Talk to me about your non sleeping babies - past and present

[mummyslittlenightmare]

And I'm not talking about the babies that wake just once a night.

DD (12mnths) never slept through the night, wakes a minimum 5 times a night and wakes for the day at 5am. Has also never napped/slept in her cot, we cosleep and she is still having 2 bottles in the night. Fed every time she wakes. I hold her for her naps and rock her.

I know EVERYTHING that is wrong with the above statement. I know what I need to do but honestly if I could pay someone to do it for me I would because I don't have the strength.

I would however feel some sort of comfort? Relief? If I knew I was not the only person in/have been in this situation because I see/hear about other peoples lovely sleeping babies and it kills me inside.

TELL ME ALL YOUR STORIES!

I was you. Thought my 3rd child would never sleep. Got gradually better but by 3.5 he was still getting up once a night every night. Then for some reason we swapped him and his brother’s beds round and gave the youngest one the top bunk and he slept the first night and every night after that 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ This is over 10 years ago so you can tell how traumatized I was by so many sleepless nights. And how amazed I was by him sleeping. I think he just felt secure up there.

So I promise it will get better. You know the mistakes you’re making (we all know the mistakes we make). But they’re hard to change. Hope the sleeping gets better soon

One of my dc didn’t sleep through . I was obsessed with routine , my first I sleep trained and thought I had all the answers.
Battled and agonised for years , thought I’d eventually crack them as well. So much aggro and never ending bedtime battles.
Eventually they reached 6 years old and we put an extra mattress in our room they’d crawl in to at night. Looked back and realised that this dc was never going to sleep through, no matter what I did.
Eventually they did sleep on their own all night... at 8!!!
Wish Id never bothered with ‘routine’ , nap schedules and bedtime rituals and just kettle them snuggle on sofa and carry them to bed and let them sleep next to us from when they were small.
Probably that reassurance would have not caused all the negative associations with sleeping they ended up having.
Wish I could go back and change it all.

My DD2 was/is a terrible sleeper. At 5.5 she is marginally better but is still up and about in the night and functions well on an astonishingly small amount of sleep. Her sleeping did improve when she moved into a room with her bigger sister and started school (even though she had been at nursery from 6m). She has never napped, even at nursery. She has a load of books and puzzles on her bed and can entertain herself now she is older. I changed jobs when she was 18months partly (mostly!) due to lack of sleep! I have 2 other children (one older one younger) who are both perfectly good sleepers and we never did anything different with DD2. I'm glad she was my second as the amount of stick I got for her poor sleeping from well meaning family and friends was pretty grinding and I know I would have found it much harder if I didn't have anything to compare to and know I wasn't somehow causing the problem. I won't give you any 'advice' other than do what you need to do to get by and try anything YOU think might make a positive difference. It will get better and until then good luck and stay strong!

My DS is 15 months and naps on me the majority of the time. The exceptions are if he is in the car or pushchair. We also co sleep and I don't even count how many times he wakes up now. I breastfeed so he often wakes up, feeds for a minute then drops back off again. I don't let it bother me. More sleep would be nice but it is what it is, there is no point me stressing or trying to change things we are both mainly happy with. I will miss him when he goes to his own bed and I don't get woken by his kicks or hands reaching out to me, or feel him wriggling backwards towards me for a cuddle. His smile first thing on a morning when he wakes up every day is definitely worth it.

DD1 was a terrible sleeper until she moved to her own room at 7 months. Literally up every two hours one night and slept 11 hours straight the next, and slept through maybe four nights out of seven from there. All naps were on me until around that time too. The first seven months nearly killed me. She's 2.5 now and has been brilliant overnight since we moved her, but bedtimes remain difficult.

DD2 is five months. She's been up once or slept through from a couple of weeks old. Have never once had to consider holding her for a nap. She sleeps in the next to me, in the carry cot in the living room, in the buggy. She's just a happy, contented baby. Who knew.

Like ComeOnGordon says, we all know the mistakes we make. We all know what we do that prevents them learning to sleep better. But I don't think bad habits cause the bad sleep. I think the bad sleep causes the bad habits. I've done nothing different with my two and they're like night and day. DD2 is pure dumb luck. DD1 had silent reflux and I'm convinced that's what created her bad sleep habits, having to be held upright for an hour after every feed etc. It makes perfect sense to me that even as a toddler she still struggles to go to sleep. Why on earth would you bother with those bad habits with a good sleeper, the habits are a ball ache. With a good sleeper, you chuck them in a basket and go about your day while they sleep.

Vicious circle. Don't beat yourself up. You'll get there. Gently change things as and when you're ready, and ignore anyone telling you you need to be strict with a baby. Trust your instincts.

But fuck me it's hard!

I'm glad she was my second as the amount of stick I got for her poor sleeping from well meaning family and friends was pretty grinding and I know I would have found it much harder if I didn't have anything to compare to and know I wasn't somehow causing the problem.

OMFG this. The number of people who do the condescending head tilt and tell me second babies are easier because they don't pick up on our anxiety. I mean, I'm sure there's an element of that, but that's not it! She's just an easy, happy baby who isn't in pain every time she lies flat.

There is nothing wrong with your statement. You've comforted your child and made sure they know that their needs are being met. That's a wonderful thing.

You baby is designed to be held close and fed often and to wake often. Babies are not designed to be put in cots and to sleep all night. Much as we might want them to!

It will pass, it will get better. One day they simply won't wake. One day they will fall asleep themselves.

