Is anyone else following the extremely vague and lazy "wait it out and hope it spontaneously resolves itself, maybe solids/crawling/walking/time/eventual night-weaning/magic/bribery once she can talk or be reasoned with" baby sleep plan?
We're nipple-deep in the four-month regression, which followed fast from the 8-week-jabs endless night poo era, then the 12-week hourly waking growth spurt. Throw early teething,
a late tongue tie division and a crap reaction to 16-week jabs into the mix – all in the same week! Which is when she migrated from Snuzpod to sleeping in my armpit – and you get a shitstorm of night wakings, my solution to which is:
plonk baby (now 21 weeks) in bed with me each night – after first making comatose with boob after rock-solid bedtime routine – and reapply boob as needed. Sometimes sleepily snuggling works in the middle of the night. Sometimes she wakes, babbles, pats around to check I'm there, and resettles. (Rare as a unanimous AIBU? thread, but like sunshine when it happens!)
Sometimes we start the night with a 3-hour chunk, other times 45 minutes. Some nights she wakes up only 4 times, others what feels like 4,000. Very little crying unless more teeth/colds, in which case howling then calpol and boob and a lie-in if she grants it. (I know the advice is to wake at the same time each day but (a) the baby wakes herself at the crack of dawn most days and when she doesn't (b) if she was up for two hours howling because of her teeth, I'm not going to enforce a wake-up for the sake of some Gina Ford nonsense.)
The 45-minute wake-ups are guaranteed if I put her down in her sidecar crib now, or even if leave the room – sometimes she wakes straight away if I try to swap with DP. Even in deep sleep she has a batlike sense for my being in the room. She generally starts the night starfished on the bed; as the night goes on she gets more unsettled and likes my armpit to snuggle into best. Perhaps it's the woolly mammoth furriness?
She's not great at feeding lying down but I'm persevering because I'm lazy. Occasionally I attempt the pull-off thing of putting my finger in her mouth to delatch once she's asleep but I'm too knackered to do it consistently or time it to gradually reduce feeds, I think I'm doing it in a half-hearted "gosh I really should sort this sleep thing". Mostly I do it so I can go to sleep if I'm feeding sitting up. I've no idea how to shhhh-pat; PUPD seems like an awful lot of effort with a heavy baby when I could be lying down, and deeply confusing; gradual chair or whatever makes me want to weep with exhaustion more than the current situation; CC or CIO is neverrrrrrr going to happen. On the other hand, I have wistful recollections of evenings, of my lovely DP, of times when I ate dinner somewhere other than over a snoozing baby's head in the dark...
Basically is anyone else doing what I'm doing to improve their baby's sleep, i.e. not very much at all, and wants to commiserate while we ride it out, slash create bad habits, construct towering Jengas of rods for backs, build sleep crutches, and generally arse it up? Any experienced "totally winged it and it worked out fine" mothers want to share delightful stories of "Oh one day he just pushed the boob away, fell asleep and did 12 hours and it's been a fairytale ever since, I got my bed and my sex life back" lazy parenting magic?
DP & I are softies who plan on an open-door policy of "if the kid can't sleep because of nightmares or growing pains, come on in our bed, they're only little", have fond memories of childhood shenanigans of sleeping on the landing or sneaking down to see what the grown-ups are doing, BUT also have no interest in "giant floor bed co-sleeping til 20" and quite like each other and the idea of the kid in her own room eventually, it would be nice to have some hope.
::rambles on in a sleep-deprived manner while teething DD snores on my shoulder, preps coffee machine for tomorrow, hopes there are other chaotic parents out there doing the absolute least::
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Waiting it out
burritofan · 18/09/2019 20:28
@walkwalk
I'm back anyhow and wondering if anybody is still in (now toddler) sleep hell with me... DH has just rescued me from bedtime with our 23 month old as I was cracking up. LO is in a toddler bed (early I know but would never even sleep in a cot and spent up until recently on a mattress on a floor. takes 1.5-2 hours of full on battle (it escalates to that anyway) to get to sleep every single night and it's just killing me now. Will not even lie down or engage with me and I've resorted to shouting and trying to overpower - not my parenting style at all and I hate hate hate it, it doesn't even really work I just don't know what else to do at all. Feel like I've tried everything.
Don't know what I'm hoping for here really I just remembered this thread and am feeling desperate about this. LO will usually settle by 2100 so evenings are short and still interrupted by waking and resettling at least once or twice every.single.time. I'm losing the plot guys. It's a big grey cloud in my life.
