What do you do when sleep training hasn’t worked?

[Nosleep2021]

DS is just awful. We are lucky to get 2/3 hours at the start of the night, wakes, then he refuses to go back in his cot. He isn’t hungry or anything - milk is offered and refused.

Since what he wants is to be picked up the sleep methods like Ferber don’t work.

I never thought I’d do CIO but I just can’t carry on like this. I’m depressed because of lack of sleep.

I don’t know who that is. I just know that letting a baby cry goes against every bone in my body and all of human evolution. I have been absolutely desperate for sleep so I have been where you are. I understand the desperation. But only you will know what you’re comfortable doing to get that sleep.

My newest baby has fed and is asleep now. I hope you get some sleep. And good luck with whatever you decide to try.

Has it got worse since he started nursery, OP? I'm wondering if he's needing extra contact with you at night because he's not seeing you during the day as much... this happened with my DS1 when I went back to work. If it's that, I'm wondering if CIO will help?

I spent a lot of money on a sleep consultant to help me do a version of CIO with DS1 when he was 12 months and it didn't work - after 4 or 5 days he still wouldn't give up and I didn't have the heart (or energy) to continue. I think it's worth thinking about your DS's temperament because if he's really determined and spirited you might find you have a battle on your hands.

Our solution was cosleeping and, when I was knackered, my DH would do the whole night and I would lock myself away somewhere. I know that's not the solution you're looking for, I hope things get better really soon - sleep deprivation is desperate.

I’m struggling to understand whether you are awake all night because baby will only sleep on you, or up all night because he’s really unsettled. You said DH is up with you because DS is crying.

Either way I don’t understand why you aren’t helping each other by taking turns. There are literally two of you and as a solo mum who has had to do every single night entirely alone it blows my mind when I hear couples not helping each other out. It’s crap to lose hours in the early evening when baby first goes to sleep but you are literally in survival mode right now. It has to be your number one priority to find a way to survive and you have options when you have a second adult in the house.

Is DH losing as much sleep as you? Is he willing to help anyway he can? What about weekends/days off work - are you able to get some sleep during the day?

I don’t understands why you’ve posted just do tell me you don’t understand, to be honest I’m not really seeking advice on the shifts.

This sounds so hard OP.
You sound like someone who urgently, desperately, needs to catch up on sleep.

I was wondering, over these holidays, can you and your partner take turns to get some daytime sleep, or even just some time lying in a quiet darkened room, or yoga or massage or something de-frazzling?
Seriously I would see the plan as

1. Find a temporary way you and your partner can catch up on sleep and relaxation until you find yourself smiling.

Only after that..

1. Make a plan of how to maintain adult sleep levels going forward, assuming child sleep continues as is, and put it into action
2. Only then, take stock of how your child is sleeping, which battles you wish to fight in what order and what options you have. By the time you get to this point you may even find things may have improved.

We use an IKEA sniglar cot a couple of inches from the bedside, so I can put an arm in if needed or whisper or breathe reassuringly deeply to resettle, sure sometimes I still need to get up to resettle, or feed, calpol etc and but sometimes I can stay lying down or even half asleep which is magic. It works for us, but they are all so different, hope you find things that work for you.

Have you spoken to a GP? About his sleep and also yourself

4 months is huge developmentally, what didn't work 4 months ago might work now.

Re shifts, that's a short term solution and means you get some sleep. This will help with your overall health and wellbeing. You're being very dismissive of people with ideas that might get you through the next few weeks. I get that it's tough, I've been there. I've spent more nights asleep on the floor holding my child's hand than you'll ever know.

Does he sleep at nursery? Have you said anything to them? They might have some ideas too.

He can have a consistent daytime routine with nursery as they'll have one for him there.

Do you get out in sunlight during the day. ........melatonin and all that.
Out in the cold, fresh air always helps people sleep better at night.
A walk in the buggy in the morning and afternoon - or toddle round the garden or park.

