am i being cruel????

[tiredemma]

ds2 ( 17mths) is in a word a "nightmare"- he wakes approx 2/3 times a night- is up for the day at 5am and for the past few days has been refusing to go to sleep at bedtime.
he is now wailing upstairs and has been on and off for the past 40mins, i have been in and out to him about 10 times, and to be quite honest, im so pissed off with him i dont want to go back into the room as im likely to start screaming back at him. i dont know what to do, is it cruel to just leave him cry till he wears himself out?
i hate leaving him but going in and out is making him worse.
my next door neighbour must think im killing him with all the noise he is making.
im seriously at the end of my tether with him and feel like im going mad.

tired mama do a controlled wailing thing, go in after 10mins reassure him "night night", then 15mins, then 20 and just ignore it as best you can, it works and after a few nights he'll give up, he's old enough to know what he is doing and he wants his mama!
you can do it

I hate controlled crying, I hate the industry of it, the book selling, the avid fans...
but I sometimes leave mine to cry, when I know I'm at the end of my patience. Hang in there.
Tomorrow you might try to think about what haven't you tried, what tactics might work better. But if what he needs most is sleep, you'd be arguably cruel to delay that, anyway.

no you're not. his lack of sleep is killing you both. i've always found that in and out a la cc or pupd a la baby whisperer drove my ds to distraction...leave him to it. you know he is safe, you can hear him. it will be horrible, but hopefully after a couple of times of this his sleep will get better. i konw lots of people will disagree, and i'm v hippy new age touchy feely co-sleepy at the beginning type and if i thought i'd have been typing this a year ago i'd have hated myself. but lack of sleep does neither you nor your little one any good at all...you are not being cruel, you're trying to stay sane!

TBH two-three times a night at 17m is IMO a bit too much, unless he is feeling unwell (we get that when he is teething). I think that sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind, I think is kinder to let them learn to settle themselves by crying for a bit longer for a few nights than allowing them to cry 2-3 times a night for a long time. If he sleeps well he will be in a better mood tomorrow (well probably not tommorrow but once he learns how to seetle himself) and he will have a mum more ready to spend time playing with him, rather than overtired mummy just wishing the day is over.

My only suggestion would be to try this only if you are completely sure because if you let him cry for a whie and then go and take him out of the cot the only thing he is going to learn is that if he cries hard enough he will get his way. Good luck on whatever you decide, be sure you fill confortable with your decision.

its gone quiet...... finally.
thanks for your advice, im not going to continue with his game of going in and out the room, ive averaged 3 hours sleep a night since the day he was born, im constantly shattered and have to work 30 hrs a week and go to college one day a week.... i know it wont last forever but he just takes all the fun out of it and makes me feel like i dont want to spend any time with him, its not just the night times, hes clingy and grouchy during the day and sometimes i cant wait till its bedtime so hes away from me.
it makes me feel terrible to feel like that because i love him so much and hate to feel this way, its making me feel depressed.

hello tired, sorry to hear about your ds2's sleeping. My dd went through something similar and it went on for 2 weeks, in the end i did controlled crying and it sorted out her sleeping in 4 nights. It is hard to listen to them cry, but if you are going to do this, why not try controlled crying. Before this I had always been dubious about cc, but as i said it worked for me! If you are tired, leave it until the weekend when perhaps you can get some help from family or friends and therefore get some sleep during the day. Whatever you decide, I wish you the best.

I'm sure controlled crying works in many cases, but my advice is you just have to go with trial and error. We tried controlled crying with dd1 when she was about 13 months and she was up every night distressed and wanted to stay up for hours at a time, and didn't succeed at all. This baby has the amazing capability of making herself sick at the press of a button!!!
Anyway, to cut a long story short, we found that as long as I went in and gave her a cuddle if she woke up, she would go back to sleep within 10-15 minutes max.
Whatever you do, good luck!

OMG! Me too! im so glad you posted this...mirror image. My Ds is 16 months and on a good night im in maybe 2/3 times on a bad night im up from 11pm and wont see my bed until 5/6am, then he is awake from 6/6.30am! Its a complete nightmare and just like you this has been since his birth!
Ive just cut my hours of work to 20per week as i have been struggling to concentrate and function.Just lately he has become clingy and whinny in the day, but i tend to think that it is just an age thing with him so am not too worried or phased by this. At night i have become so accustomed to the night time goings on that i just automatically do it and i think THAT is the major problem.
I say this logically because today i am able to think straight, other days i feel just like you...at the end of a very long tether.
I have a cunning plan though..... At precicely 3am, using mainly spoons, i shall dig my way out of the house, forging a tunnel to France where i shall...in my nightie hitch a lift to an airport and board a plane to Australia where i shall set up home as a lap dancing pole dancer and make my fortune. I shall hire an army of nannies (of the "SUPER" variety)with my fortune, to then come home all misteriously and undertake the controlled crying lark in a shift system until the child is broken of his night time dramas.....want to come with me?
HMMM perhaps im not thinking with logic today??!!!
Any how, you are not alone,i will be watching this thread with interest to take up any suggestions as joking aside i am really fed up with it too.

Oh Donbean, I really love your ideas, I will get a spoon myself and start digging my way back to Mexico to get far from my MIL. I would need to do some exercise though, as I'm not in the lap dancer body category but probably digging my was under the Atlantic will do the trick?

