SLEEP IS FOR THE WEAK PART 8 -- Pack the bags under your eyes and join us!

[RoRoMommy]

Well...I had to think of something! DH's suggestion "Eyes wide shut--the art of sleepwalking"

just a quickie
ginger so sorry to hear about dh. i hope they get something sorted soon and he's ok. chin up lovely

ep yay for your sleeping little guy. hes so clever for getting it so quickly

beal for your nights. i hope they get better soon

and i hope things buck up for you roro

hi to meg, csb, ibs, charlie et al hope youre all tickety boo

Quick Q for Amber if you are reading... are you still doing just one nap a day? DS has been sleeping in til 7.30 but then refusing his morning nap, not sure if I should wake him earlier so he'll have it, or let him stay awake til lunchtime nap? If you are doing one nap, what time is it?

Hope everyone else is well

Meg: DS tends to have one nap either late morning (11ish) or early afternoon. I have found that he's going for an earlier nap now he's waking consistently at about 7.

Our night: asleep 7:30ish (5 mins crying), woke briefly at 10:30 and 1, woke at 7. He hasn't stopped waking completely, but he is settling himself really quickly. Still crying when I put him to bed though

Don't talk to me about sleep. He's just riddled with wind and dairy-free me has made no difference. HV suggests seeing GP and asking for referral re tongue tie.

Hope you are all ok, spesh thoughts to ginger, beal and cm

Is that you CSB? Name changes confuse me

Oooooh sorry Effie, yes, it is.

Confuses me too, will stick for a while (but aiming to evade DP ).

I hope the crying stops soon for you. It must sour it a little bit. I'm sure you'll soon have happy bedtimes though.

Shouldn;t they have picked up tongue-tie at birth?

Hope you get some answers soon. Is it poss to get referred to a paed if things don't improve?

It was spotted but as BFing seemed unaffected nothing was done. I regret that now!

Well, DS was OK til about 12 then went into meltdown halfway through lunch, which had to be hurriedly finished then I rushed him to bed!

So I think if he was going to have 1 nap it would have to start by 12, but he would then wake about 1.30 and that's a loong time til bedtime, also would I give him lunch at 11 or 1.30?

Think I might try waking him at 7 tomorrow and see if we can stick with 2 naps for now, it's easier!

EP sounds like good progress , I'm sure the tears at bedtime will ease off soon.

CSB I'm not an expert on tongue tie but surprised they would not have found it already?

Oh, x-posted! Worth getting checked out, then...

Update: DS has now been asleep for nearly two hours! So perhaps he could go for just the one nap. Oh, what to do?

Meg: I would let your lo guide you re. naps. I always found mine had a good 2-3 hour nap once they dropped the morning one. As they get older they can be a bit more flexible. I used to wake them by 3.30 though so they would go to bed at night!

EP: when did your lo stop feeding so much at night? Do you think I should ride it out or try to night wean? If night wean, how??????

Can't type more DS2 is wriggling too much!!

hi meg. we have been mostly on 2 naps since we've been travelling and since we've been back, around about 9.30 and 3pm. today though ds only had one nap from 10.30-11.30. i didn't think he'd make it through theday, but he did make it to 6.30 before he crashed out completely. he was very happy all day, so i think he can do it (even with only 1 hour). we'll see what it does to tonight though.

i wouldn't worry too much about getting to 1 nap, unless you really want to or if 2 naps doesn't seem to be working. also with lunch, i would probably do it after the nap at this stage because they are likely to have a late morning nap and i feel like we're just finishing breakfast then! i think as they get older, their nap will move to early afternoon, so then you could do lunch around 12 or so i think. sometimes i would just give ds some food before and after the sleep, or whenever he seemed hungry.
whatever works really.

sorry, haven't read all the recent posts, so don't know if i've answered your question properly, but there you go.

hi to everyone. haven't been around as have been super busy (doing what, i'm not quite sure!)

nights aren't too great at the moment as ds is waking up at 3am and screaming endlessly if you leave him alone, but not sleeping if you are with him. it's a no win situation at the moment.

Poor you Amber . It could be the 13 month spurt - hope things improve for you soon.

IARCFB: confusion cleared! When is your appointment?

Meg: DS's nap seems to veer around the lunchtime slot, I find it helps to make lunchtime flexible so he can have it early or later. He hsa been known to fall asleep in his highchair...