Sorry not sure if this has already been posted but this is a toddler next to me cot www.kiddies-kingdom.com/crib-sets/44987-chicco-next2me-forever-side-sleeping-crib-cool-grey-new-2021ybc.html

You could also side car a cot with one side removed?

Yeah he sleeps fine in the day but like I say his naps make no difference to his night time sleep.

You can see from the posting times how little sleep I’ve had. That’s been typical for a while.

I don’t want to sound overly grouchy here but no, I haven’t spoken to a GP and no, nor will I.

I’m genuinely wondering whether to bite the bullet and just let the poor thing cry, because he needs sleep and we need sleep and if it is a means to an end so be it.

I do not want to sleep on the floor.

Or arrange ‘shifts’ (which don’t work as you still wake when he cries)

or have a rigid routine which will disappear on Tuesday anyway

I just want to go to bed at around 10 and wake at around 6 … that’s all.

Sounds dreadful. None of the books worked for me either, they just made me feel like a failure because they didn’t work. I also don’t miss that phase at all like everyone said I would. You couldn’t pay me all the money in the world to go back to that time. Do what you need to do, even if it’s CIO. I was very anti it so never did it with mine but I think there’s a balance to be had. You could always give it a go for a couple of nights and see.

I did CIO with my eldest. Nothing else worked. We even spent money that we didn't really have on a sleep consultant. My DH works away and I have no family in this country so I couldn't even leave her with someone else whilst I napped. My life was a living hell.

I was extremely depressed, barely left the house, and ended up falling asleep whilst driving her to a GP appt. Thankfully the driver coming the other way was very on the ball and swerved onto the pavement and honked. That woke me up. That was the day I decided to do CIO.

I couldn't give a fuck if people judge. They have no idea what was going on in our life. It only took 1 difficult night and the problem pretty much disappeared.

You need to sleep, and so does your baby. If CIO makes that happen, then I would just do it.

I had a son like this, he’s 3 now. The lack of sleep was a total killer, he has got better and now sleeps 8-6ish, which I thought would be impossible.

We just rode it out, and still now he won’t fall asleep independently but at least when he’s asleep he stays asleep.. we are lucky in that we have a room in our attic and would take it in turns to sleep in there and often when it was my turn I would put in ear plugs and take a sleeping pill!

Just do cry it out. He will be fine ...if it works he will be more than fine maybe you can bond with him properly when not overtired. You need sleep and a wee cry will not turn him in to some messed up adult with attachment issues. We were left outside in a pram for naps while mum hoovered (then she couldn’t hear us) and we slept and we don’t have issues from it! You do need to get a consistent routine first and appropriate naps, and help from your DP! You will both be better off sleeping through the night in own beds than sharing with him, resenting him ....just use cry it out.

OP this sounds terrible. I do not think CIO is a bad thing to do in this scenario at all. You need to get some sleep and so does your DS. I'm sure that a lot of families have used it and most of their children are fine! There is a lot of holier than thou on MN and that's fine when you're not going through it, but I am currently a new parent and sleep deprivation is torture.

12 months is a good time to introduce a comfort for him as well. Maybe you could check into a hotel one night just to catch on some sleep and then try the method the next day?

You're not doing anything wrong. Some babies are bad sleepers and very hard work. Do whatever you need to do to survive this bit.

You probably can't think straight as you are so tired. I have long term insomnia and I think this is due to having sleepless DC and DGC it ruined my sleep pattern forever.

What is your objection to going to the GP if you are so desperate that you would consider foster care without your DP why would you not discuss this with someone and seek help?

Also what is your objection to shifts can you sleep separately and wear proper ear plugs? Alternatively actually sleep somewhere else where you cannot hear him?

After trying everything with one of my DC we decided on that the only way we could function was to do shifts which meant one of us slept in the other room with ear plugs and the door shut. We didn't even try to put him in his cot, he slept with whoever's turn it was that night in our bed.

We also had the odd night in a hotel or at a friends both separately and together, we were lucky to have someone to stay with the DCs and do a night shift. We were so tired we slept and when you know you wont hear him its amazing how you tune out and sleep.

