What am I doing wrong?!

[BeyonceKnows]

Hi everybody,
I've posted a couple of times before but not too often... Basically I feel like I'm failing.

My baby is 5 months old and has NEVER gone to sleep before 11pm. This used to be fine because she'd sleep from 11pm until 8/9am but her sleep has gotten progressively worse!!

She currently sleeps at 7pm (after bath, feed and book), wakes up by 8pm at the latest and then fights sleep/isnt tired?/wants to play/gets cranky/fusses at the breast until around 11.30/12pm.
She then remains restless all night long. I've taken to co-sleeping because I am exhausted and feel like I just can't do this anymore.

We wake up at 8am for the day, she naps at 9.30ish for 45 mins, has her next nap at 12ish for 2 hours and her final nap at 4pm for 30-45 mins.
She sleeps perfectly for naps.

I just dont know what I've done wrong with her night time sleep and I feel like a failure.

I dont mind her waking in the night at all; I fully expect that from a baby but it's the 4 hour battle that we have every single evening that's really upsetting me. I feel like I've somehow given her a phobia of sleeping at night time, is that even possible?!

If anybody could just reassure me that one day it might not be like this/that I've not irretrievably damaged her somehow or even if people think I have damaged her, and maybe I need to look at getting professional help for us... I'd really appreciate it.

TIA.

I'm not going to be a huge amount of help as I have a difficult sleeper as well. But please do not think you're a failure - this baby sleep thing can be so brutal. My 11mo is far from perfect, but it has definitely gotten better since 5 months - just be kind to yourself and know that this too shall pass.

A few things to think about maybe: have you started with a bedtime routine? Might help with winding down. Could you move the afternoon nap earlier? I found that if DS slept past 4/4.30 the early part of the evening was terrible. Are you EBF? Could you give a bottle even if its expressed milk last thing before bed to try to fill up her tummy?

Don't beat yourself up about cosleeping. I started around 5 months too and felt so guilty about it. But you do what you gotta do to get through.

Hey, you've got a 5-month-old doing a two-hour lunchtime nap like a baby from a textbook! You're doing brilliantly! My baby didn't do anything beyond 25 minutes at a time until she was 7 months.

As for night sleep getting progressively worse, I think that's normal. My 10-month-old is a total shitshow – with the occasional unicorn stretch of 3-4 hours once in a blue moon. Developmental leaps, milestones, teeth, being over- or undertired, also being tiny bellends: it all adds up to not sleeping.

I just dont know what I've done wrong with her night time sleep and I feel like a failure.
You've done nothing wrong. My friend and I have babies born the same day; same parenting style. Different labours, different births, different breastfeeding experience, different sleep (hers does, mine doesn't). Firmly believe babies do what they want. Mine is cosleeping with me and on the boob all night and will be till it all magically fixes itself!

That said; could you try getting her up at 7am instead of 8am? Just to tire her out a bit more by bedtime.

Thank you both so much for being kind.
It's such a relief to hear that mine isnt the only one who wont sleep at night. I have honestly been feeling terrible these past couple of weeks. I just cant see this ever improving. I feel like we've tried everything.
(We have tried getting her up at 7 but it didn't seem to make any difference and because I was exhausted I just reverted to getting up at 8 but I'll definitely give 7am starts another good go!)

burritofan do you just let yours help themselves to boob all night? That's what I've been doing but then worrying that's going to stop her being able to self settle.

It doesnt help that I'm a natural worrier and the lack of sleep is making my anxiety much worse.

Thank you for making me feel less like I'm failing though and more like my baby is just a little bell end at the moment

It’ll come in the evening. I have 2 and dc1 went to bed at 6.30/7 from 10 weeks, dc2 was 6 months or so and would often wake after an hour or so for a time after that.

I expect that their own room will help. If you weren’t so close you wouldn’t hear & you’re close to 6 months now. It’s the lack of deep sleep that gets to you though so be kind to yourself!

I’d agree that giving a bottle as the last feed would allow you to get to bed earlier and get some hours in the sleep bank.

How a baby sleeps is not a reflection of your parenting ability

I wish she would help herself! Then I could doze through it! She wakes up shouting crossly, I have to latch her on then nudge her off when she's back asleep and she rolls over into the sidecar cot.

Sometimes she just needs a cuddle or a back rub or to be awake and partying for a bit or settles herself (but still wakes me). Actually that's a thing: I've always fed to sleep and feed back to sleep in the night when she lets me BUT she can settle herself when she feels like it. She's in a sidecar cot and once woke up, crawled over and patted my face til I woke up, grinned, then lay down and went back to sleep.

