How on earth can I survive this.

[Mamamoo84]

My little girl is 6 months old.

She has never been a particularly great sleeper. Even from birth it took her 10 weeks before we could actually put her down in the next to me, My husband and I to do shifts to hold her to sleep.

She got used to being put down and for a short while she was doing 4 hour stretches but now that’s all suddenly changed.

She just is not sleeping. Even day time sleep is a battle.
I have to put her in her pram and rock her for at least 30/40 minutes before she will nap.

On an evening I have started to take her up to bed at 6.30 I feed her and then put her down. She will cry as soon as I put her down and I have to cuddle and feed her again for her to settle.
It can be around 9pm before she finally falls to sleep and I put her down.
She will sleep until around 12am and that’s it.
She’s wide awake. Even if I try and feed her back to sleep she just will not go back until probably around 4/5am and then will sleep until 6.30/7am and is awake for the day.

I’m getting 2 hours; 3 at the most sleep per night.
My husband is now sleeping in the spare room as he has to be up for work.
So I feel like I’m doing everything on my own.

The days just feel so long because I am seriously so so exhausted.
I haven’t even got energy to take her for a walk.
I’ve been sat crying most days feeling like such a failure.

What am I doing wrong??

I have absolutely been there. 6 months was hell for me with my second baby. He would sleep 2-3 hours a night in half hour bursts and only if in contact with me. I'm not sure how I got through it. Things that helped a bit: tilting the mattress in his cot by placing a rolled up towel between the cot slats and the mattress at one end. Starting solids made it worse, stopped them for a bit and reintroduced later.

He gradually improved but one thing I now know is that he needs a LOT less sleep than the average child. He dropped all naps at 20 months and now he is almost 3 he sleeps through most nights but only does 10 hours. At this age, my daughter did 12 hours overnight plus 2 in the afternoon. I would ignore any advice around nap times etc and not force them. If she doesn't want a nap leave her be. Don't spend 30 mins trying to put her down. People often say 'oh but she's obviously tired' but they are usually tired when they are in the inbetween stage of adjusting to less sleep. Each time both of my babies have dropped naps (led completely by themselves) they have been grumpy and struggled for a week or so then night sleep has improved.

I can recommend a Facebook group called 'desperately seeking sleep'. The lady that runs it has done loads of research into baby and toddler sleep and her big thing is that all children have different sleep needs so you need to work out what your child's sleep needs are and then organise the amount of hours they need/ consolidate it. I found it really helpful.

Finally, remember this isn't your fault! They are all different, just like all adults are different! My daughter slept brilliantly from 10 months, my son took a long time to get there ... It wasn't down to anything I did differently.

I feel you OP when it comes to the naps. I always thought my baby would nap when she was tired but I soon learnt the hard way. For the first few months, it didn't seem to matter how much she napped as she would always have a good night and sleep for a 6 hour stretch and then wake every 3 hours after that. Then I hit the 4 month sleep regression and I can remember one day when she only had one 30 minute nap all day. God that night was awful and I think it was her screaming for 3 hours before going to bed that I realised I needed to do something about her sleep situation but I had no idea where to start.
I downloaded an app called Huckleberry (the free version) and it has revolutionised my baby's sleep! It tells me when to pop her down for a nap and bedtime (going from when she last slept) to get the least resistance from baby and it has been very accurate. My baby is 5 months old and naps 4-5 times a day depending how long she naps for. Sometimes she might only nap for 30 minutes or she might sleep 2 hours. I actually find the more she sleeps during the day, the better she is at night.

