt silly that I didn't do it sooner. As a PP said, the online advice has you either feeling guilty for making your baby sleep deprived, or guilty for letting them get destressed by sleep training and "damaging their emotional development". If you have to sleep train for your own sanity, that honestly does not make you a bad or uncaring mother, it makes you a human mother (who sounds lovely and caring).

My mum also lived a long way away, and even though my husband was great I really missed having her around in those early days. Do you have any family you could go and stay with for a week or two who might be a bit more helpful and supportive than your husband? It doesn't really sound like he is doing much to help at the moment anyway.

I second octopus about not having to defend your decision to sleep train. Sleep is so, so so important - I really didn’t realise how much until I had a baby. (And I am speaking as someone who has had years of nights / shift work!)

Yes there will be a couple of nights of crying etc, but it will be worth it for you all. I would bet my life that you will all be 1000 x happier once you have done it.

I’ve only just found this thread but your posts are so familiar to me OP. Particularly the confusion between PND/sheer exhaustion, and the fact that it makes the early months absolutely fucking shit when everyone else seems ok. ‘Go to the doctor’ people said... but I was so afraid of the answer ‘yes, some babies cry a lot and are crap sleepers’.

You (and I, and the thousands of other folk like us) have not failed as parents. We are absolutely not crap mums. The advantage of it second time round is that I can assure you that this is not the best it is going to be. All those nostalgic people looking back to times with newborn babies: well, bollocks. Give me my tantrummibg two year old any time over what he was like in his first year.

//stares at eight months pregnant bump with growing dread//

Hey OP, just sending some strength. It’s so hard. So hard in fact it took my husband and I six years to do it again. And now I’m here with non sleeping baby number two and actually wish we hadn’t done it. It’s just as dreadful the second time around.
However, I KNOW that it will pass. Life WILL get better and we WILL sleep again.
No it doesn’t make it easier, it’s still shit and I have hated most of the newborn stuff. But it will pass. I actually asked for help for pnd as even if it is “only” exhaustion, the cbt and sertraline help me cope with the sleeplessness slightly better.

I’m wondering if your baby might have silent reflux. Does he grunt in his sleep? Does he has an acidic breath?
I’m on my second refluxer and it’s hell.

Seven wake ups last night and so unsettled, I couldn’t even put him down after his bedtime feed which almost never happens. He wasn’t really interested in the bedtime feed which I can’t remember happening before. Sometimes he starts off a bit fidgety but always relaxes/gets drowsy eventually. That didn’t happen last night.

My husband settled him after a couple of wake ups that were less than 90 minutes after the last feed (so I felt confident that they weren’t hunger related wake ups). He’d calm down quite soon after being picked up by my husband and went back to sleep ok, but woke up within about five minutes one of the times...does anyone know why he would wake up so soon? I am asssuming some kind of physical discomfort. I thought he may have been cold in the night so changed him into a warmer sleeping bag part way through the night but that didn’t stop him waking up very frequently. And I may be wrong anyway as his room is always warm.

I am thinking of taking DS to the GP on Monday morning to see if they can give him a quick check for any sort of physical issues. He has wax visible outside his ear canal often so I will ask the GP to check his ears. I’m probably clutching at straws and am a little bit worried that I’ll be told I’m wasting their time but equally I don’t want to miss something that could be bothering DS.

I think a few people have mentioned reflux and whether that’s an issue. It’s something I wondered about a fair bit in his earlier weeks. He would fuss quite a lot when feeding but has always had naps on his back in his pram, and generally I put him back down after a feed whilst still awake and he will drift off to sleep on his own...I wouldn’t have thought that would be the case if he had reflux. He does burp quite a lot which seems to be unusual considering he is never fed from a bottle.

I will also ask GP about cows milk allergy...sorry head is so woolly, I’m just writing down thoughts as they come
Into my head.

For those of you who said I don’t need to justify sleep training, ah but I do. I feel hideous about it. I’m starting to cry just thinking about it (also another consequence of sleep deprivation: no control over my emotions whatsoever). But I can’t sustain what I’m dealing with. DS doesn’t seem that happy during the day. I don’t know if he’s bored or just exhausted or both. Doesn’t seem to make a difference if we go out part of the day to a baby group or something.

I bought myself some fancy shower gel as recommended on this thread- 1/3 off Neals Yard which I took to be a sign from the shower gel gods to buy it. Normally I buy whatever is cheapest on offer so spending £9 on shower gel feels very extravagant. Also bought Badedas shower gel as I see it recommended on here from time to time. That’s what I used this morning and when I opened it up the fragrance was like a flashback to the 90s, although I can’t really explain way

why not way!

Hi, I breastfed ds 1 (now 14) for quite a few months. I often found he was just suckling for comfort rather than feeding so was very difficult to settle him and often woke up several times a night. He wouldn't take a dummy. It was exhausting but I promise it won't be like this forever.