Dont worry! im not a lap dancing body either im HUGE since my none sleeping little urchin came along, i dont care though...we can do it.....
What about drugs to make them sleep, ive tried:
1)Medised...rubbish
2)paracetamol....rubbish
3)neurofen...rubbish
4)paracetamol AND neurofen...utterly rubbish
5)antihistamine...absolute rubbish
NOTHING works! Ive told him that "sleep is good! We like sleep" but NO he just smirks at me as if to say "WHATEVER!"
Ive tried bathtime Johnsons sleepy bathbubbles...complete and utter rubbish, what else is there to try?
PS, obviously i follow the dosing instructions on the drug bottles and usually give them for very good reason other than to induce sleep,but PURLEASE someone suggest something...quickly.
Is it possible to die from lack of sleep, because i dont think that i have got long left in this world...... . . . .

tiredemma, so how much sleep does he get in total at night? And his daytime naps?

I haven't time to read the whole thread - but just wanted to comment - for us the key to good nighttime sleeping has been good daytime sleeping. If my lot don't get enough sleep during the day they don't go to sleep at all well at night (sometimes yelling for up to 2 hours - which is awful).

On a more serious note, i was wondering how much sleep you let DS have in the day and also do you think that the hour going back has affected him at all?

hi all, he has 1 hr nap at nursery, is bathed and in bed by 7pm, usually, he will sleep till about midnight then wakes on average abou 2/3 times after that up until 5/530 where he is awake for the day. but last night he was screaming up until 8pm fell asleep, woke up again at 10pm screaming, took 30 mins to settle him, slept till 4.30 am, went back to sleep till 5.50am.
i would of thought by this age (17mths) he would be in some kind of routine, my ds1 (age 4) slept from 7-7 from the age of 7 mths. ds2 is probably not going to sleep through the night until hes about 16!!!!

I can really sympathise tm & db, as sleep is so necessary for you both. My DD was also a terrible sleeper up til 19mo. She didn't have a regular nap in the day - just 40mins after hours of pushing in the pram - wouldn't nap in her cot, etc. etc.

At her 18m check the HV asked her how her sleeping was and explained the CC routine in DDs earshot (V. important factor IMO) We tried it that night, and it was hell, but it took one night! We followed the HV instructions to the letter and I spent alot of the night hiding under the duvet with my fingers in my ears, but she got it. AND the bonus knock on effect was that she has since then had a 2hr nap in her cot every morning (and long may it continue) I really don't know how I functioned during the bad times!

If you can bear to do it, he needs to understand that this is the way it will be from now on. You have to be able to stick to your decision tho' and follow it through. Very hard when your offspring is screaming for England!

HTH & good luck!!!

hello to you all on this chat i can totally understand triedemma, my daughter has just turned 15 months, she will go to bed well and settle herself with dummy and blankie, but then wakes up 3 - 4 times during night before getting up for day at 6.00, when she wakes i give her milk which i know i shouldnt but i cant bear to leave her to cry, because she wakes my other daughter up, and i worry about the neighbours( dont know why cause i cant stand them anyway!!)
But i feel that as she goes to bed awake and settles to sleep she should be able to do the same in the night when she wakes up,
I work in the morning while she as at nursery, then she has 1 hour nap from 1 - 2,
I know i have to get out of this night waking and know all about cc but its just doing it when i am so tired and just want to get back to sleep,

This sounds just like us. Same problems, same horrible sleep patterns. See my thread a week or so ago 'failed CC, 15mth ds now scared of cot'.

Someone recommended the book 'no sleep solution' book by Elizebeth Pantley. This is worth a look. It's certainly the best book on the market that covers alternatives to CC.

Some of it is a bit airy-fairy and a bit 'I'm the perfect mother look at me' stuff but all in all, it provides some very good suggestions.

have same probs exactly, DS slept through from age of 3 weeks and has now stared waking 2/3 times a night (he's now 15 weeks). have heard loads about CC but not sure how you do it?

get hold of a book by richard ferber

not that i've tried it but the baby whisperer (been watching her on Disc. Health) says to do the pick up put down method, ie when they cry you pick them up cuddle them in then turn them back around and put them back down again, then just stoke thir face until they calm down, she recons you keep doing this for as long at it takes, but in the cases on TV it only takes a couple of nights b4 they are off to sleep and settleing themselves back down in teh night. as I say, not tried it but could be worth a try??? try watching her, she's also done a few books as well.

tried pu/pd just drove him mental. am contacting my doctor or hv tomorrow as last two nights have been beyond a joke. ive been sat in my kitchen with him now since 5.30 am and he has been awake since 2am. totally pissed off, ive got work at 9am so ill just feel like crap all day.
dp is a useless waste of cells, if i didnt have a good sense of humour and lot of patience you would probably be reading about me in todays paper.

hang on in there hon, hopefully you'll have things sorted out soon. Will DP not even get up early on one day a week (ie sat or sun) to give you a lie in?

Was just wonering how things are going now? Did you go to the Drs, are things just the same or is there any improvement for you? Was just thinking about you tiredemma x

hi donbean, thanks for asking- still no better, we have a docs appt tonight- mainly beacuse his excema has falred up again bui am going to discuss his reluctance to sleep.ill let you know how it all goes!