8 months sleep - help!

[Poppy709]

I’ve posted about my sons sleep before, he’s never really settled since the 4 month regression and we’ve bed shared since then using a sidecar cot to try and get him used to his own sleep space. We’ve had some success with this when he was 6/7 months when he started to sleep on his tummy (rolling both ways) and settled down to 2 wake ups a night easily settled with a feed - I felt like a new woman!! Then teething hit and it all went to pieces again, now he’s just learnt to crawl and pull to stand and the last week things have just deteriorated and I don’t know what to do for the best.

At bedtime he goes into his sidecar cot awake and with a bit of bum patting goes to sleep no problem about 7.30, for about 2 or 3 hours. Problem is once he wakes in the night the only thing that will settle him is boob and he’s been waking every hour or 2 if I’m lucky. From about 4am the last week or so he has been so restless, awake every half hour or so and then needing constant back rubbing/bum patting to keep him settled. I’m on my knees, I’m in tears in the night and sometimes finding myself scratching my arms or hitting myself in the head. I feel physically ill all the time from such broken sleep and I’m having heart palpitations and dizzy spells. I go back to work in 2 weeks and will have to get up at 6 and drive for an hour across a busy city centre. I so don’t want to sleep train him because I’ve read so much about how important it is to be responsive at night but I’m scared for my mental health and my safety driving.

Before this latest deterioration I was getting just enough sleep to cope and my husband was taking a week off in August when he will be nearly one to tackle night weaning in the hope that will improve sleep, but I don’t know if I can hold out until then if sleep continues to be this bad.

We have ordered some proper black out blinds to see if that helps the 4am restlessness. Also he has started crawling a few weeks ago and pulling to stand which I know can affect sleep, will this pass as he settles into these new skills? I am giving him lots of time in the day to practice.

I have read the ‘what worked for us’ mumsnet thread and wondered if that might be a place to start. I do like bedsharing with the sidecar cot when it works, I love having him close and not having to get up when he wakes but at the moment it just isn’t working.

Thank you if you’ve read this far!!

Don’t be unduly scared of sleep training. As long as your baby is medically fine there’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, and it sounds like it would really help right now.

@Bancha yes I’ve said exactly that before about deliberately misunderstanding/misrepresenting the literature. To suggest that unless people follow your parenting style your child will have lifelong mental health problems and a terrible relationship with you is not great really! I also absolutely agree that for children to feel that everything has been sacrificed for them is a very intense pressure. Parenting is all about finding balance for your family.

That’s really good to know that you are still responsive when she wakes now, the sleep consultant put the fear in me by telling me that if my baby was ill after sleep training I had to not be too responsive and make sure I woke them up to give them calpol or anything not give it to them when I woke. I know I would be totally responsive to my baby if he was ill so it’s good to know you didn’t have to sleep train again after those times, can I ask how old your Dd was? I’m concerned that 8/9 months is a bad age with separation anxiety especially with me going back to work, that’s why I really wanted to wait until closer to a year when I would be home in the summer holidays but if we continue like this I’ll have fully lost it by then I think!

Are you thinking about controlled crying or gradual withdrawal sleep training @Poppy709?

(your sleep trainer sounds rubbish btw, we are not all like that!)

She was 8.5 months when I did it, so same age as yours. It was just when my DH could get some time off work and when I’d reached my limit to be honest.

Yeah she’s had a rough couple of months with being ill - she was waking overnight and struggling to breathe , but when she’s not been ill she’s pretty much slept fine. So I haven’t found you have to be ‘different’ overnight after sleep training. I keep things low key but always pick her up and cuddle her if she’s poorly and give medicine and more cuddles if needed. To be honest if she wakes I know something is wrong, it’s always a proper cry unlike the noises she would make when she woke for feeds. So obviously I’m straight to her with cuddles and reassurance and it’s been fine.

I really hope things improve for you, the bad sleep is brutal.

I can’t believe anyone would advise you not to be responsive to an unwell baby. No wonder she put you off!

@FATEdestiny personally I would much prefer gradual withdrawal, we spent weeks slowly moving from feeding to sleep to going down in his cot awake to set the foundations, he does have a pat on the bum but I think he’d be fine without it to be honest at the start of the night. It’s the wakes in the night that we struggle with - he just wants boob and now he’s mobile will just crawl off in rage when I try and settle him without it!
However, my husband thinks that us being there and not picking him up will just wind him up more, what do you think? It just feels very cruel to go from a sidecar cot to controlled crying. I had thought the method on the what works for us thread might work well given where he’s at.

