1 year sleep regression hell - is it a thing? At wits end. Previously suicidal due to lack of sleep.

[PocketRocket12]

Hi all

About 4 months ago I posted on Mumsnet about my DS's sleep. He was waking every hour from birth until approximately 7.5 months old when I cracked and threatened to kill myself to my GP. I really meant it. After some amazing advice and support from Mumsnetters, I reached out for help and slowly, we made great progress. By 10 months, my depression and anxiety meds had made a hugely positive impact and with some gentle sleep training and various other advice, my son went to waking once a night and was a very happy boy.

He has recently had his first birthday and our whole world has regressed. I literally do not know why. He now goes to bed at 7.30, is awake by 11 at the latest, stays awake screaming, crying, fussing, laughing, crying again until 2/3am, falls back to sleep and then wakes for the day at 5. He now does not sleeps longer then 2/3 hours in a row and I myself probably average about 3/4 hours a night.

This has been going on for 17 days.

He naps well, for between 2-3 hours a day. He has only slept in his cot. Blackout blind, white noise, comforter, goes down drowsy but awake (although he has started protesting this for no real reason). I have tried picking him up, not picking him up, rocking him, feeding him, giving him medication incase it is teething (pretty sure this is not the case now). I end up sobbing every night as I feel I just do not know how to comfort my baby and I felt like we had worked so hard to tackle these problems previously.

We are currently living with my in laws whilst our house is being built and we are all beyond sleep deprived. I am back at work full time and my husband and I barely speak at the moment as we are zombies and it's bringing up so many painful memories from the first 8 months of my son's life.

Please help. Is this normal? A regression? Will it pass? What more can I do? Significant sleep deprivation is such a trigger for me and I am in a dark pit with no way out at the minute.

Please please sleep train.

You are going to be suicidal again.

Please do that.

Perhaps he's ready to drop down to one nap?

Sleep deprivation is so utterly exhausting so I completely empathise. You are not alone. First go back to your GP and consider getting signed off sick with stress and look at your meds. Second, you need to be a bit more able to deal with crying and screaming even if that means leaving your child in a safe place in the cot while you leave. Third, make sure the little one has plenty of protein and a good hearty meal before bedtime. I’d still do a bottle of milk to help soothe back to sleep in the night although health visitors don’t recommend this due to worrying about milk sugar eroding teeth. Worked for me though. Last please please recognise that although you feel suicidal you must never act in impulse. This stage will pass eventually.

Thank you @Bonheurdupasse. We did sleep training before and that got us amazing progress. I don’t want to go into too much detail about our living situation but that isn’t possible for to revisit for another few weeks. I didn’t realise it was something that we would need to do over and over, it was so horrible the first time but was quite effective after 7-10 days. Thank you for your advice xxx

@AllAroundTheWorldYeah Yes! We actually did drop to one nap when he started nursery (driven by nursery routine really!) and it was at that point that his sleep transformed. He’s been on one long nap for quite some time. I actually am toying with going back to two to see if there’s actually a problem with his one nap routine but he will not settle for a nap before 11am. X

Hi I don’t have any advice as I tried everything with first Dd and time was the only thing that helped.
I have newborn twins now and as you can imagine sleep is minimal.

The only thing that keeps us sane is shifts (they are formula fed this time). One of us does 9-2ish and then the other does 2-7am so we each get 5 hours plus whatever sleep inbetween looking after the twins.

Thank you @AthenaPopodopolous. I’m so grateful. I’m trying everything I can and will stick with all these suggestions. Wish I could pinpoint what has changed… it doesn’t feel normal for a baby to be awake for 3/4 hour blocks every night

Let us know how you are getting on. I really feel for you. Nothing worse than the hell of sleep deprivation with young babies and toddlers. I have a 14 month age gap and with the second I didn’t really have time to pander as much and didn’t react in the same way to nerves when dealing with crying. I took it a little more in my stride. Maybe the set up with living with the in-laws makes you worry too much about keeping the little one quiet. Once you move into your own place you can relax a little.

Is your DH sharing the night time burden equally?

You have my full sympathies, sleep deprivation is awful and it sounds as if you are still working off the sleep debt from the first 8 months. Just to say it sounds like you are doing all the right things to help LO sleep - some babies just find it a lot trickier than others. I would probably try and keep one nap now, but you could pull bedtime earlier if he is super tired. Things that have worked for our LO were putting on an audiobook when he wakes, getting him up to play for 20mins before redoing bedtime or as he got older putting some books in his cot so he could play for a bit then go back to sleep.

If you do need to revisit sleep training, you will probably find it takes much less time and energy than it did the last time.
Finally, you need more support to get you more sleep, this might be changing shift patterns at work or asking in-laws for more help - anything that will get you some child free time to catch up on rest.

Hi @FATEdestiny. I always read your very helpful replies with interest. I say absolutely not, he says yes. We are barely speaking at the moment as we are both so exhausted and irritable with each other. He says even when he's not up with the baby he can't sleep once woken.... I just think that is literally not my problem and no excuse not to more evenly share the night time.

More daytime sleep? Less daytime sleep? More food? More milk? Sleep train again? Re-look at wake windows? I am clutching at straws here.

Sharing the night duty

While you were on maternity leave, or if you were part time, it would be reasonable and fair for you to take more responsibility at night than DH.

That you are now working full time changes that. You should be sharing this equally. I would suggest you each get entire nights off, rather than doing half the night each - you get more rest that way. For example you do the night of Wed-Fri and have the Sun AM lie-in, he does the nights of Sat-Mon and gets Sat AM lie-in, alternate Tues night.