You have my sympathies as my first was like this :( my second (now 3 months) is a brilliant sleeper so I honestly believe it is just who they are!! I’ve done nothing different and you’ve done nothing wrong.
Have you explored possible reflux/allergies? Turned out my first bad CMPA which was effecting her sleeping

I had two like this (15 months apart, so it was a fun few years). My DS even tricked us for the first couple of months into thinking he was a great sleeper and then in month 3 al hell broke loose. I napped when he did, I was the only way I could cope. Daytime naps weren’t too bad, it was the night. He was, like yours, awake from 12-4 usually. Honestly, DH and I took it in turns. We had too, even though DH had work. I was on the verge of a breakdown! He or I would do 12-4 and then the other one would get up at 6 when DD woke and let the other lie in until the very last minute, say 7:30/8. It was tough, but we found a balance and took turns to catch up on sleep at the weekend too.

Another thing that helped was YouTube baby videos that have randomiser visuals and calming music (like you used to have on computers years ago - sorry can’t remember the name). We would take DS downstairs to the sofa and put that on. He would watch it intently and sometimes doze off.

I also found the “no cry sleep solution” book very useful, if nothing else, it helped me get a good routine for DS and told me how much sleep was appropriate and when naps should be.

I really feel for you, it’s horrible having no sleep. It robs you of the enjoyment of your child. It 100% will get better though. You can survive this.

Thank you everyone.

So at 12am when she first wakes, she usually cries. I try rocking her in her crib usually just by gently bouncing her legs.
Sometimes this works but last night she just started getting really upset and screaming so I picked her up and fed her.
She was falling back to sleep but as soon as I put her down she was wide awake again.

Just in her crib, babbling, rolling over, playing with her feet.
Eventually I put her into my bed and she drifted off at 4.45am. I put her back into her crib and she slept until 6.40.

So during the day, do you all put your babies down for a nap? Create a dark room etc?

I haven’t been doing that. She will usually fall asleep after a feed whilst I’m holding her but it’s always been the case that she wakes up when I put her in her bouncer so the naps ends.
I’ve now started putting her in the pram and she sleeps longer, but as per my previous post the naps have been at 10.30 and then 3.

If she woke at 6.40, I’d be putting her back down now in a dark room with white noise, let her grizzle a bit - I inadvertently sleep trained mine by putting him in his cot for safety while I went to the loo and brushed my teeth - half way through he started crying, by the time I was done he was asleep - it turned out he always needed 2-3 mins of
grizzling/crying to get to sleep. I think in our quest to not do awful cry it out parenting styles of yesteryear, sometimes we forget to just give them a bit of space, and they do cry if they’re tired!

But it might be there’s nothing you can do, it might just be a phase! You just never know, but you’re doing a great job.

Hi OP,
I don’t really have any advice and I do believe babies will just do what they do and there’s little you can do to intervene so don’t think you’ve done anything wrong!
At around 5 months my DD was outgrowing the carrycot so I started putting her down for naps in the next2me. Until then all naps were in the pram and she’d refuse to sleep in the crib in the day. But she got the hang of it now all naps are in the crib - dark room and white noise. A little bit of a routine before, but nothing like the bed time one. Change nappy, put in sleeping bag, little cuddle and pop her down. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn’t. The thing that makes it work best is putting her down before she’s become overtired so as she starts rubbing her eyes; moaning a bit more etc. I used to wait for her to yawn but that’s actually quite a late sign for her now. If I catch her at the right time she’ll drift off without me intervening.
I have also found though that she’s harder to settle during her night feed. She would just fall asleep on the boob and I’d transfer her but now she rolls and plays with her feet too 🤦🏻‍♀️ So I just leave her on there longer to make sure she’s properly asleep before putting her back down otherwise she will be awake for ages.
I hope things improve for you soon; sleep deprivation is so miserable!

Mine was a bit like this. I coslept. It was the only option. It got better eventually but I really feel for you, its absolutely hideous to go through. If you cosleep make sure you follow the safety rules etc.

This might be of interest, if you do want to take a very proactive approach which I personally highly recommend although I know it’s not for everyone.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/3915773-Support-thread-for-sleep-training-in-lockdown?pg=1

@alittlehelp we don’t co sleep. I will put her next to me and she sleeps. I sit up and stay awake. I’m too paranoid 😞