What do you suggest in terms of feeds while sleep training? I do think he needs at least one feed in the night, probably 2. The other thing I’m not sure of is if I should move his cot into his own room or keep it in our room, I’d rather keep him in with me but not sure if that will make it more confusing for him.

Yes it wasn’t great, especially as I emailed her when I was thinking of booking and explained i wanted to do it gently and I didn’t mind If it took months, really she should have said she wasn’t the right person for me! I really didn’t want to get to this position where we were at breaking point when I returned to work but all my gentle methods have really improved bedtime but made no different to night wakes.

Just to reiterate that I also wake when my baby cries - or chats, or sometimes has a particularly vocal dream! She's 2 and a bit, and sleep training was over had her lifetimes ago. I'm not less attuned to her at night, if anything more so - because I'm not knackered and also I know if I can hear her, there's an issue.

Both you and @Bancha are far more educated than I am on attachment issues but sleep training is not the devils work it's a good choice for some families, and not for others. That's it!

*over half her lifetime

Ah there's so much going on @Poppy709. You're going back to work after half term and I think that singularly is stressing you on this issue. It's difficult to advise you because you're so paralysed by blind panic at having 2 weeks to sort this.

That's giving you two conflicting issues.

The only way to have the "sorted" (to a degree) by the end of half term is controlled crying.

But, I wouldn't do that. What is personally do is irrelevant. What's important is I have read many of your posts over the last couple of months and it's clear to me you don't want to either. I would do gradual withdrawal - not dissimilar to the What Worked For Us thread (But I favour a bit more gradual).

You're issue really is you are clouded by judgement.

Self judgement. Fear of judgement of others. And all those years of what people will think of you is clouding your ability to decision make.

You need to clear it all. CC will get you better sleep by half term. GW won't. GW will give you a plan. It will give you predictability and to see a journey ahead of you, with a clear beginning, middle and end. That us better than where you are now, with no real plan and mostly just floundering around. But it won't give you independant sleeping within 2 weeks.

You need to drop the judgement.
Stop caring what others might thing.
Decide what you want to do.

No point answering your questions about night weaning, own room or all the other stuff. You first need to decide the level of urgency. Do you need results in 2 weeks? Or do you need a plan, but willing to take longer. Only then can you get to the specifics.
(Plus I'm now onto my third G&T, so the specifics can wait until tomorrow!)

@Poppy709 you said you're scared of admitting you self harm and they'd then take baby away. That's not how it works, t
What they will do is treat you better and that means keeping baby with mum xx

@FATEdestiny yes you’re absolutely right, going back to work is sending me into a panic, and making the nights feel 10x worse because I’m constantly thinking this time in 2 weeks I’ll have to be getting up and going to work. It is also very true that I worry about judgement, mainly my own. I feel incredibly guilty that I can’t cope with his lack of sleep better, it was a very difficult journey to get him here. So you’ve hit the nail on the head there.

I would much prefer to do gradual withdrawal, I don’t need it to be totally ‘sorted’ in 2 weeks, I just need to be getting enough sleep to function safely and feel that we’re moving in the right direction. He actually settled a bit better last night after my husband taped blankets over the windows to make it darker! Still up regularly, but we didn’t have the 4am party!

Any advice on gradual withdrawal would be really welcome, like you say I’m floundering with it. I do think any movement into a separate cot and less boob in the night is going to result in some crying and protest.

Your panic is making you feel you need to solve everything, all right now at the same time. You don't.

Firstly, blackout blinds are a given. Get some for the nursery ready, they will always be necessary for about 10 years. In fact, many users of blackout blinds find an issue with light bleeding around the edges of the blinds and so it's not uncommon to pair blackout blinds with blackout curtains (hung wider, higher and lower than the window recess). So consider this while you're changing window dressings.

Next - You and your husband should start sharing the nights once you're back at work. That doesn't mean both of you up at the same time. Set up a spare bed (maybe in the nursery if you dont have a spare room?). One should sleep in there every night and user high quality ear plugs throughout the night. If you are getting 3 or 4 nights per week of full 10 hours sleep, you will cope with he 3 or 4 broken nights much more easily.

