13mo waking constantly all night long

[KL92xxxx]

I’m losing my mind through pure exhaustion. Sorry for the long post but I want to start from the beginning and hoping this might be therapeutic for me to write out.

So when my baby was born in March 2020, he literally wouldn’t sleep anywhere apart from on someone, day or night, I couldn’t even safely cosleep as he obviously wasn’t on me, so he wouldn’t sleep. Without sounding awful it really was a very difficult time in my life and this was purely down to being nocturnal for the first 8 weeks of his life (I’d get 3-4 hours sleep in the morning as my partner would take him). He was a colicky refluxy high needs newborn, I always thought I’d have 2+ kids but I suffered so badly I don’t know if I could do that again, I was so tired I was hallucinating.

Since then, things have slightly improved I guess, we’ve had times of quite good sleep (for him) and times of horrendous sleep. We’ve had days of pulling our hair out and times where I’ve had to call my mum in hysterics, all because of his (lack of) sleep. I’ve tried putting in strict routines to help, I’ve tried some “gentle” sleep training and bought very expensive sleep courses, I’ve tried ‘going with the flow’.

Fast forward to now, he’s 13 months and he is waking at least every 2 hours, as in we class 2 hours as an excellent stint. This is the same whether he’s in his cot or our bed (I end up putting him in my bed for my sake as I’m at work full time and exhausted).

He had his 12 month vaccinations last Wednesday, including the MMR, since Friday night he’s been waking constantly. Like, sometimes every 10 minutes. The most we’ve got is an hour, it’s usually about 30 minutes. He wakes screaming. We try just shushing him and patting his bum, this works maybe 20% of the time, the other times i have to feed him (he’s breastfed). He’s feeding for 40+ minutes, I put him down and he’s up within 5 minutes to feed again.

I feel like I’ve done something terribly wrong for my baby to still not be sleeping, like I’ve missed a very important trick. I feel we all are really suffering due to lack of sleep, including him. He can be the happiest little boy and really is a joy, he’s meeting all his milestones, but just cannot seem to sleep. I really do feel lost on what to do next.

Try not to feel bad. Lack of sleep makes everything feel 100x worse. All of mine woke in the night until I consciously stopped night feeds (and for what it's worth only slept on me in the early days- I understand the bone shattering tiredness you spoke about 😢).

My first at 14 months I brought a beaker of water and just kept offering it to him. After one night of drama he was fine. My second I got Dh to go into her every time she woke up, she took about a week. Once they stopped looking for the breast they starter sleeping through the night.

It was tough as they did cry but it did work. And I just kept repeating what the gp said that six week olds can sleep through the night.

Have you spoken to anyone about his sleeping patterns? There's no trick that you've missed, it very much depends on the child but it wouldn't do any harm maybe speaking to a hv

I second @Babyfg I would stop the breast feeding in the night , yes it's giving you a 40 minute break from screaming but if he is then only sleeping for 5 minutes it's kind of counter productive. I would offer a drink of water a few minutes shushing , leave the room , if screaming go in 2 mins later , then 4,10,15 etc build it up . Minimal attention each time ,minimal talk. Try it for at least 5 nights . Sleep deprivation is awful and working full time as well I cannot imagine how shattered you are 😫

Quite a similar story to yours though we were randomly given a second sleep through the night the other day so there is hope. I heard there’s a 14m leap that could account for it? No advice as such but solidarity. 2h break is also good in our book.

Oh OP I feel you. I've had four breastfed babies and with each of them they kept waking at night and looking for a breast until I stopped night feeds.

Read up on sleep cycles and sleep cues. An average sleep cycle for a baby of his age is around 40 mins. After 40 mins he is waking and looking for the sleep cue (being breast fed to sleep) in order to fall back to sleep. The trick is to change the cue to something else or, ideally, remove it all together so that he just wakes and then falls back asleep.

Try offering water, with my last I used a dummy. Sometimes a comfort teddy works too. You don't have to stop feeding altogether if you aren't ready to, just not at night. Good luck with it all x

I'm talking about babies of 12 months plus just to be clear. It's totally different for tiny babies of course

How do you feel about night weaning?

Your partner may need to help (or take over) night times while weaning. It might only be short term, but you (As BF mum) will find it much harder to so the wake ups when weaning.

Couldn’t read and run as so much resonated with your story, especially the early days. I would agree about considering night weaning. You must get your partner on board and for them to preferably take the lead. Ideally you should both take a good chunk of annual leave as it won’t be a one person job and for a while, you’ll both be shattered as it’ll likely get worse before it gets better. I agree with @FATEdestiny - the only way we made substantial changes to my 10mo sleep was by my husband taking the lead at nights (he started sharing a room with DS while I slept elsewhere). If DS saw me he’d scream for boob, where as my husband found other ways to settle him with relative ease (we didn’t want to do any form of controlled crying/crying it out). If you want a gentle method check out the Jay Gordon method. You really must be committed before you start as you are taking away your main tool to get your baby to sleep, in the hope that it improves sleep in the long run, not in the short term. Good luck x

I have absolutely no advice, OP, but I just want you to know you're not alone. I literally could have written your post word for word. DS is 2 this month and still wakes frequently through the night. It's so hard and the sleep deprivation has really affected our lives. I constantly think about when I might next get some sleep. It's so hard. I hope things improve soon ❤️