I've had a variety of crap sleepers. My youngest never went to sleep alone. Accepting this was the hardest thing yet made everything easier. From around 2 ish I started leaving him on the sofa and saying I was just going for a wee or just going to do the washing up and he would fall asleep there and I could carry him up. He was about 4 when he started going to sleep in an actual bed. He still woke and night and came to get into bed with me.

Dc3 didn't sleep, he cried non stop too. (Later diagnosed as lactose intolerant) he would fall asleep fine as I did the pick up put down method, but he would wake constantly and just scream. No amount of cuddling, feeding, changing would console him.
He didn't nap for long periods, maybe 15 mins at a time. Even if I took him out in the pram, or car. He just didn't like sleep.
I was honestly a broken woman.
This went on until he was three, and then it was like a switch, he turned into a sleeping happy toddler.
He's now 8, and is still an early riser but has slept through every night since.

My seven yo slept through at 5. Almost 3yo cosleeps and bf. Some nights it nearly breaks me, then she'll gift me a long sleep. I know it'll pass and I'll have met her comfort needs.

My DD would only sleep on me or the first 3-4 months, as in would wake the second I put her down. Then I could put her down but she wouldn’t sleep for longer than 1.5 hours. She was waking every 45 minutes at one point. She would sleep longer if we bed shared, and I could only get her to sleep by feeding or DH rocking her for about an hour. By 1 she would sleep in longer chunks at the start of night on her mattress on the floor, but bedtime took ages and she was in with us by midnight usually. She was a good napper during the day thankfully, once you actually got her to cave in and go to sleep, but reducing the naps made no difference at night.

She’s 3.5 now and sleeps great. No nap since about 2.5 which was the turning point I think (but that was her no longer needing the nap, not us stopping the nap). A few stories and she’s asleep, between 7-8pm. Occasionally sleeps through but more often than not climbs in with us in the early hours, rarely actually disturbs us. Wakes between 6 and 7. I never ever thought I’d sleep again, but we do.

I absolutely agree with a PP. you haven’t caused poor sleep, you do what you need to do with the baby you’ve got. For DD it was that she had to be touching you. She’s still like this to a certain extent - she holds my arm until she falls asleep, but this takes 10 mins rather than hours. She has told me to go away and has fallen asleep on her own on the odd occasion. I’m sure she won’t still want to hold a hand when she is 16. Life got far easier for me the night I vowed to stop worrying I was doing it wrong. Stop googling about sleep training (tried controlled crying and gradual retreat - hours later, very angry DD, no sleep). Stop looking at the clock and calculating how much sleep she’d had (well below what google said she should be having) and how much I’d had. Just do what gets the most sleep. We all slept much better once it stopped being stressful.

Mine was a dreadful sleeper. I never had a full nights sleep with him. He rarely slept in the day either. When he was 2 I was diagnosed with sleep deprivation as I was so tired all the time [ I had thought there was something wrong with me ] .
The only way for either of us to get at least a little sleep was for him to co sleep with me. We did this for years. Very gradually it did get better, but I won't lie and say it was overnight. It was probably until he was 8 or 9 that we both started to sleep through the night.
He is now a young adult and a bomb underneath him wouldn't wake him :) Seems he is catching up from all the time he didn't sleep.

Thanks for all the replies, it definitely makes me feel so much better.

@MindyStClaire .. my DD also has silent reflux! And it's still going strong now having hoped and prayed she would have grown out of it by now, also has CMPA. Her first few weeks of life were horrendous. Non stop crying and would not be put down, so yes I guess you're right, normal circumstances would've created better habits, but I did what ever would make her stop crying screaming and I guess those habits have stuck!

I am you now, my DD is 12 months. Sleeps with me, still has bottles!! I am so glad I'm not alone! If another person tells me how their baby had been sleeping for 12 hours a night since they were 6 weeks old I might explode!! On the plus side, I was a terrible sleeper and my mother said she kept trying to get me in a cot for way to long. She co slept with my brother who turned into a toddler that took him self to bed when he was tired so fingers crossed that's our future! Good luck!!

@Londonnight

Mine was a dreadful sleeper. I never had a full nights sleep with him. He rarely slept in the day either. When he was 2 I was diagnosed with sleep deprivation as I was so tired all the time [ I had thought there was something wrong with me ] . The only way for either of us to get at least a little sleep was for him to co sleep with me. We did this for years. Very gradually it did get better, but I won't lie and say it was overnight. It was probably until he was 8 or 9 that we both started to sleep through the night. He is now a young adult and a bomb underneath him wouldn't wake him :) Seems he is catching up from all the time he didn't sleep.

Honestly, I am so weak and exhausted. What happened when you were diagnosed with sleep deprivation? What did the GP say? What made you go to the them about it? (Sorry for 21 questions)

Didn't sleep through or anything like til almost 2, had boob shoved at him every one of the many wakes before that, coslept to get any sleep at all. Gradually, over the following 18 mo, we've reduced how much I've needed to cosleep and he's been sleeping through most nights for the last couple of months although still a beggar for bedtime. Stopped napping just after 2.

By all means takes completely after me

Ds1 woke between 3 and 7 times a night until age 5. Actually he didn't stop waking, he just stopped needing me or exh to soothe him back to sleep. Looking back I can see that once I'd accepted that it was just the way he is and stopped wishing for something different that life became easier. I had to go to bed myself at 8:30pm to ensure I got enough rest. I spent 4 years in denial and resenting my broken sleep though! At 12 he's still a wakeful sleeper and very occasionally he looks like a zombie he's so tired, but mostly he copes well.