A lonely world when you have a non sleeper

[BrownBirdsFly]

My first baby was a terrible sleeper. She didn’t reliably sleep through until she was around 3 years old. We tried everything and eventually she just out grew the bad sleeping and now sleeps 12 hours solid.

With my second baby I was adamant I wasn’t making any of the same mistakes. Left to ‘self soothe’, never fed to sleep. White noise, black out blinds blah blah.

Yep, pretty much still a rubbish sleeper.

Much better at napping in the day in the cot and we have a good evening spell of sleep, still wakes frequently at night. Cry it out didn’t work. No improvement in crying at all after several weeks and still woke just as much at night.

It feels a lonely world. I’m tired of people talking to me like I’m an idiot saying things like ‘you need to leave them to cry’, ‘send your husband in with water’ etc etc. Been there and tried it and it just doesn’t improve things. I know it will get better with time but I guess I’m tired of being the black sheep of the baby sleep family.

Anyone else out there!?

Solidarity here. My first also only started properly sleeping through somewhere around 3 years. I spent the first year of her life wondering what was the tipping point where I'd die from sleep deprivation.
My 22 month old sleeps maybe 4 nights from 7 now. Last night he was awake 2am to 4am. Not crying, teething etc. Just asking me to play ball or watch Peppa. And yes, EVERYONE has the solution for me. Because their babies slept through frim day dot.

My daughter is almost 4, has never been a good sleeper and I don’t think it’ll ever get better. After another awful bedtime tonight I’m considering a sleep therapist. She won’t fall asleep unless I’m with her and does everything possible to avoid going to sleep. I’m a single parent and each of my evenings is taken up with bedtime and then she wakes at least once in the night and is inconsolable unless I get into her (thankfully double) bed. I begin to dread the whole palaver at around 5pm each day. I could cry reading your post as I feel so alone too.

I'm with you, everybody seems to have a magic solution to offer, and then after a couple of questions it turns out they weren't a good sleeper for the first few weeks but then they cracked it newsflash, that's not your magic solution, that's what babies do!
Not that I'm at all bitter... god it's tough though! You have my sympathy

The "send your husband in with water" is the best. There is not a chance in hell that would work in this house.

I feel for you. My 2.5 year old still doesn’t sleep through, she is an absolute nightmare. Tried everything possible with her!!
My 2 month old is an absolute dream.
I did nothing different at all! They are who they are

My 21mo has never been a good sleeper, like a PP I wondered at what point I would just expire from chronic sleep deprivation. Things are somewhat better now but we have done controlled crying sleep training about four times now, and she still wakes between 4 and 4.45 every morning

Naps well at childminder though! Fffffff

So nice to have a crew thanks everyone

@BookLovingNorthLondoner that sounds so tough. The kiss and retreat method did actually work with my daughter when she was a similar age. I couldn’t believe something actually helped. It took 4 years like but still!

I feel the ‘bedtime’ dread. It is so very real. Hugs to you xx