Ear plugs and eye mask work if room sharing and not "on duty", or one of you sleeps elsewhere.

Make this non negotiable.

Settling Method and Sleep Training

"...goes down drowsy but awake" - what happens to get baby to the drowsy point, before being put down to sleep?

What was your sleep training?

Yes, you will need to do it again. Sleep training is usually ongoing, so you continue using the method you did long term. I can't figure out why you have stopped, but that depends on what you did to sleep train initially.

Split night

Is baby in your room? Or you in baby's room? Or neither?

What specifically do you do from baby first stirring awake until back to sleep? Like, for example, what did you do last night.

Thank you @FATEdestiny. Here goes...............

I am going to share your entire post with my husband as we need to do something. My husband issue is that my ‘son settles better with me’ but I absolutely think that we are beyond that now and in fact, he does not settle for anything or anyone!

Back story:

Our sleep training method was as follows:

1. Ensure good amount of day sleep
2. Calming bedtime routine – bath, moisturise, bottle, book, cuddles, bed.
3. Say “goodnight” and leave the room.
4. If crying and very upset, re-enter room, sshhh and rub back for 30 seconds and leave.
5. Repeat every 5 minutes until asleep.
6. We repeated this through the night for every night waking and they gradually reduced to one wake a night. This was at 3/4am so we gave a bottle, put back down awake and he would go back off to sleep until 6.30. Without this bottle he would not settle back to sleep and would cry until morning.
7. Bedtime protests reduced over 10 days to maybe 5 minutes max. All was working for us as a family.
8. Four weeks ago two things happened – 1) my son got salmonella and 2) my sister in law and two children unexpectedly moved in to the house for a few weeks whilst emergency work was performed on their house.
9. During this time, my son was severely dehydrated, needing water in the night and extra comfort. I gave him this. He never fell asleep on milk but did sometimes in my arms. I also was aware of the additional guests and this rocked my confidence – panicked about noise in the night keeping them awake. But I thought “when he’s recovered things will return to normal”.
10. Needless to say, they have not. He now wakes every 2/3 hours as described and gets a max of 6/7 hours a night sleep. GP has given him clean bill of health.

I have completely panicked and try everything to get him back to sleep because of said guests. He still goes down to sleep awake but has been in my arms having a cuddle before I put him down.

Last night:

I tried leaving him and attending every 5 minutes for an hour. Then I picked him up and cuddled him, checked nappy, returned to cot. Then I cuddled and rocked. Finally I offered milk. 1 hour after this milk feed he eventually fell asleep in my arms. Totally all over the place!

Sister in law and children will be leaving in 10 days’ time. I feel completely trapped to make any changes before then.

He is always in his own room, we have never co-slept. I don’t bring him into bed with me (he actually goes nuts if I do!) I do sleep on a mattress behind his cot if the nights are really bad to save me a walk….

If it was me, I'd maximise sleep for the next 10 days the best you can, then sleep train from Day 11.

WRT controlled crying, it's usual to continue that long term. So initially it might wake many returns and Over time it reduces so that (hopefully) baby settles after first going to bed with no need for any times returns.

But then you have a regression.... and you just do the same. So it might be that you're back to several 5 minute returns (Or whatever), but you do that because it's a regression. Until it improves again and your returns reduce naturally.

And so the fluctuating progress continues, but in a consistent way. Sometimes asleep within 5 mins. Sometimes 1 or 2 returns needed. Sometime 10 or 15 returns - but you're always consistent. So there is no "now I've finished sleep training" or "now I need to restart sleep training" - it's more long term than that.

For the next 10 days....

If it was me, I'd sleep all night with DS for the short term while you have visitors. Cuddle to sleep and don't be afraid to lie down while cuddling to sleep and let DS stay there in bed with you - it's a million times easier than trying to get him in the cot.

Do that one a 50-50 split with DH, and the other with ear plugs in parental bed.

Then Day 11, sleep train. Same as before. But keep in view that there is no end to this sleep training. Even when he's usually settling easily and quickly, there will be periodic returns to you needing to do the leave-return and leave yo cry for 5 mins at a time. Be consistent in this moving forward.

Probably not the done with on Mumsnet but we just put DD in her cot with a bottle. Yes the bottle was a sleep aid for a while but her teeth are fine and she outgrew it. She was very mobile etc. and we always had a baby monitor.

Thank you @FATEdestiny. Great advice and so obvious when you lay it out like that in black and white. My son has always screamed blue murder and tried to crawl away if I attempt to lie down with him (or even sit) when he’s like this. He wants me to stand and his head to be on my shoulder. I’ve no idea why but it’s why we have never coslept unless he’s fallen asleep on my shoulder and I’ve carefully down without waking him. I think that’s what makes it even more gruelling

Also a bottle doesn’t seem to settle him and he won’t hold it himself @Mummytomylittlegirl but thank you for the advice, it’s always helpful to know you aren’t alone!

Hi @FATEdestiny. Thank you for all your advice. We've got through the period by the skin of our teeth and are now desperate to sleep teach. Do you recommend a particular approach? Before it was quite simply attend to baby every 3, then 4 then 5 minutes until asleep. Rub back for 30 seconds but do not get out of cot if not wet / in pain. Thoughts? I imagine the methods are all the same. The issue is little one is in nursery so I have no control over naps (they rock him to sleep but he naps well, for 2.5 hours over lunch).

Thanks

Hi all,

Just reading all your posts, @PocketRocket12 it sounds like you were going through hell. How are things now? More than 1 year onwards!