(blatant use of my name in thread title to elicit responses from regulars...): HELP pretty please Tutter is at the end of her tether. i know there's a magic answer out there just waiting to be discovered [desperate]

[Tutter]

ds2

5.5mo

bfed plus formula at bedtime, weaned a bit early a couple of weeks ago - now has a couple of smallish meals each day

have tried tummy, back and side to sleep

have tried co-sleeping and in his own room

is usually swaddled, on his back, with dummy

he might be teething, but no teeth have yet appeared. he drools and has his fingers in his mouth, but babies do that don't they, so who the chuff knows

gp has checked him over - all seems to be fine

has been "cranial-osteopathed"

SO WHY DOES HE WAKE ALL THE FECKING TIME???

cat naps of 30 mins in the day

wakes 5-10 times in the night. last night worst ever - didn't make an hour at a go once

the bottle of medised looms temptingly, but i have to resist - ha had it 10 nights in a row until recently - to start with due to a cold, then because i couldn't bear not to give it

am bloody shattered

Just wanted to add my complete sympathies for the utter nightmare of sleep deprevation that you are in right now. My Ds was the same for longer than I dare tell you.

We also swaddled with arms out for a while as someone else suggested, although now at 2.7 years my ds hates covers adn kicks them off at an instant. I've realised he is a hot bod like my dh and I wonder if he was too hot as a babe as I was preparing him to bed with my perception of the temperature - if that makes sense.

How long does he take to settle after he wakes? Do you sing to him? I found singing the same songs and building an association really helped in the longterm, we still use the same songs now.

more sympathies, and even more for when you are awake with your babe and feeling like death in the depths of the night xx

You mentioned white noise - this def helped DS1 who was a rotten rotten REALLY rotten sleeper. Took him with me to the hairdressers one day and he fell asleep to the sound of the hairdryer. So thereafter I taped my hairdryer to cold position and left it on under his cot. He is 8 years old now and still likes the sound of a fan to go to sleep, but it's OK because apparently Wayne Rooney likes white noise to sleep to as well ...
Couldn't really leave the hairdryer on all night but did try assorted fans and so on, although unfortunately hairdryer was the best.

Agree with hunker about the patting.

I start off patting away on their back or bum, then reduce speed and pressure (when rocking to sleep.) You could reduce this to just the pressure of you hand on him, so he knows you're near.

Also, I tried cc on a toddler who had the same reaction as hunker's ds. It felt like I was teasing him, 'now you see me, now you don't and HAHAHAHAHA I'm abandonig you again!'

You might try something aromatherapy-like wafting around his room. I don't know much about sleep-inducing natural rememdies (apart from alcohol) but you could google?

lots of nodding from me about the bedtime, or at least some kind of routine at naptime too!

we have a good bedtime routine, fitted in with ds1's

can't replicate for naps as it involves bath, naked play, milk, stories

but i could try sitting in dark room with a song, music/white noise?

not til he's asleep- just for 10 mins before leaving him i mean

Tutter I bought a cd of white noise when I was at the end of my tether and then she slept. I don't know how to go about it but I can send it to you, gratis of course.

Yup, do that.

But try not to fall asleep too!

Yep, sit next to cot, hand through bars, and pat him to sleep. I have a song I sing (made up, v repetitive, silly, about how much I love the boys) - it still calms them down now to hear it. DS1 (3.8) had meltdown at bedtime last night (and promptly vomited all over the floor this morning, so think he was getting something - may well be tonsillitis again ), but holding him tight on my lap and singing to him worked to calm him down.

Lullaby light v soothing. Whaddya know, it's not called ugly bear - this one projects bears onto ceiling - when DS1 was a bit older, he loved talking about "Mummy bear coming round now" and "DS1 bear onna cloud" and "look, Mummy, star!". Also has white noise "nature sounds".

hunker with that bear lightshow can you have it so just the music plays without the lightshow bit? obviously a lightshow is pretty pointless for daytime naps!

ok

small victories...

he is asleep (for now)

i put him down awake

in his grobag

but he still had his dummy

did 15 or so mins of pu/pd

would appear to go to sleep but then fiddly fingers would grab the dummy

so - he is now asleep on his tummy in his grobag, sans dummy

also he had a half dose of medised - dh and i decided if we were going to do this we'd give ourselves a fighting chance of it working - for one night only

Happy (!) birthday tutter.

My b-day was yesterday, and also said goodbye to romantic night out (also nye down drain) and instead spent evening trudging up and down stairs soothing hideous ds (7months).

Followed by being woken every hr from 1am. He has moved into our bed and taken over. Wont even consider his cot- screws up his face and cries even if I move him there when he is fast asleep (how does he know?!).

My toptip: giving him my pj top to suck and clutch when bf, and then leaving it with him when he goes to bed. He then sucks it to get himself back to sleep. Dosent stop him waking in first place, mind...

I found medised stopped working after a few consecutive nights. Lavender in the bath does actually seem to work tho- and I was very sceptical about that. The weleda bath milk is good.

thanks glitter and a happy birthday to you too

well small victories are better than defeat! See if you can continue this way but perhaps ditch the dummy if he just keeps pulling it out - trip to mothercare to buy him a cuddly? Did you find the PU/PD okay to do?

and i hope your nights improve soon too

Tutter,

Hope the pupd works for you. You can use it for naps too to extend them. I am sure if you get the daytime naps to 1.5-2 hours then nighttimes will improve, so maybe you should work on the days first. I find if DS has a bad day, he wakes frequently in the evening.

I also swaddle my DS aged 6mo, but managed to wean him off his dummy a couple of weeks ago, so you can do one thing at a time.

Hello Tutter, how did you go ? did he sleep better all night ? Hope so.

it was an ok night, better than the last week or so

woke 3 or 4 times - used pu/pd and ssh-pat to reasonable effect. cheated a bit at the 3am wake by patting his bottom a moment (or three) longer than i should

fed him at 4 then he slept til 7:15 - a record in our house. luckily ds1 also decided to have a lie-in

have done ssh-pat for both ds2's naps today but he wasn't having any of it for his morning nap. have just extended his nap (5 mins ago) - have yet to see how long he stays asleep...

maybe tonight we try the same but without a helping hand from medised...

I think you need to try it for at least 4 nights as someone else mentioned so that they get used to the idea. The fact that he did sleep better is encouraging. I bet in a weeks time you think, why the bloody hell didn't I try that earlier. I think you have to get to the stage where you get to your wits end before you really get motivated to do it. And be really firm and don't give in.

You might find that the medised makes no difference at all. I think you just get to the point where you get scared not to give it ! Sounds silly I know.

just a quick suggestion re daytime naps...my ds was swaddled at night, but I didn't swaddle for daytime naps. Then when I did he went from 20mins nap to 1.5hr naps.

I was worried about swaddling for too long but one night he just screamed like billy-o when swaddled so we moved him to a grobag.

Hope it's got better.

Also encouraging self settling during the day has helped night sleeping.