I can't take it anymore

[Mamabear04]

My LO is one week away from being 6mo. She has always struggled to go to sleep since birth and as a result my OH and I have had to bounce her on an exercise ball to get her to sleep. A few weeks ago I made huge headway and managed to wean her off the movement by holding her while she sucked on her dummy and then put her down in her crib and it was working!!! It was working and I was so pleased but for the past 2 weeks she refuses to do this now. She refuses the dummy and then sucks on my arm. At first I thought she was hungry and confused my arm with my boob (shes BF) so i offered her the boob but she didn't want it and then went back to sucking my arm. It won't comfort her to sleep at all and now she will only go to sleep by being bounced by my OH (she won't go to sleep for me at all) or for naps- walked in a baby carrier or pram. We are at the end of our tether and have tried so hard to reduce the movement when getting her to sleep but it is not working and I don't know what to do. If we put her down in her cot to sleep or to settle herself she moans but if we try to leave her so not to interfere she wakes herself up even more and then she is so wired and won't sleep. We are exhausted. I cant take it anymore. What can I do? I feel like an absolute failure because I cant get my baby to sleep and I am not able to teach her to sleep. I just cant do controlled crying - it's not for us. I feel like such a shit mum that I can't get my baby to sleep

Oh OP, you are absolutely not a failure!! Both my children had all their naps in a buggy while I pushed it back and forth in the kitchen, both also had to be rocked in my arms to sleep at night. They were just tricky sleepers, some babies are. 6 months is still very little. Is it more the idea that you're not 'teaching your baby to sleep' that is causing the stress or are you finding bouncing her to sleep stressful. I would say just go with it for now, everything is a phase with babies especially at that age.

There is nothing wrong with your baby or your parenting. There is something wrong with your expectations of what sleep should be like at 6m, mostly fuelled by society giving misleading impression.

Most babies will still be waking at this stage. Most will be having night feeds. Many people will still be feeding to sleep. It's not a linear thing that starts off with rubbish sleep, it improves and then they sleep through, more like a jaggedy path.

Don't be so hard on yourself.

@Lifesabeach86 I am so tired of having to bounce her to sleep - or rather I am not able to my OH has to. It has been 6 months of this and I would have hoped that we would have made some progress so far. I was doing so well a few weeks ago and then don't know what's gone wrong. I just feel like such a shit mum that I cant even rock my baby to sleep. I don't mind that she needs extra help but on top of this bouncing on the exercise ball is killing my OH's back and it is soul destroying when it takes sometimes hours to get her to sleep. I am mentally drained and I just don't know what to do. I never thought a baby could struggle to fall asleep so badly and its causing a lot of tension in our house

Where is the cot? Does she sleep in or or cosleep with you? Is your cot a flat pack?

I would suggest:

• making sure the cot is next to your bed. Move a chest of drawers and rearrange the room to do this, if needed.

• remove 1 side off the cot - easy to do with any flat pack cot and almost all cots (except very high end) are flat pack. Put cot mattress base on highest setting and butt it up to your bed. This is called a sidecar cot.

Then focus on getting baby to go from fully awake to fully asleep while lying in the cot. So that baby goes to sleep where she stays asleep and is not moved once asleep.

"Impossible" I can hear you say. No, it's not. Yes, it will work and no, there isn't any need for crying.

Make sure she's fed and winded. Start off with you almost lying in the cot with her. Certainly your top half - which is easily done with a sidecar cot.

Lying in your side, have your face close to baby- literally cheek to cheek. That way baby can feel your touch, hear you breathing, feel your breath, smell you - all while baby's eyes ate closed. Have one hand holding both of baby's hands, resting on babys stomach/hip area. This calms flaying limbs. Second hand over above baby's head, encircling her with closeness and protection. This hand is also on "dummy duty" - any time dummy isn't being actively sucked tap the outside of the dummy to trigger the sucking reflex. This sucking is calming and also means no crying.

Then - just wait. Don't be in any rush to move, expect the long haul. If there is any fussing tsp that dummy and maybe add a gentle "shhhhhhhhh" in her ear. It's ok to talk to her - "Mummy here, it's ok, sleep time" but keep your voice a whisper and with a slow gentle tone. Don't talk if you don't need to - keep the silence.

Watch baby's face, you see the scrunched up expression of impending fussing before anything else, so can tackle it before anything escalates. And eye contact us reassuring (and bond-forming). Watch her go to sleep, watch her eyes close. Stay close, really really close. Make calm, reassuring quiet noises and respond to any small fussing by encouraging calm - by dummy sucking and stillness (stop arms/legs kick around).