How the flip do you get your toddlers to get into bed and lie down and relax???? Where did I go wrong? Urrrgggggghhhh
I really hope you all are doing better than us anyway x
This is my DD! 24 months and doesn't go to sleep until nearer 9pm most nights
She then sleeps through until 5am and I have to go in and resettle her once or twice until 6-6:30am. This I don't mind, it's bedtime that's the killer! Takes nearer 2 hours every. single. night
Hello! Can I join please! I think my DS must have some secret twins out there, your night times sounds very familiar.
DS is 17 months and sees no need for sleep. Apparently he gets this from me and my mum says she tried everything but I didn't sleep through until I was 4 and my brother held on until he was 6
This week we've gone from frequent wakings to just being awake for hours and hours in the night. His record was waking at 2am and refusing to go to sleep for the rest of the night. He wasn't crying or playing, just standing and staring like some creepy Victorian ghost child. This would have been fine if he hadn't insisted that I hold eye contact with him throughout. Whenever I looked away he started screaming.
He can't carry on like this forever right? He's got to start sleeping eventually?
Solidarity to you all 
::blows dust off old thread::
::inhales dust and coughs a bit::
::cough wakes the toddler::
How are we all? I'm still waiting on that sleep-through 
Thought we were on the home stretch 5–6 weeks ago when she, out of nowhere, started doing 7-hour stretches. The last time she slept 7 hours was when she was 7 weeks, and it was ONCE. Now at nearly a year, we were getting them nightly! Down to one/two wake-ups! Sure she then got up for the day at 5, but what a baby! I was GLOWING. I looked HUMAN.
This lasted a fortnight. Since then she's turned one, learned to walk, learned to shout (more), sprouted 8 million more teeth, refuses to nap, up 8 million times a night, etc.
Now for added fun we have the non-stop bedtime (and nap time) party. Why cuddle to sleep (I've stopped feeding to sleep for bedtime, she curls up on my lap and goes to sleep herself albeit using my legs as a big sleep association) when you can point at things or play or demand books or giggle or fling your arms around your mother's neck adorably?
She's also teething her fourth canine, which looks to be a bastard. Her molars were the same: one-two-three cut quickly then number four was a long drawn-out nipple-gnawing affair. If it comes through by the end of May that'll be 8 teeth in 3 months, RIP my boobs. But then only 4 to go and then, then I get my sleep-through, right?!
You're probably all having a glass of wine in the sunshine with your babies blissfully asleep in their cots, no longer waiting. But on the off-chance anyone's bad sleeper is still as bad as mine... come, join me in continued hell!
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Hey, sorry I've been AWOL. Youngest has cut her 8th tooth in the past couple of days. The last 6 have come through over the last 8 weeks. I didn't realise what was going on whilst I was in the thick of it. Kept muttering something about a combination of teeth, viral illness and leap/regression, in response to DH's asking me what was wrong with her. Bought several books about fussy babies. Ate a LOT of chocolate. Needless to say, it's been horrific, but I feel like (dare I say it) we might be coming out the other side. Don't get me wrong, the naps went up the fuck yesterday, and today actually. And today she's had worse mood swings than a teenager, BUT there have been moments of happy cuteness which I feel like I haven't seen for months. I've gotten her down to 2ish feeds overnight, and her appetite during the day has increased hugely, which I'm chuffed about. She still sleeps most of the night on with me, and my toddlers comes through to join the fun every night, but I feel a bit more rested. The afternoon nap is still on my knee, and I have no clue wtf to do about it, but other than that, we're doing ok.
@Harrysmummy246 I often get the "is he asleep?" From guests in total shock after I've putting my first sleep thief toddler down for the night.
@PiratePetespajamas we feel your pain.
@burritofan amazing news!!
Sorry I've not replied to everyone, I really should be trying to get my head down whilst both of them have their eyes shut. 
I speak both from experience and in the thick of it: my oldest child was a terrible sleeper, we cosleeper from 4 months, when I gave up the farce of spending an hour feeding or rocking to sleep for the pleasure of 25 mins of sleep. He continued to be crap and got worse to settle to sleep as he entered his second year. We coslept until 4 (he, 4!!!) but somewhere around the miracle 3 years he started sleeping through the night. Now he is just soooooooo easy. Asleep in minutes with a song. Having been cuddled and fed to sleep for years. I often marvel at it.
On the other hand, my youngest is 10 months and I am not enjoying this phase again. My back hurts from cosleeping and I LOATHE not having an evening because baby has to sleep with me during that time too. Would never do CIO, not least because baby is definitely an escalater, not a settler. I keep trying to remind myself about Child #1. That it will all be alright in the end. I keep trying to be grateful for relatively uninterrupted sleep at night. I keep feeling sore from lying in one position and bad-tempered from having no time to myself. I feel your pain.
Oh and feeding lying down: I found it tricky to start off with but it definitely gets easier as the baby gets bigger. Trouble is I can now only lie on one side, even when I have the bed to myself 
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