They all get there eventually, it's NOT your fault, self-settling is developmental (and in my experience doesn't mean they suddenly sleep for longer); I'm taking the lazy route that gets me the most sleep – so if 8am works to make you feel better and 7am didn't make a difference, stick with it! I just go to bed super early most nights and seem to manage.

I'm the same Burritofan with taking the lazy route. It was easy to sacrifice sleep in the early weeks but now at 5 months, I feel like I have less ability and less patience to stay awake so we co-sleep at the moment. The last two nights we've managed to get her to sleep in her cot from 7pm until 9pm and then in with me which is an improvement in my eyes.

Can I also just ask, because I'm a FTM so dont know what's normal (appreciate there is no normal really). My baby does not EVER just fall asleep by accident. She'd never just lay on the bed and fall asleep or fall asleep during a cuddle. She has to be fed or rocked or put in the pram/car.
I see pictures of babies who have fallen asleep midway through their lunch or whilst playing with their toys or just while being held and I dont think ours will ever do that. Sleep for ours is always, always a 'process'. Does anybody else have a baby who doesnt just accidentally nod off? Or is this likely to come back (she used to when she was much smaller)? I miss her just falling asleep on me

I was thinking about this the other day as a mum friend mentioned their baby fell asleep on their playmat. I have a nearly 7 month old and I truly believe hell will freeze over before he just randomly nods off. As you say, sleep is a process for us!!

I was also thinking about your original post. Could you try shifting your bedtime routine back, so it's happening before she falls asleep properly for the night? Eg at 10-10:30pm? She might not be associating the bath and routine with going to bed if it's so much earlier. You could then gradually shift it forwards 15mins at a time or something? Don't know if it would work, but anything is worth a try sometimes!

I have a similar baby at 4mo! Can not fall asleep by herself and needs rocked or bounced or its impossible! I feel your pain!!! We did go through a phase similar to you when she was younger where every evening felt like a fucking war to get her to sleep. I'm not sure if she just grew out of it really but I do remember paying a lot of attention to her daytime naps and getting on top of sleep. I know my LO is younger but she will only nap for 30 (40 if I'm lucky) mins at a time and I try not to let her stay awake longer than 1.5 - 2 hours
We put her down for bed no later than 7pm and persevere with keeping her in bed until 7am. We usually start the bedtime routine about 6pm (bath and feed) She usually wakes after the first half hour or hour but DH will bounce her back to sleep immediately and persevere until she falls asleep but it can take a while and a few go's as well. I'd definitely recommend playing white noise when your LO falls asleep initially and keep in on loud for the whole evening if you can. It seems to help my LO get into the night time sleep cycle.

A friend sent me this - www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/02/12/Common-Age-by-Stage-Sleep-Schedules

Maybe something to think about but every baby is different so see how you get on. It will pass but I know that is hard to hear when you're going through it

I had a very similar experience to this if we put him to bed at 7 pm or 8 pm I think he saw it as his third nap of the day. This is a really difficult age because it's hard to start any kind of sleep training when they are only five months I definitely wouldn't have been able to do anything like that.

I hate to say but we had so many ongoing problems and it didn't get better that just before he was one year old we hired a sleep consultant and we ended up doing controlled crying - which was horrible for four nights and then has worked ever since and bedtime is a dream. I totally understand it's not for everyone and there's no way I could've done it when he was only six or seven months but we got to the stage where I never saw my partner in the evenings because I had to go and lie on the bed with our son to try and get him to go to sleep and by the time that happened I was exhausted.

The big difference between naps and sleep time I think is that a nap will only take them through one sleep cycle, if you do a bit of research on this, they then naturally wake at the end of that sleep cycle - if they can't put themselves back to sleep because they are used to breastfeeding or being rocked that's where the problem starts.

Originally my son was always breastfed to sleep then we tried introducing a bottle of formula so that his dad could help then he was always cuddled then eventually I had to lie with him to get him to sleep. All of these are sleep props according to the sleep consultant and will preventing him from learning the ability to go to sleep himself.

I don't know how much advice I've got, but just perhaps play around with his sleep schedule and I agree with the previous poster he said 4 pm it's quite late for an afternoon sleep. The schedule we were given was for a baby who was weaned so maybe try in a month or.so:
7am wake up and milk
8am breakfast
9.30am sleep (30 mins only)
10am snack / milk
12pm lunch
1pm nap (1-1.5 hour)
2.30pm snack / milk
5pm tea
6.30 sleep routine begin
7pm bed