That will only be possible if you night wean. It's unfair on your baby to be inconsistent and sometimes feed (when it's your night) and sometimes not (when you're getting 10h uninterrupted sleep). This does not mean stopping breastfeeding, just at night. I cannot see any possible way to share the nights without doing this.

So, I would make your focus for the next 2 weeks as night weaning. This in itself may well improve sleep, but improving sleep isn't the specific focus. As a teacher you will understand the importance of clearly defined targets with defined success criteria. Your target for the coming 2 weeks wants to be to night wean.

I understand you don't want to do that. But regardless of your sleep training method, night weaning is required otherwise you will end up with an even more confused baby. You need to psychologically explore what it is about night weaning that you're are against.

You mention allergies and that solids weaning is slow. But it needs to hurry along, frankly. One of the most effective ways to get baby eating more is to give him meals when he's hungry. Imagine how well he will eat breakfast if the last solids he had was 7pm last night. Think about how big the morning breastfeed will be too.

In terms of weaning (onto solids) - think of the journey as a 6 month one from 6 months to 12 months. The "food is fun until 12 months" suggests that the journey to solids begins at 12 months. It doesn't, it ends at 12 months. I generally consider:

• 6 months - 95% calories from milk
• 6 to 9 months - Maintain pre-weaning levels of milk, while also increasing solids to 3 meals per day
• 9 months - Solids established as significant source of calories. No more than 50% of calories from milk
• 9 to 12 months - actively decrease milk intake in order to increase portion sizes and food groups for meals.
• 12 months - 95% (plus) of calories from food

You're close to 9 months, so if you don't start significantly establishing solids very soon. If that means reducing milk (by night weaning) then it is actively necessary. By maintaining milk to slow down weaning, you're actually holding back his development. It's necessary - he needs a significant solids diet now, so you can grow it over the coming 3 or 4 months.

As you can see, I've completely digressed from actual sleep issues. It's because you're focusing too far ahead of the path you are walking. You have first got to tackle the physiological and practical reasons for not night weaning (and not pushing solids weaning forward to allow for that). The reasons I can see from your posts as to why you dont want to night wean are:

• He's genuinely hungry. He will be, he's not getting enough daytime calories. So increase the daytime calories.
• He's got allergies so isn't eating well. Give him high calorie foods and a big variety of foods that don't trigger his allergies. Push forward his daytime diet as a priority.
• I can only settle him with a breastfeed in the night. That's because breastfeeding is his comfort mechanism. You can only solve this by giving another comfort mechanism and so not feeding.
• I don't want to. You need to explore this personally. Are your needs more important than his own?
• I feel judged. All -parents- mothers (damn the patriarchy) feel judged and feel guilty. Your a FTM so you feel it hardest. You just have to get over it and minimise how much it bothers you. Good is good enough.

So, my essay aside - Are you ready to night wean (like, this weekend, straight away)?

If you're not, then there's no point anyone offering you ways to sleep train (other than the very gradual attachment parenting types of training). Gradual withdrawal or controlled crying, or anything in between - it all begins with night weaning.

You've had some excellent advice from @FATEdestiny who has some very valid points about night weaning.

I'm happy to talk/describe to you about how we did a gradual withdrawal sleep training but as Fate suggests you have to be ready to embrace the change.

Good luck and I hope you find a resolution that works for you

@FATEdestiny thank you for all your advice, you’re absolutely right about his food weaning - I’m trying to up his calories by adding things like nut butters and egg yolks as well as establishing more proteins and carbs, he just sometimes won’t eat a lot of what is offered. I am making sure I don’t breast feed him 3 hours before I want to give him breakfast and that’s helped, he does have a big serving of porridge/weetabix in the morning now.
I’m working on timings in the day to try and make sure he’s properly hungry for his other meals as well.

In terms of night weaning, I had planned to night wean in august and my husband has a week off ready. Aside from the issue of him being hungry, my main reluctance is changing too much at once when he already has the disruption of me going back to work. I was prepared to be really tired for one half term and then set up more sustainable sharing of nights ready for September. I guess I also wanted to give him chance to get through the 8 month regression. However, there’s a fine balance between tired but manageable and dangerously sleep deprived which I’ve swung into this week and that’s triggered the panic. Typically he slept better last night which he often does when I finally say something has to change - I think he can sense it!

