Our baby is driving us insane

[funstuie]

My son is 8 months old this Friday and he still not sleeping through the night.

At about the 6 month mark when we switched him to solid food (using the baby leg weaning method) he started showing signs of sleeping through the night. Usually one night a week he would sleep from 7pm to 7am (or thereabouts) but over the past month his sleeping has gone mental.

Whereas before he would wake up occasionally through the night one of us would go in and it would take about 10 minutes at most to get him settled and back to sleep. Now when he wakes up it takes up to 2 hours to get him back to sleep and he cries almost the whole time and over the last two nights he has been hysterical. It's driving us mental. He seems to be getting worse rather than better and we don't know what to do.

We can't really do the "pick up, put down" method as picking him up doesn't settle him and my wife doesn't want to do any kind of controlled crying (I am more open to this, although it will be horrible I want him to sleep).

He has had a really bad cold/chest infection and his first teeth have come through over the past month so these could be (and probably are) affecting him but he has been fine for the past week and as I said he seems to be getting worse at night time rather than better. We could handle him waking twice a night if it only took a little effort to get him back to sleep but at the moment we like Zombies walking his room for hours trying not to cry through the screaming.

So any advice? Is this normal?

Elf, it's also pretty common when they have a new developmental stage to be difficult to settle so my DD was difficult at standing, walking, crawling but she has settled down now.

Are you absolutely sure he's not hungry? I do think a lot of babies are still feeding in the night at 6 months aren't they? I know both mine were - I don't think I dropped the night feeds til much nearer 1. I would just take him into bed with you and feed him back to sleep - but then I've always been a great advocate of TMSFTMP (the most sleep for the most people) method.

How much is he eating/breastfeeding during the day? If he previously settled and now won't perhaps he is genuinely hungry?

When we started weaning my DD she cut back on her breastfeeding quite dramatically at first (and I didn't actually realise at the time) about a month later when the breastmilk/food ratio stabilised my supply was quite low and it was onlt then that I realised that she'd cut back so dramatically. As a consequence I think her bedtime milk feed left her a little lacking and she did wake in the night until I realised

What does he typically eat and when. By 8 months my DD was having 3 "meals" a day plus 3 breastfeeds. (and the odd breastfed snack!)

sympathies

really, it's horrible

ds2 (5mo) catnaps for 20 mins in the day and wakes screaming

wakes several times in the night

from one zombie to another - let's hope it gets better

[raises hand] and a third zombie

I second either dw getting up to feed him, or bringing him into bed to feed him, at 4am. Better a 20min feed and back to sleep than 2h howling - even if you get up to him I'll bet my bottom dollar dw lies awake till he settles so you might as well feed him and be done.

I'd do a split shift - you deal with anything before 2.30am, say, and dw deals with anything afterward.

I know he doesn't nap well during the day, but can you engineer a lie-in? If I bring dd (4m) into bed with me after dh gets up at 6am we gan easily go till 9, which helps a lot...

Excuse me, I think you've cloned my ds2!

I could actually have written your OP and second post. My ds2 is exactly the same, has gone through the same phases, including the 2 hour wake up in the early hours, refusing a bottle and not napping in the day. He's now 11mo and has slept through 6 times in his entire life. If he wakes up once I count that as sleeping through now.

It's horrific.

It does get better, for a while, but I have found that it's actually easier to accept that he is just a terrible sleeper, rather than spend every night getting more and more stressed that he wasn't sleeping again.

I also decided that I was going ignore all the advice telling me that he didn't need a night feed. My DH works away so I had the choice of dealing with 3 dcs on no sleep or feeding ds2 when he woke and getting some sleep. A 10 minute feed in the early hours or 2 hours pacing round the room wasn't much of a contest to me.

TBH, your baby is only 8mo. He's still really small and he's going through lots of things that will affect his sleep. It sounds, from what you've said, that he does actually need the feed, or at least the comfort and in your situation, you really need to go for the short term solution and just let him bf, until you are sure he's 100% better, his appetite is totally back to normal and he isn't in pain from his teeth. Then you can start some kind of sleep training if you feel the need.

(FWIW, we did a very mild, much gentler version of CC a couple of months back which helped a lot, but in the past month he has cut 6 teeth and has a stinking cold so we are back to multiple wake ups again. The sleep training only works to a point if they are rubbish sleepers and it doesn't take much to knock them off course, sleep wise).