Wait until fully and completely asleep. Then wait some more. Then slowly and very gentle extract yourself to leave baby where she is to go to sleep- in her cot.

Over time (months, not days) you can gradually increase her independence by slowly reducing how close and hands-on you need to be to help her sleep.

The hands being held can be replaced by your reassuring hand lying in her chest. The encircling her can become lying next to her. Lying next to her becomes lying on bed as she's in seperate (but close by) cot... And so on.

Op I could have written this. DS is 5 months. I'm at my wit's end. Sleep had been gradually improving until 2 weeks ago when it just started to go down hill. He still sleeps in two good chunks at night so he hasn't done the classic frequent wakings that the 4 month regression is known for. Instead he just will not settle to sleep. He was awake for 6 straight hours today and was a grizzly/smiley/screamy mess. It's honestly like he has done sort of insomnia. He's gone from self settling at night to feeding to sleep after hours of fussing. Then he won't be put down. I hope it is a phase but I totally feel your pain.

Have you weaned yet? I'm hoping some filling food would help.

Don't beat yourself up, OP, you don't teach them to sleep. Controlled crying essentially just teaches them you're not coming so they learn not to cry, it doesn't teach them to sleep. Could you cosleep? Saved my sanity at this stage. Try and sleep when she does.

Does she have reflux/silent reflux? If it hurts her to lie down because of the acid she might have trouble sleeping/getting to sleep. The fact she wants to suck also makes me think of reflux as it's soothing. Maybe see the GP.

General advice would be ignore everything about how your baby "should" be getting to sleep and just do whatever is easiest and gets the both of you most sleep - feed to sleep, co sleep, whatever. Most babies will go to sleep eventually - are you aiming for a specific time? If so, don't. Let her fall asleep when she's ready if that's an option (if she's just crying for hours then go ahead and do whatever you need to to soothe her). She's still little and in a few months things will be different and/or she will be old enough for some sleep training to set things straight.

Ah op I feel your pain. There is a big list of things between all the bouncing and rocking through to cry it out though, which is where you'd totally leave them to it. I'm not sure zero tears is a realistic expectation however. Some babies do just have a cry when they're going to sleep. That doesnt always mean you need to pick them up. You might find that picking her up makes it worse, in fact, especially as she gets older. There is a difference between screaming upset and just whinging for example, or winding down. I agree with pp you need to support your Dd to go to sleep where she's going to stay asleep ie in her cot. She might cry a bit, but you'll be there to support her through it. It's honestly in her best interests. In all of your best interests.

OP my DS hated being cuddled and rocked to sleep, he still does. He just isn’t a cuddly baby. He hates fuss and to be fussed with. He’s 1 and he needs to be put down in his cot in the dark with no noise. It took a while to figure this out. Obviously when he was really little he didn’t Really like Being left like this (mainly because we kept using white noise in the background which we eventually realised he hated!!) so I did some pick up and put down over a Week or so and then went to sitting next to him while he went to sleep. After a few weeks he started to nod off on his own and has been a really solid sleeper since. This was at about 5 months. You don’t need to leave her to cry, there are some gentler ways to help her.
I had a really romanticised view of sleepy cuddles with my baby and while he’ll cuddle me all day when he’s awake he just wants to be in his bed for sleep.
It’s wonderful at night but the flip side of this is that he is terrible for sleeping on the go (won’t sleep in the car or the pram) It isn’t the end of the world though.
They’re all different, wouldn’t it be wonderful if they came with a manual!!!
It really does get easier.

Thank you for all your replies. I really need the support and advice at the moment. I don't think its unrealistic to want to stop the bouncing - remember I did manage it for a good 2 weeks by just holding her to sleep and I didn't mind that sometimes it took a long time. I just don't know why all of a sudden she won't take her dummy. She will bite down on it and then spit it out. Is this a teething thing? I tried just holding her tonight with no dummy and she started sucking on my arm so I thought oh she wants fed again so offered her the boob but she didn't want it so I thought ok I'll just let her suck on my arm for comfort and she has given me a hickey!!! And it didn't even help her to sleep bangs head against wall. I wish it was that easy to do what works but it just seems like nothing is working. She does and has had reflux problems but since seeing a consultant at the hospital she has been much better. She is on the right medication and has been since about 3mo. We started early weaning by his orders at 4.5mo and she is now on 3x ice cube size of pureed food a day. She loves eating which is great but it doesnt make her sleep any better and I'm not convinced it has made a significant impact on her reflux apart from maybe she sleeps more soundly when she is asleep.