I see what you’re saying about night weaning and sleep training needing to come together. One thing though - in your opinion can you night wean while co sleeping? I’ve seen the jay gordon method but I feel like my DS being able to grab my top and crawl makes it really hard to refuse to feed when he’s in bed with me and actually he probably needs to transition into his cot with the side on at the same time. I think I need to catch up on some sleep this weekend and sit down with my husband and work out what to do.

I can't read the full thread right now, sorry! But honestly op, sleep train. Both my children aged 6y and 4y now, I had to sleep train. With my first I felt similar to how you have described. I broke, and did controlled crying, and it was bloody brilliant. It worked in 3 days. It saved me. And Dd was like a new child. With my second child I wanted to avoid it, but ended up in exactly the same boat anyway, and with a sleep consultant to boot. Honestly just do it. Depression, a mother in poor health, and sleep deprivation in a developing child are imo worse than a couple of nights with a few tears while you support them to learn an essential skill.

I see what you’re saying about night weaning and sleep training needing to come together. One thing though - in your opinion can you night wean while co sleeping? I’ve seen the jay gordon method but I feel like my DS being able to grab my top and crawl makes it really hard to refuse to feed when he’s in bed with me and actually he probably needs to transition into his cot with the side on at the same time.

You can't cosleep and night wean (unless you go the very slow gradual attachment parenting route - in which case you've got about another 12 months of night feeds). Side back on the cot was to the first thing I said in relation to sleep training - when you get to that. Unsupervised sidecar cot set ups could be getting dangerous now. I'd keep the cot in your room though.

Depending on your setup, but if you have cot mattress on the highest setting then it's dangerous to keep it there once baby it sitting up. The middle cot mattress setting becomes dangerous once pulling to standing. So you need the cot mattress at the lowest height now, or very soon. Because otherwise baby could lean over the "side on" sides and drop to the floor. Either that or keep him supervised at all times.

my main reluctance is changing too much at once when he already has the disruption of me going back to work

There's your indecisiveness again. You could wait until the summer holidays and sleep train / night wean then. But read your OP and you are self harming and at crisis point - which means you can't wait until then. I do think that you are showing signs of PND and would benefit from speaking to your GP and medication. If nothing else it will help you with clearer decision making on this issue instead of constantly doubting yourself.

If you are going to sleep train effectively to give you results in the medium to short term, then everything has to change. Well, most of it anyway. You'll need to night wean, stop cosleeping, put the side on the cot - all of it. I promise you he'll be better for it. But it's a big change. I bet you a million pounds that the effects of the changes will be harder for you, not him. If you do gradual withdrawal then you would keep his cot in your room and stay with him being compassionate and comforting through his distress. The proper harsh (fast) way to do it would additionally have own room and none of your help to settle - which would be controlled crying.

While I think about it, if you go CC then baby needs to be in the nursery. You can't realistically do CC while the cot is in your bedroom, that would be cruel to be present but ignoring his needs. So that's another massive change to add to all the others, all happening at the same time.

Back to the line I picked from your post - you seem to be weary of making changes all at once. But the point is that massive changes will need to happen all at the same time if you need him sleeping better (which your self harming says to me is an urgent need and cannot wait until summer).

So maybe just bite the bullet and do it? You may be surprised how much of a big difference you see in just a week. It's half term starting today, you could make a huge difference before next half term. If you wanted to. Plus DH can help with the night weaning while he isn't in school this week.

Right, my DH is putting the side back on the cot and moving it to lowest setting. He is pulling to standing on everything the last few days.

I have had lots of support from perinatal mental health because of my previous PTSD, although I am ‘in recovery’ from that and they were never concerned about PND it still affects things - and doubting my own decision making is definitely one of the symptoms. I have strategies that I know really help and will be a lot easier to implement when I have some proper sleep. I do have some medication which I can take for panic attacks and I think this will probably help me in the night.

Right, the side is on the cot, we’re going to go for it. I think you’re right if we wait until summer there’ll always be something - he’s starting nursery so will probably have a permanent cold.

The cot is going to stay in our room - when we put him to sleep would you say it’s still ok to pat his bum, rub his back as usual or should he be going to sleep with one of us just sat with him?
And in the night - just settling him the cot or pick him up and give him a cuddle?