Eventually the GP prescribed medication and we co slept with an extra bed on the side, we had 7 foot of bed because he had to have physical contact and we needed to have some sleep.

Co sleeping was really frowned upon in those days and my HV was all for controlled crying. I was judged and told it was my lack of routine, (it wasn't) but I didn't care I just wanted sleep. I tried CIO and he cried until he vomited, there is no way I could have him that distressed, and it defeated the object.

He was almost 3 years old before he suddenly settled in his own bed.

We attached our little one's cot to our bed like a next to me crib by removing the side strapping it to the frame. We used furniture risers as our bed is high. When he got bigger, we did the same with a small toddler bed. Allowed me to feed & cuddle to sleep then move back to my own bed space.

Check out the Beyond Sleep Training Project on Facebook.

Hi OP, I have read all your posts but not the full thread. This sounds shit. I feel your pain. My Dd was like this at age 4, she used to wake at 1:30am and not go back to sleep. I had a year of this. So I know what you feel like, I think. I worked with a sleep consultant in the end. It didn't cost as much as I feared, it was £250. Best money I ever spent. Is that an option for you? I also then worked with her again to help with my ds when he was 1yr old. He used to wake for a solid 3hrs in the middle of the night. She rearranged my daytime routine with him and then we did controlled crying. I think the daytime changes had set him up so well that the controlled crying worked quickly and effectively. I expect your little one has run up a huge sleep debt by now and you're in a pickle. You've said you don't have a strong routine, so that's probably going to bed to be the place you start. The benefit of a sleep consultant would be devising the right routine, when you're starting in a position of needing to play serious sleep catch up. Also just to say you haven't done anything wrong here, science shows sleep is strongly genetic. It's not something you have or haven't done.

Also neither of my kids would happily cosleep! Annoys me when people think that's the magical answer. My sisters lad would, so they went down the bed sharing / floor bed route. Worked well for them. Until he was 3 and they had newborn twins, at which point it became a bit of an issue!

Also can I ask what he does when he wakes up in his cot? Does he cry? It's kind of not your job to 'make' him go back to sleep. You can't do it for him, iyswim. If he's not crying then ignore him. If you go to him then you're fueling the wake up.

I haven't RTFT, but I would do CIO rather than be permanently sleep deprived. CIO used to be the norm (not what was always done, but completely normal) 50 odd years ago, and it obviously didn't create a generation of psychopaths. It is possibly not as good as gentle methods, but a lot better than having a mother so completely sleep deprived they can't function and resent you.

OP, I really feel for you, lack of sleep is just the worst, I've been there with my youngest.

I know you've said you're not sure about a sleep consultant, but it honestly was the best money I've ever spent. And we did it at the start of lockdown so all our contact was by phone and WhatsApp, she didn't actually come to our house at all. We had to keep a detailed diary for 7 days of everything DS ate, when he slept, when he woke, what he was doing when he woke etc so she had a clear picture of the issues. Then she formulated a plan, and we spoke every day to update on how the previous night had gone so she could tweak anything that wasn't working. She suggested things I'd not seen anywhere else - and it didn't involve CIO (which I said from the outset that I didn't want to do, because DS was so stubborn it didn't work with him - we'd already tried it). It also helped have someone completely outside the situation give some objective advice on where we were going wrong, we'd inadvertently been making things worse without realising it (and this was our fourth child, all others decent sleepers!)

Good luck.

Don't give up. My 10 month old at the time, refused to co sleep but wanted to be picked up/rocked every hour of the night. I stopped picking him up, I went in every 2 minutes at first then slowly built the time up, up to 10 minutes. It took WEEKS, maybe even a couple of months to fully work. It was tough and he did cry but he's slept so well ever since. He's 22 months now and happily goes to sleep after a quick cuddle at night, sometimes he asks to get in his cot. It probably would have been quicker to just let him cry to be honest but I would have felt awful so it was a very long and drawn out process but so worth it.

You can't carry on with no sleep.