She sleeps in a next 2 me crib. Once she is down she can been a good sleeper - she has on occasion gone almost 8 hours in a row and has started the odd 1.5 hour nap in her crib which is amazing because she has only ever managed 30 mins at a time at most. Once in a blue moon when I am exhausted in the morning and my OH has had to go to work I have managed to get her to fall back asleep in her crib by lying next to her and persevering putting the dummy back in when it falls out which has also been amazing. But its once in a blue moon. I just worry that she is going to miss out on naps and sleep and then she'll be over tired. It's such a vicious cycle and it just seems like nothing works at the moment and I am so tired. My OH is so tired too and I'm having to ask him to bounce her for her naps when we cant go outside as he's wfh. He's happy to do this but it's taking a lot of time away from his job and I worry about his back from bouncing her so much and him getting in trouble for taking so much time out each day.
I don't think it's unrealistic to want to wean my LO off a reliance of movement and the other mums I have met bar one don't need to put this much physical effort in to get their baby to sleep. I am at my wits end

Also again I just feel like a failure that **I cant get her to sleep. Surely a mum should be able.to her baby to sleep!!!

Do you want the details of a good sleep consultant?

None of this is any reflection of your goodness as a mum!!! At all!

My Dd was reliant on rocking to sleep, at this age we managed to gradually phase it out by replacing rocking with patting and walking and swaying, then reducing the swaying, then just sitting and patting, then patting in the cot, then just a hand on her back. Then I got stuck. If I took my hand away she cried. The thing was this went on all night not just at bedtime, dh and I took it in shifts to stand with her for a few nights. In the end that wasn't sustainable so we took a hard decision and left her to cry. She cried that first night, a little the second and then used to cry for 1 or 2 mins going to sleep every night and nap then sleep fine. Personally for me 2 mins crying winding down was better than 1.5hrs rocking and relying on support to stay asleep all night.

Now I'm not saying you will need to do this, but I wanted to paint a picture because I do understand how you've got to where you've got here with the bouncing on the ball! And also because would you say I'm a bad mum for any of that?! I hope not! So please don't think that you are either!

I think go back to basics. Look up a schedule for a 5mo. Is that 2 naps a day or 3, I can't remember! Say 2, with the first one at 9:30. Go up to the cot at 9 or even before if she takes a long time to feed. Dark room, quiet time, getting in the right frame to sleep. Feed, nappy, cuddle, down in the cot, stay lying with her, hand on her, pat if you need to. She might fuss, she might cry, but you're there. Just see how it goes.

I also think that you could find that she's asleep deprived / run up a sleep debt and that is adding to the problems in getting her to drop off easily. Look up the appropriate awake time for a 5mo and work back from there. You need to be up and starting to get sleepy before you hit that time so she's on bed ready to sleep.

OP you sound like you and your husband are doing an amazing job. I had a terrible sleeper, difficult to get to sleep and waking frequently. I remember rocking and rocking and my back would be screaming out in pain! You are absolutely not failing by struggling with this, it's so hard.

Have you come across Sarah hockwell Smith? She has written books and articles about baby sleep and tactics for helping. She is very against sleep training, controlled crying etc and emphasises that 'bad' baby sleep is how they naturally are programmed to sleep at that age.

This article is about how to get away from rocking to sleep, but a similar tactic could work for the bouncing. It's a very gradual process so takes some perseverance https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2018/03/06/how-to-stop-rocking-your-baby-to-sleep/

Good luck, it will get better with time!!

Surely a mum should be able.to her baby to sleep!!!

Not really, no. You can't force someone to sleep. And sometimes even adults struggle- when I've got something on my mind or sometimes for no reason at all I can find it impossible to go to sleep even though I know I'm exhausted (and my parents did sleep train me so it's not for want of that).

Some passing thoughts- have you tried different dummies? There are some specifically for breastfed babies and they are a different shape. You can Google them. Have you tried relaxing noise such as white/pink noise/heartbeat/ocean sounds or a gentle song (Alexa will do a lovely acoustic Twinkle Twinkle little star and if you turn loop mode on she'll do it for four hours)? Won't necessarily work immediately but builds a sleep association so that eventually she'll hear it and feel sleepy. Have you tried a particular scent, such as lavender, just in the sleep room? Have you started putting a bedtime routine in place?

Also, to save your back if you have to bounce, get a birthing ball/yoga ball and hold her while bouncing on that. Obviously somewhere that you're secure and only if you are confident you can safely right yourself if you start to go off balance.