Baby ruining my life

[02tootired]

Baby #2, very much wanted but his sleeping habits are ruining my life. He's 10 months old. Never slept well other than a short-lived 3weeks phase around 3 months old where he would sleep in his cot and wake only once for a feed around 3-4am then back to sleep (so I know he's capable).

I have slept in the spare room with him since day 1 (so that DH can actually get rest in our room as no point us both being exhausted and he has the monitor for our two year old on case she needs him). Was my intention to be back in my own room by 6months but I'm still stuck with him now and becoming really resentful. I don't want to sleep away from my husband this length of time, its not healthy for a relationship. Husband doesn't complain to be clear, this is not what I want, it's making me very unhappy. I've had enough. 10 months is enough time away from my husband and my bed. And baby needs to start to fall into line somehow with sleeping in a room without me. He doesn't sleep well with me in the room anyway so he's a rubbish sleeper either way, why keep making myself miserable being apart from my other half every night.

Baby is a nightmare sleeper. I never get more than maybe 2 hours unbroken sleep but that's on good nights. Most of the time he's up more often than that. He's just super clingy and wants to be with me all the time. I do not want to co sleep with him. I did that on and off when he was small between trying to get him back into his cot because literally wouldn't settle any other way but it's always scared me for the safety element so I've never been able to relax or sleep properly when he's with me in the bed and now he's far too rolly and it's not safe for him to be on the bed at all, accident waiting to happen. He has to be on the cot for his own safety.

I've tried everything with him. Nothing works. Literally nothing. I'm at the point now where I just want to leave him in the room alone and let him work things out for himself even if that takes him hours. I don't want to sleep with him and I don't want to go to him. If I had a bedroom I could put him in at the other end of the house where he couldn't disturb us all with his whining and crying I probably with the mindframe I'm in right now would do it. I cannot physically continue to go on the way we are. I need to be back in my marital bed and be less exhausted so I can actually be a good parent to my eldest who is suffering everyday with a mum too tired to take her out or play properly and who has no patience or energy.

This morning after being up with him from 3am-6am with him refusing to sleep or go back in cot for that full 3 hour stretch I had had enough. When my daughter got up at 6 I took him into her room, put him in her crib and closed the door on him. He screamed and screamed for about 25minutes and I just left him. My husband was busy sorting out the dogs and the morning jobs then he did go get him.

I just don't know what to do or really what the point of this post is other than venting. I love my son but I despise him at night. I NEED him to be in a room on his own. I give him every little bit of me all day every day. I want some small part of my life back with being able to sleep with my husband at night but trying to leave him in a room alone he just screams the house down keeping us all awake anyway. I feel so hopeless.

[02tootired]

@NameChange30 thank you. Yes I did pick that up from your earlier post. I will book a GP visit/call (they are trying to do most things by call at the moment where I am) to see if there could be anything underlying.

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

My second was like this and it nearly killed me. Co sleeping didn't work, she just woke up even more and would be awake for hours in the night.
She was breastfed too so DH couldn't help because she fed to sleep.
When she was 10 months I got bronchitis quite badly and really just felt like the night waking might kill me.
I tried a thing someone recommended on here, shush pat. I sat at the side of the cot and shush patted her. Every time she sat up I laid her down and kept shushing and patting, no talking just shush pat. Continuously.
The first time I had to shush pat for 25 minutes and she was really really giving it some, but it didn't feel like crying it out because I was right there shushing, it just wasn't what she was used to. After 25 minutes she just conked out. And slept til morning.
I had to shush pat her to sleep for a good while but it was much quicker on subsequent nights. It meant DH could do it too.
Obviously that meant the end of night feeds but no 10 month old needs a night feed in terms of food intake.
I found once she slept at night, day time naps fell into place.
In my experience you can't sort the naps first because their night time is too out of whack, they fall asleep right after breakfast but sleep too lightly to be a decent sleep so it's just a never ending cycle of shit sleep for them.
I found DD didn't get as many colds and things once she was sleeping at night.

[JimandPam]

Haha! Sleep consultant!!

I'm not sure a slap consultant is what you're after? 😂

[WeAreFromThePlanetDuplo]

I know you want to get back into your own bed, but if you were to shelve that for the moment and just focus on getting more sleep, could you put a mattress on the floor in your DS’s room and sleep on it with him? If it’s on the floor you don’t need to worry about him hurting himself by rolling out.

[02tootired]

@jimandPam no I hadn't considered using a sleep consultant. I've heard of them but honestly thought that it would just be an expensive waste of time with someone telling me to try the various things I've already tried and failed with.