CM: night feeds didn't really tail off for us until we tried CC, sa DS was getting himself back to sleep by feeding as well as waking because he was hungry IYSWIM. I felt I needed to cut back because he was still (at 15 mo) feeding all night and not really eating much during the day. In the last couple of days his food intake has really increased, so it seems to be working... At 6 months I'd just gone back to work, so he was waking (and feeding) more at night anyway. It's all a bit of a blur tbh.

Now, can anyone tell me why I am feeling more tired despite less broken nights? DS was was pretty unsettled last night - think he was cold, so am going to try a grobag again (he hated it as a baby but may be OK now). That or massive sleepsuits!

The other prob with night weaning is that my hormones seem to be up the spout - getting sopts for the first time since falling pg! Hope my hair doesn't starting coming out in clumps.

Thanks EP. I'm due back to work in a few weeks and I'm not sure if i can do it on this little sleep. To add insult to injury DS2 and I both have massive colds. I feel CRAP. Morale is low here.

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't been around much to offer support but it's been hectic here. DD has another blinkin cold and so very very clingy and hard work. Im really knackered due to being up almost all night with her the last couple. (cold + teething) I think. She's now started to refuse calpol and have a massive screamathon about it. That is a real PITA as it really was my last resort.

Sorry I can't comment on everyones posts but I have read them.

CM, so sorry you're feeling so low at the moment. Hope things improve.

Meg, we had some unsettled weeks with naps while we adjusted to the one nap thing. Mostly she goes down about mid day these days but the last couple of days she has slept twice in the day. Must be the illness.

Amber, sorry you're having the middle of the night dramas. Know what that's like. Hope it's a short phase.

Beal, hope things are on the up for you.

Right, must dash. DId you know SIFTW is a year old today? Might just start a thread about it.

So sleep is for the weak, huh? Well I AM WEAK!

Hourly wakings last couple of nights, wind as has become the norm since Christmas. DS is tired and so is back to fighting sleep again, I'm so tired I can't sleep, I just lie there waiting for him to stir again, and DP is apparently more tired than the rest of us .

I've got a GP appt next week to see if I can get to talk to anyone who knows about tongue tie. I'm really not keen on anaesthetics but it's beyond a joke now.

I feel like It's Time To Do Something but can't really embark on much while I think he's uncomfortable. Meanwhile I'm getting those horrible resenty angry throw-the-baby-out-the-window feelings again, which is horrible. I'm so sharp with him in the night though, I just can't deal with the incessant whingeing/yapping/groaning/kicking. He needs to be in his own room in a cot but after DP's announcement that he knew it would be a disaster (after one attempt) I haven't tried again. I think I need to for my own sanity. The only hour I didn't see last night was 11, but that's small comfort because I was still awake at 10.45 .

I'm thinking thoughts involving formula, CC, force-feeding him 4 slices of bread at 8pm and putting him up for adoption. None of which will help his wind which I think is the main problem.

Sorry to moan

Ginger I'm sorry your nights have been bad, but I am thinking of you as I lie awake, if that's any comfort! I can't offer much by way of nap suggestions to you guys with older babies

CM, I know how you feel re the working on no sleep thing. I'm not expecting it to be a great success either. Wanna go into business together, maybe we can make our fortunes selling, oooh, baby sleeping potions or something

IARCFB: I wanted you to know I'm thinking of you. DS2 is also very windy I am hoping he will eventually grow out of it. He has got better, but it still troubles him in the early hours. I wish I had a solution for you because I know how you must be feeling.

Ginger: you sound like you are having a hard time to. We are also suffering from the teething/cold combo. I hope DD feels better soon and gives you a bit of a break.

DH is asleep would you believe. He isn't sleeping well at the moment since he had his wisdom teeth out last thursday. DS2 was wide awake from 5. I brought all 3 children downstairs at 7am to get DS1 ready for school and I haven't seen DH since. . Anyone would think I had a full nights sleep last night!!!

CM at the sleeping DH.