That's not really what you want to hear right now, is it?

If I were you (or your DW, rather) I'd feed him immediately when he wakes and see if that settles him without the 2 hours of screaming. Surely that has to be better than what you're doing at the moment?

Good luck!

You have my sympathies, 3 non-sleepers in this house youngest one just 5 months!
Sounds like you have tried most of the normal solutions - not wanting to sound patronising, but have his ears been checked recently? When mine did the more unusual prolonged screaming, and I was totally unable to pacify with any amount of 'normal' tactics. It, more often than not turned out to be an ear infection (Along with teething) Felt very guilty on a number of occasions, for not taking them to Drs sooner!

Good Luck and here's to a good night sleep for all!

Well my DD also 8 mo used to sleep 7-7 from 5-7mo. Oh how smug we were and thought we had cracked it. ....

Then she decided to start waking twice in the night after teething and a bad cold and bf is by far the easiest way of getting her back to sleep.

I am getting a chorus of disapproval about encouraging her to wake by feeding in the night when she apparently doesn't need it but I have faith that things will sort themselves out again. Sod the rod for your own back merchants and take the path of least resistance.

My DH does his bit by taking her downstairs and feeding breakfast so I can roll back over and have a mini lie in which helps a lot.

Like mamadoc's DD, my 7 MO was sleeping 12 hours through the night from 4 months, oh how smug we were... until he hit 6 months and in 1 month had 2 colds, flu, cut 3 teeth, learned to sit up, crawled and started on solids... his sleep went bloody mental culminating in 1 fateful night when he woke up 18 times!!!

When he was prone to waking up loads we had him in bed with us as we all get more sleep that way. I just BF him whenever he wanted as well as he was drinking way more than normal - probably for comfort.

Last 2 weeks have been much better, just 1 or 2 wakings, usually around 10pm and 5am so at least we get a good chunk of sleep. I hope your situation improves also as your DS starts to feel better and more settled.

Would also advise going to the Dr as the signs of teething can be similar to other probs - I took DS and turned out some of his "teething" symptoms were actually a throat infection - oops!

My DS also only has 2x 45 min sleeps in the day, I think some babies just don't need as much as others.

What about co-sleeping? Give it a try; it can work wonders with fretful, post-poorly babies. Sounds like he's anxious and needs comfort - the easiest way to do that is nice cuddles in bed.

Hi all

Sorry for the delay in replying but I have been "off-line" for the weekend.

My parents were over staying with us for the weekend so in an attempt to get some sleep so he can enjoy his time with his grandparents we threw out the rule book and did what works.

On Thursday night when he woke up I tended to him and if I could not settle him within 3/5 minutes my wife would feed him. This worked fine, he woke up about 11ish and I got him back to sleep in a couple of minutes, he woke again about 2ish and my wife fed him and he settled within 10 mins. He woke again about 4 and I brought him into our bed and my wife fed him again and he slept through till 6ish which was a vast improvement on the previous weeks.

We continued this for the rest of the weekend. Friday night/Saturday morning was the best as he woke a couple of times and I got him down quickly with little work, my wife only fed him at the 4am wakeup when we took him into our bed.

Sunday was a bad day all round when we realised his top two teeth are coming through and he was out of sorts all day and would not take solid food at all. Also my wife managed to sprain her foot so therefore was in agony and could not get out of bed. I was up all night, he was fed twice but would only settle for a could of hours even in our bed. Eventually I got up about 5 and got him settled back in his own bed and he slept through to 7am this morning.

To be honest I don't mind him waking a few times through the night as long as getting him back to sleep is relatively easy and at the moment feeding him is working so we are going to continue with that till his teeth are through.

Thanks for all the advice folks.

Just read the thread....I'm in the same boat as you, refuses to take bottle, up at 12am,3-4am....driving me crazy. But mine has just been waking up for the day at 5am. Lucky me.
Insane in the membrane.
Just tell yourself it aint forever and things will get better in a few months time down the line. Dont read into to many other threads about babies who are 3 and still not sleeping, be patient, get some excersise as this will give you more energy you will feel a whole lot better. Your body adapts to not much sleep, go to bed earlier, chill out and go with the flow....This is what I tell myself everyday after another shit night...
If you can handle a few nights of CC do it. I would do it if I had the balls..It's not cruel as having a miserable grumpy tierd parent.
Good luck.