It's interesting you know multiple people it's actually worked for. Do you know what company or person any of them used? I feel like just googling to find one might be a minefield.

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

It doesn't have to be leaving him crying and going in and out. Try shush patting. Even if he's screaming, you're right there shush patting. Even if it takes half an hour the first time, he'll get tired enough and fall asleep eventually and you're there all the time, just not breastfeeding to sleep.
You have to break the cycle some how or it will break you.

[02tootired]

@WeAreFromThePlanetDuplo yes being back in my own bed is what I'd like but from all the feedback here (which has been helpful in getting some perspective) yes I'd honestly just be happy to get him sleeping whether that's with me in the room or not in the room. If I can just get him sleeping something decent I can definitely live with being out of my own bed a while longer.

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

I found Co sleeping made it worse, she just woke even more and was more awake each time.
The key was to get her to get into a deep enough sleep without breastfeeding.
Once she'd slept well the day was better, which meant she was tired enough to sleep more easily at night.

[02tootired]

@OrangeBlossomsinthesun yes I think his morning nap is definitely him trying to catch up on the sleep we both didn't get during the night. It's hard/impossible to keep him awake after breakfast.

The shush patting I've sort of tried but I was also speaking to him as well, trying to reassure him verbally so I can try that again but without the speaking.

[02tootired]

@upthewolves he is pulling up yes. He will spend most of the time I try to put him in the cot standing up holding the rail and just looking for me (in the bed) and then wailing and saying mama mama mama over and over in-between getting more upset. He can go from stand to sit on his own when he wants to, he does this all the time in the daytime when he's pulling up using the sofa and then will sit himself back down. When he's in the cot though he just stands up and stays standing. I will lay him back down and try to stroke him or shush him or speak to him gently or sing. He gets mad at being laid back down. I'll then usually end up picking him up and taking him on the bed to settle him down and he will be happier. Sometimes he will sleep then for an hour but I won't as I'll be worried of him accidentally falling. Other times he won't go to sleep but will stop being upset and will then be trying to squish and feel my face a lot and will be "talking" constantly with his baby chat.

[ShirleyPhallus]

I second the suggestion of controlled crying. You have to be disciplined and not give in when the crying has been going for a while but it really worked for us. 3 days in and DD sleeps 7-7 every night.

[Zippy1510]

We did the Ferber method with our DS around this age. It didn’t give us results straight away and we battled through 2 weeks of hell but we persisted and he learnt to settle. It was a battle of wills but once we reached the turning point he slept much better from that point onwards.

[Feminist10101]

I've had enough. 10 months is enough time away from my husband and my bed. And baby needs to start to fall into line somehow with sleeping in a room without me.

I just really miss sleeping in the same bed, having a cuddle and a chat before falling asleep. I miss the closeness.

Sorry OP, I mean this kindly but do you not see the irony here? You, a fully grown adult with emotional regulation crave the closeness of sleeping with another fully grown adult with emotional regulation, but think your small baby is unreasonable for not being able to sleep on his own?

Daytime sleep breeds nighttime sleep at this age. I’d definitely work on the napping and see if that helps. And yes, I co-slept with DD as well. She opted to sleep in her own bed much of the time from about 17 months so it wasn’t anything like forever and got everyone a lot more sleep.

Good luck with it all.

[JimandPam]

@02tootired I know that they all used local ones so a recommendation probably wouldn't help you! But I think the good ones would offer a consultation via video for free (?) or a nominal fee.

I'd perhaps start with a Google search for someone local and then have a look on Facebook/insta for reviews and recommendations?

I can hand on heart say everyone I know who has used one has said it has been absolutely worth every penny. Even the ones who's baby doesn't sleep straight through are now getting good day naps and perhaps one or two brief wake ups.

One friend who spend £600 as is in inner London was about to pay that to get a room redecorated and said she can't now believe she would consider spending the money on anything else. She's happy with peeling paint and a sleeping baby! 😂

[JimandPam]

And the good ones usually have a short waiting list (a few weeks)

[02tootired]

@theVanguardSix thank you for your reply. It's not that my other half doesn't want to help, it's just really isn't an option for him to have less sleep than he already does and still do his job properly which you seem to understand. The "full night's sleep" he gets isn't really that full as it is. He will more often than not go outside late and do a bit more work or be checking on animals. He'll be late to bed and then back up early to work again. I'm glad to read that you eventually got through it and that there is hope ☺️

[KormaKormaChameleon]