IARCFB I can completely empathise with everything you say. I remember vividly the nights were DD was just so unsettled that the snippets of sleep that she 'allowed' me were just cruel because I'd be just nodding off when she'd start again. Total torture. You have my sympathy. I had (and still do occasionally) have the resenty angry feelings. I've posted a couple of times on here about it actually (search for my name). It's so very very hard to be positive and the kind of person you want to be when you're so utterly sleep deprived. I'm thinking about you. Are you co-sleeping/ use a cot sidecar? I remember when DD was in a cot I'd lay there for ages really on edge waiting for the snuffling and when she woke it was like a bolt of electricity going through my body and I just couldn't settle again afterwards. Co-sleeping really helped with that.

DD not bad last night awoke at 1 ish and cried hard for a bit. Calpol was forced in as she was running a bit of a temp. Slept eventually about an hour later and woke at 6.30. I typically woke a few times in between but largely able to drift off again. She seems a lot better today though.

CM and IARCFB: do you have to feed your LOs to sleep each time they wake up? Could you get your partners to take over for a night (or two) to get some rest? Do you have any expressed milk they could have? Sounds like you both could really do with a break . I found the 6 and 7/8 month periods really, really hard, a combination of getting used to solids, growth spurts and teeth. Ii think you just do whatever you need to to get through. We actually started f/t co-sleeping at around the 6 month mark because I couldn't handle getting out of bed ALL NIGHT to feed DS. One thing that saved my sanity was occasional visits to my MILs as she happily took DS out for a walk in the mornings (sometimes early mornings, at one point it was still dark!) and shooed me back to bed . Really, get all the help you can. In hindsight, I wish I'd asked for more support at the time.

one waking last night - hope this lasts... We tried a sleeping bag as he was getting cold in the night and it seems to have done the job.

Back to 2 hourly wakings last night, bliss! (sheesh, never thought I'd say that!) He's been angelic today and went off to sleep dead easily earlier, and has been settled once, again easily. Babies, go figure

CM I hope when your DH got up you gave him a kick up the arse because when I read your posts I gave him a mental one . Hope wind/teeth/cold/dozyDP pass soon

Thanks for commiserations EP and ginger. We do cosleep ginger, which is fine but he does wake me more than he might if he was elsewhere I suspect. That thread was really good for me to read, I felt much better realizing I'm not alone, so thank you. I'm glad your DD is feeling better, hope it stays that way . And EP, DS now takes a cup a bit so I could actually think about an escape, you're right! [lightbulb] [plotting] Hurray for grobags!

Sweet dreams everyone ;)

CM: when do you go back to work? I actually found it easier in some ways, as I got a bit of time to myself, despite having to get up and out of the house in the mornings.

IARCFB: it's odd when you consider 2-hr wakings to be an improvement, isn't it? I found I coulf function on 1.5 - 2hr stretches of sleep, it's the hourly wakings that are the real killer.

Anotehr night with one waking for us - he seems to be sticking to waking up betwee 1 and 3am. Have been wondering whether to give in and give him a feed, but he settles himself pretty quickly so will leave it in the hope that he sleeps through at some point .

We have had to get tougher with DS2. I reached a real low yesterday and realised that things couldn't continue the way that they were. It was affecting everyone in the family and I feel I was teetering on the edge of depression. So I relented and started cc.

IT WORKED!!!!!

Well at least the night was much better. DS2 was asleep within 30 mins. He woke at 1am and had 3oz from a bottle. He was unsettled, but not screaming until about 2am and slept until 5. I had to bf or I would have exploded, and then he slept until 7.

Tonight he cried for 3 mins and sp far blissful silence.

It may all still go wrong but I am so hoping that this could be our solution. The thing is before I had children I would have said that I am AP sort of person, but that has not been my reality.

I went into work today and the Deputy Head kept telling me how marvellous her daughter was because she got her DS into a routine very early on. As if I haven't tried that. Grrrrrr. I hate the way that if your baby is demanding and/or not a brilliant sleeper then some people see that as a reflection of your inadequecies (sp?) as a parent. Well I have had a model baby who slept through from 6 months, got into an excellent routine etc (DD) and then I had DS2. Same parent, completely different children.

EP: I am back at work March 16th. But I am feeling a bit better about it now.

IARCFB: I am glad you're feeling better too. Hang in there, you are doing so well.

Ginger are you there? I saw you just posted on a other thread. How are things?

Charlie love, I'm glad for you. You really were having it tough and to your absolute credit tried everything else first.

Don't listen to others, you know better that anyone that a baby is an individual and will stamp it's authority all over the household unless it's spiritually squashed by the likes of GF

Where are Beal and Amber? Hope they're ok