Please don’t feel you have to reply with a plan tonight!

It will be much better for baby if DH takes over the nights for the week. Or at least the first 3 or 4 nights. But if that's not possible you can do it, it will just be harder on your emotions because of night weaning.

Firstly and most importantly - your baby WILL cry. A lot. Try to reframe that crying. Baby's only way of communicating is through cries and baby is basically saying "I'm tired. I'm so tired Mummy/Daddy, please help me sleep". And that is exactly what you're doing. So you're not leaving him confused and distressed. You are teaching him. And sometimes learning new stuff is hard.

So don't take the crying in itself as a sign that baby cannot cope with what is happening, or that what you are doing isn't working. Accept that crying is going to happen, baby is just communicating with you. Stay caring, stay compassionate - it's really important not to get frustrated or angry and that's why reframing the crying is important. You understand that baby is tired and you understand that baby cannot get to sleep so is frustrated. You care and have empathy for your baby not being able to sleep and you are helping him and being compassionate of the fact that he's upset....

But (big but)... you do know best. You know that by teaching him to sleep independently his sleep will improve. So while you care that he is upset and frustrated, you also know you must carry on, be consistent and help him to learn. Because you understand the complexities of life that he doesn't. So you are taking this decision for him, because you are the parent and you know best.

That said, the practicalities...

when we put him to sleep would you say it’s still ok to pat his bum, rub his back as usual or should he be going to sleep with one of us just sat with him?
And in the night - just settling him the cot or pick him up and give him a cuddle?

As much in-cot comfort as is needed.
Always the same. No different at night, at bedtime, at naptime.

Gradual Withdrawal is like a 'ladder' of comfort given. You start off offering tons of comfort, and you do it right through until fully asleep. Then over time you reduce the amount of comfort needed very gradually.

Your first couple of nights will be hideous, be prepared for that. Seperate feeding and sleeping completely. For example feed before his bathtime, then into bath, into night clothes, into bed fully awake. Same at naptime in the daytime - feed when he wakes up not when he goes to sleep.

If he's pulling to standing, can he get from standing to sitting to lying down unaided too? (they usually can, if asked). If possible, put him in the cot standing up, tap mattress and tell him to lie down. In a "Simon Says" type way, babies love following instructions and getting praise. Practice this in the daytime if he doesn't have it sorted yet.

Mobile babies are like spaniel puppies - they won't stop being moving around unless you give them no choice and make them. So you may need to help him still his arms if he's flaying around in temper. For example hold his hands to keep him arms still. If he's similarly slamming his legs around, place your palm on his legs to still them. It largely depends what he's doing when lying in the cot. You want to help him keep still, but in a compassionate, loving way that you're helping him. In order to calm to go to sleep his body needs to still and relax.

So lie him down and accept that you (or DH) will be bending down into the cot for the next few hours. Give him as much comforting as you can in there. Patting, shushing, rub his back, tickle his cheeks, look into his eyes, have your face close to his if you can. All the comfort you can give. He's going to cry, just keep going - you're not leaving him, you're there with him all the way through and helping him learn even though it's hard.

Just keep going. Eventually (and it may take a long time) he will get there. As he does start relaxing, keep the comforting going. Gradually and slowly still and movement in the 10 or so minutes after going into a deep sleep. Then very carefully remove yourself and leave him to sleep.

Do the same for every wake up. I know, it will be very hard the first couple of nights.

So there might be times its unavoidable that he needs picking up. Screaming gives baby wind, which is painful, and this is a common reason to need to get baby out of the cot. That's OK, don't worry about seeing to your baby's needs, as long as you stay focused on independant sleep. So it's OK to periodically pick baby up, have him upright on your shoulder and maybe calm him slightly and see if he will wind. But don't do this routinely, only if it's absolutely needed. Also, I would highly recommend only DH picks him up, the issue of breastfeeding is not there with DH. Then put baby down still fully awake to carry on.

Gradual Withdrawal

None of this has explained to you how to actually progress to independent sleep. That's just because I don't want to overwhelm you.