I had a poor sleeper, couldn't co-sleep safely and a DH that couldn't really help at night and by 10 months plus a wrecked immune system and bout of flu was on my knees. I know you're at a low point.
At this point though my DS was in a solid, age appropriate routine and could self settle at the beginning of naps and bedtime, he just woke many, many times after that and could only be fed back to sleep (and was a bottle refuser). It really was all on me. It was when he was really well established on solids that I knew this association wasn't helping anyone and after trying everything else controlled crying worked brilliantly and he's slept through since. However he was already happy going off to sleep on his own in his cot for naps and at night.
My perspective is you're looking for a really big jump from falling asleep on/with you whenever he can/wants to sleeping through the night in his own room.
My approach would be to get him in an age appropriate routine. This will take time. At that age it's usually either a short nap in the morning plus longer one after lunch or just the lunch nap. There are lots of examples of routines online, eg Little Ones. I would do whatever you need to do to get him asleep/awake at the right time. Pram walk for after lunch sounds good. Repeat repeat repeat. Eventually his body clock will tell him to sleep at these times. This will work in your favour for then trying to get him asleep in his cot. This is usually a gentle, slow method of gradually getting him used to that with support. Slowly withdrawing how much of your input he needs to do this. Make cot environment as conducive to sleep as possible. (Might be a plan to move in with him to room with cot then move out later when he's used to it?)
Then if you have all the planets aligned (routine, self settling, night weaning etc) and he still doesn't sleep then I think slightly harsher method like CC just fixes the point that he can and should sleep when and where he is.
This is a long approach and just my opinion, but I think you've got yourself into a desperate situation and are looking for an extreme solution that I don't think will work without the background changes. And it sounds like you don't really want to be so brutal with your son anyway.
Also, you have set yourself an awful lot of parameters to work within, husband can't help, can't safely co sleep, can't make use of afternoons when kids are out, can't accept it for what it is either etc etc. These may all sound immovable and I have given you advice to work within them but really part of climbing out of desperate situations is making changes that you didn't think you could before and ones that aren't helping you. These are not as fixed as you say, especially making a safe cosleeping environment if you go down that route.
Good luck.

[02tootired]

@Feminist10101 yes I see the irony now you've highlighted it. After the many replies already here, I've already realised that just having baby sleep decently, even if that's with me in the room I'd consider a win at this point. I know I'll be back to my own bed one day. I'd like to think it will be fairly soon but I guess I'll just have to see how it goes.

[KormaKormaChameleon]

Oh just read you chat/sing to him at night too. I would keep vocal interaction to a minimum, no vocalising apart from 'shushing'. He needs to associate day time with interaction and engagement and night time with vluour presence but not necessarily your attention. Good luck.

[02tootired]

@KormaKormaChameleon thank you for the sensible advice. I do already have his cot set up in a room with a bed in it for me and I really do want to get him to the point of being ok in the cot more consistently rather than co sleeping in the bed (if I can). If that means me continuing to sleep in the same room I'm ok with that, I'd just like him to sleep for longer stretches. 3-4 hours at a time would honestly be amazing to me right now. And you're right, I don't want to be too brutal with him, I hate him being upset, I was just very very tired and feeling extremely hopeless this morning. We never have a particularly good night but last night was especially rough.

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

Daytime sleep breeds nighttime sleep at this age not in my experience. It's exactly the oposite. You can't sort the naps if they are mad with tiredness from being awake all night. You have a much better chance of them getting into a deep sleep at night and then if they do catch the deep sleep they my sleep for hours and hours/all night.

@02tootired what worked for me was only shush pat. No talking, no singing. Every time she sat up I laid her back down and if necessary rubbed her back (she liked to sleep on her front at this stage- 10 months-) or belly with the other hand to encourage her to stay lying down. She did scream blue murder, but it didn't feel like cc because I was there comforting all the time. it was just that she didn't like this new method of comforting. She was used to a boob. She screamed for about 25 minutes the first time and I shushed patted the whole time, never once left the room. After about 25 minutes she fell asleep from exhaustion and slept all night. The next day the naps were much better and the next night she didn't take as long to shush pat to sleep. It got better much quickly.
Eventually it took a long time to transition out of patting to sleep.

[GuyFawkesHadTheRightIdea]

If I hadn't co-slept with my DD1 I wouldn't have had any sleep at all until she finally managed 6 hours straight when she was 3yo. I understand it's not for everyone, but it might be worth a try in the short term just so you can catch up on some clearly much needed sleep.

[OrangeBlossomsinthesun]

OP has already said cosleeping doesn't work for her, the room isn't set up for it and can't be. It doesn't work for everyone. With DD it just meant she was even more awake.

[KormaKormaChameleon]

@02tootired
I hear you. I really do. 3 hours feels like heaven when it happens.
How does your DD first go to sleep at bedtime? What's the setup?