13mo never slept through and I’m broken

[Sunshine567]

Basically my 13mo has been a shit sleeper since birth. Took a night time bottle for first 6 weeks and then out of the blue refused a bottle and has been exclusively breastfed since, despite many attempts to get onto bottle. Feeding was always tough - for first 4/5 months she wanted feeding between 45mins to 1.5hrs so night times were shit but at least she’d feed and go straight to sleep. Probably just before weaning she’d go for longer 3hr stretches but from 10months she has been an absolute nightmare. I start feeding her around 7ish for bedtime but now she wants held until she falls asleep. If I go to put her down in her cot she screams until she starts almost choking and too distressing for both of us. So she gets held for up to an hour and then this cycle happens for another 4 times on an average night, more on a really bad night but never less than 3. Lately she’s been waking earlier and earlier for first time - 9pm tonight and she went down at 7. Sometimes she wants fed in the night and other times it’s just screaming until I can calm her. I’m back at work and really struggling. My older child is starting to wake with it too which creates another drama. I’ve tried getting dh to put her to bed but she goes ape shit at bedtime and (the very rare) times he gets up in middle of night. I don’t know what to do....

If she's eating well in the day then I'd recommend stopping breastfeeding. She will go ape shit initially and for a couple of days due to the change but she will adapt. It will be a hard couple of days but it sounds like you need to make a change and it's not going to get easier the longer this situation goes on. Does she have another comfort object like muslin or teddy?

Give milk in a sippy cup, express if you are uncomfortable and use this milk.
Agree you need to stop breast feeding.
Could you take older child away for a couple of days and DH take over? This may break the cycle.

My two year old still doesn't sleep through (bar a few miracle weeks before she turned 2) and I really regret giving up breastfeeding at 21 months as it had very little impact on how much she slept, I only stopped because I thought she would stop waking up in the night but it didn't work. I think you should start to get your DH more involved in settling and bedtime though so you have more of a break, maybe try introducing a comfort toy too? You have all my sympathy OP, it is so so hard dealing with long term sleep deprivation.

I know this won't be a poplar suggestion but does she ever sleep or has she ever slept with you?

Oh god, I feel your pain. My son didn't sleep through until he was almost 4ish, and before then it would be screaming in the night, irrational demands left over from what he'd just dreamed etc. Shudder. He still wakes once in the night but sorts himself out mostly now. My middle one (4) wakes at least 4 times sleep shouting/wants blanket put back on etc (she used to sleep through), and the younger one (almost 3) wakes about once to three times calling out for me but at least goes back to sleep. It's torture. And no matter what we do, sometimes some kids are just bad sleepers. I'm sure it'll get better soon - just do what you need to to survive.

I feel your pain. You’re not going to want to hear how much further on we are than you, but stopping feeding made no difference to the frequency of wake ups.

Co-sleeping does allow us to get a bit more sleep than we did.

I'm with silk pyjamas - nearly 2 years after giving up breastfeeding my son is still not a great sleeper - he has got significantly better but that's mostly due to age. You could try night weaning (google Jay Gordon's method) but I would focus on getting your DH involved more to give you a break. That will probably mean you going out of the house at bedtime - we found that if I was downstairs but not coming DS would be much more upset than if I was out - the difference between "mum's ignoring me, I must get her to come" and "mum's not here, Dad will do". Apparently they quite often had to walk round the house to demonstrate that I wasn't there! There were a few tough evenings but being able to divide the night into shifts and each get some uninterrupted sleep was absolutely vital for my sanity!

Good grief that sounds hard. I think I'm where you were at 6months. I'm planning on stopping night feeds at 7mo and doing controlled crying.

I know it's controversial but it's better than my tiny sliver of sanity melting away for good.

What sleep training have you done?

Tbh I wouldn't bed share. I'd try and sleep train and set the good habits now that you want to last. Bed sharing is a sticking plaster, and ime I sleep much worse when the kids are in with me.

Hope you get some sleep soon

I just had mine sleep with me (was actually the hip thing to do then) terrible sleepers but they fed without any fuss. Around 15 months friends gave us a toddler bed so we put dd to sleep in it and she would come to us when she wanted to cuddle (I quit breastfeeding around the same with dd1, I carried on longer with dd2

Could you hire a sleep consultant to review the food intake / daily naps etc etc and give you a plan to follow?

We've been thru the wringer with sleep and if you can afford to, it would be best to get someone to look at it objectively and give you a stategy to follow. Ours was £150 and a life saver!

I am a bit scared of giving up breastfeeding. Not that I want to continue its just become my saviour in the middle of the night. If the screaming becomes unbearable or threatens to wake up older child I know the boob will solve it. I know I’m just creating a problem too but I just want a bit of sleep. She lies on me until she settles (like she is right now - see I said her first wake up is getting up earlier and earlier) but we don’t actually cosleep - my dh unfortunately smokes.
She refused a dummy too and I’ve been trying to introduce a comforter during the day if I’m feeding or if she’s upset but it generally gets launched out the cot at night!
Pooshy where did you find a sleep consultant at that price? Is it just online? I have considered home visits but the ones I’ve seen have been between £500 and £1000 and I’m only just returning to full pay after mat leave.
My hv hasn’t been much use - ‘just give it another few weeks and see’ but it’s been this bad for 13months and worse last 3 so I doubt a few weeks are going to miraculously help.