As mentioned in an earlier post - your priority form now really needs to be night weaning. Just do anything and everything you need to do to night wean and not feed to sleep so that is your focus. Ideally in-cot settling only, that will make sleep training easier going forward. but if you absolutely can't then your DH could rock/cuddle to sleep for now. You can still do GW from rocking to sleep, it just takes longer. Point is, don't feed.

You start the process of gradually withdrawing towards independent sleep once in-cot settling is established. So first you need to establish that.

Thank you! In cot settling is fine for going to sleep, feeding and sleeping is completely separate - on the sofa and then up to bed with a book, he goes in cot awake with no distress, chatters a bit and then lies down and goes to sleep with a pat on the bum. He’s gone down absolutely fine tonight, side being on hasn’t thrown him. It’s the night wake ups that are always tricky, once he’s awake in the night for some reason the cot he will happily lie in at bedtime becomes a bed of nails! But..he does know how to do it, so we just need to keep the exact same routine in the night as happens at bedtime. Having a glass of wine to steel myself!

Good luck!

Well last night went so much better than I anticipated - he was still up every 2 hours but my husband slept in there with him and was able to resettle him in the cot. There were tears but i could hear he was more shouting in frustration rather than breaking his heart. DH said the main problem was he’s obviously used to the bigger space in the bed and kept banging his head on the cot, hopefully he’ll get used to the smaller space. Only problem was I said I would feed him whenever he woke after 6, he woke at 6 and I made the mistake of feeding him lying down and we both fell asleep for an extra hour. Won’t make that mistake tomorrow! But honestly, I can’t believe how well he took to being settled in the cot. Thank you so much ladies for giving me a bit of a kick to make a change. Hopefully it will eventually translate into less night wakes! Even without that though I’ve been doing nights on my own for so long to think that I could have a night off and he could even go and stay and grandma and grandads for a night just makes the whole thing feel so much more manageable. Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself after just one night!
@FATEdestiny at what point would you start to scale back the help you’re offering to sleep? When he’s very easily resettled? Also his cot is next to our bed at the moment, we do have room for it to be further away from the bed but still in the same room if that would be another step.
I will keep this thread updated so other people searching with similar issues can see how we get on.

I’m in such shock after last night, he only woke up once! He was easily settled as well. I have been doing a dream feed at about 2/3am (waking him for it not when he wakes up himself and rousing him when putting him in the cot so he goes back to sleep in the cot) and this morning we had to wake him up at 7.30 after going down at 3! I checked his temperature when he got up because it was so out of character, I’m still a bit worried there might be something wrong with him but he seems fine! There’s not really been any distress at all for him so far, he’s taken to it really well, I think he was ready. Early days and might be a fluke but hopefully this is the start of better sleep for us. Like you said @FATEdestiny and @absolutehush he’s also been eating more solids now he’s feeding less at night.

That's absolutely fantastic news!

I'm so glad you decided to go for it. Long may it continue!

Regarding your last question, you and DH are the best people to know when baby is ready for scaling back the help needed. The idea is to give only just-enough comforting for baby to sleep. So never too much, once baby is calming, don't add any extra layers and see if you can pull back a bit as baby is calm (restarting again if getting upset).

An example would be:

• Baby into cot awake, bending close and patting chest until calm
• when calm slow and still the patting, but keep hand on chest and stay bent close
• if fussing restarts, restart patting. When fussing stops, slow and still hand.

Then over time the hope should be that you get to the stage where you put into cot, pat chest for the first minute or two to settle then just stay with your hand on chest for reassurance until asleep.

Then over time move to just hand on chest to settle. When calm lift hand away but stay bending over the cot. If fussing, hand back on chest to settle. Once calm, remove hand and wait bending over cot until asleep.

Then over time it comes to hand on chest to settle, then remove hand and stand by the cot (rather than bend into) when calm. Go back to hand on chest if upset, withdraw when calm. Still stay until asleep.

Then over time hand on chest just for a few seconds to settle, then step away from the cot to wait until asleep. Always go back if distressed or upset and go back 'up the ladder of comforting', but importantly withdraw once calm so baby knows that reassurance is always there and will always be there, but is gradually learning that he doesn't actually need your physical comfort (just to know you are there if needed).

@Poppy709 absolutely excellent news! I hope it continues on this path for you (there will, inevitably, be tough nights) and you and your baby are feeling happier and well rested.

@Poppy709 how are you getting on? ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ I HOPE!