Please help before I collapse with sleep deprivation!

[OhhSugar]

My DD is 6 months and has never really slept through, she has always fidgeted a lot in her sleep right from newborn.

She had two weeks where she slept soundly and hardly moved, now she's back to fidgeting, banging her head on her cot etc, waking up screaming because she's rolled onto her front and can't get back over.

We've started weaning but she isn't interested in much food, doesn't seem to put bananas etc to her mouth, doesn't eat an awful lot at all actually but does have her bottles.

She's the right temperature, dressed appropriately and has 3 x 45 minute naps in the day. She doesn't seem to be teething or ill.

I go back to work full time in five weeks and it's not humanly possible to be awake 4/5 times a night :(

Any ideas?

Oh I've been there I don't know if this is your bag but this was the age where we started sleep training. We used the Ferber method so gradually increasing windows of time to let DD self settle.

Some MNtters are very anti sleep training but i believe you really have to do what's best for your family. It was hard at the start but it sorted out the 6 time a night waking as she was able to settle without a boob constantly in her mouth!

You need to sleep train, I reckon.

Is she in a full size cot?

Agree with some form of sleep training, you need to help tecah het to stay asleep or go back to sleep. Does she have dummies/comforters etc? Music playing when she goes to sleep or anything?

Sleep training with Ferber/controlled crying will be the most effective if you can stand to do it.

On weaning- have you tried feeding purées? Finger foods are great for some babies, others just don’t get on with them and are happier being spoon fed. I’ve had one of each and my DD1 would have been ravenous if I’d left her to do it herself!

Loads of tummy time during the day to encourage rolling.

If she’s dressed appropriately for the temp by the grobag chart, she’s possibly cold- every baby I’ve known has needed an extra layer.

Socks under her baby grow, white noise and gentle sleep training are your saviour!

I'm all for sleep training if I need to do it. I have to go back to work so needs must. I'll check out Ferber. I feel like crying today, I keep forgetting things I'm so tired and I have no energy.

She has a dummy but this is probably my biggest regret, she NEEDS it to sleep. I just feel too tired to fight that battle but time is ticking.

We are trying purées, I did initially try BLW but she gets more down if I spoon feed her. I wouldn't say she's interested in either way though!

Ferber method! I downloaded the e-book, stayed up all night reading it, and did it the next night. Literally changed my life.

Do read the book (relevant chapters only) so you know why you’re doing what you’re doing.

My DS also had a dummy, which we stopped when we did Ferber. I really didn’t believe it would work but babies are so adaptable at that age.

We did it at 6 months. My DS is now 20 months old, and still he goes to sleep within seconds in his cot and we wake up him at 7.30 the next morning.

Friends who have toddlers are still awake with them in the night, and it’s so much harder sleep training an older baby/toddler - so my advice to you is do it now.

Right, I'll download Ferber now! I did buy 'The magic sleep fairy book' but it was too hard to follow the routines set out in the day!

So would you recommend I take the dummy away the night I start Ferber?

She has a dummy but this is probably my biggest regret, she NEEDS it to sleep. I just feel too tired to fight that battle but time is ticking.

By 7 months almost all babies can replace their own. So you’re almost there! Start teaching her now by placing it in her hand and guiding her hand to her mouth for every replace. Then you’ll need to chuck loads in the cot because their object permanence is still a bit iffy at that age so they don’t know to search for it and also some always fall out between the bars. We had to do 10 - any less and he’d wake looking for it but 10 was the magic number and that’s when he started fully sleeping through (until we hit the 2YO regression but that’s another story 😂).

@FlounderingFruitcake She actually does put her dummy in herself but then she started to throw them out of the cot! So I put a dummy clip with a comforter/dummy attached to her sleeping bag so she can't do that anymore 😂

She fidgets so much she wakes herself up, then can't quite find her dummy to put back in so wakes herself more and then starts screaming even more. It's so draining!

Jesus, please don't sleep train your baby. It's cruel and horrible.

@littlemousebigcheese What would be your recommendation? (I don't mean that in a sarcastic way, genuinely interested to see other ideas)

I'm not against sleep training and I will do it if I need too - I just cannot function on such little sleep when I go to work. If I don't go to work, the mortgage can't be paid. I'm worried about starting back in 5 weeks.

Have you tried spoon feeding purées?
Sleeping bag to stop the rolling

My son constantly was constantly restless at night and we both had poor sleep. A mum of twins recommended a comforter called Sleepy Tot (Amazon) as the dummies attach to it and the babies snuggle it. This was a instant game changer My son was much more settled which was great as I worked 12.5 shifts

Ah yes the chucking! Wait until she’s asleep, sneak in like a ninja and put 10 in the cot then!! Or try the snuggle attachment thing, didn’t work for us, but some babies like them! Dummy clip I wouldn’t use overnight- can’t be very comfy if baby rolls onto it and the Mam ones we used didn’t stay on that well either.

Before sleep training my baby would cry for half an hour while I tried to rock him to sleep because he was so tired. And would then wake and cry every half hour.

Once he’d learned to go to sleep on his own, he just rolls over and he’s asleep by the time I get downstairs. And can stay asleep.

The actual process took 2 nights where he cried for a couple of minutes at a time between me comforting. First night was 20 minutes total of upset with regular picking up and comforting. Second night 10 mins total.

It would have been cruel and selfish of me to not let him learn to fall asleep and allow him to continue waking and crying all night every night.

Classic uneducated judgemental Mumsnet comment

@SalviaOfficinalis on the flip side, my DD never would have stopped crying. We tried one nice and it was awful and now I know her better as she's older and it was a stupid idea for a child like her.. just frustrating that you don't know the full picture when they're born and tbh I still don't but I have a good idea.

We bedshared and breastslept and she eventually started sleeping through a bit after 2.5 years. 4/5 wakes was a good night for her tbh but I was only awake for seconds for most wakes because I could settle her quickly.

I have another DC who I think probably could be sleep trained "quickly" but I still don't think conditioning him to not call for me when he feels the need is a positive thing.

@olderthanyouthink it’s not conditioning not to cry, it’s conditioning to fall asleep.

My DS doesn’t lie there awake but not crying, he’s fast asleep. (I can see and hear him on the monitor). When he wakes up he calls for me.

@SalviaOfficinalis I don't doubt that your baby is asleep but studies show that sleep trained babies don't sleep more, their parents just think they do.

DC2 started sleeping the whole night without waking me at about 4 months and it was freaking me out so I got a camera that recorded all night to check that I wasn't missing him crying but turns out he's just a weirdly soothe-y baby and his sister is very much not.

"When the researchers compared sleep diaries, they found that parents who had sleep-trained thought their babies woke less at night and slept for longer periods. But when they analysed the sleep-wake patterns as shown through actigraphy, they found something else: the sleep-trained infants were waking up just as often as the ones in the control group. "At six weeks, there was no difference between the intervention and control groups for mean change in actigraphic wakes or long wake episodes," they wrote.

In other words, parents who sleep-trained their babies thought their babies were waking less. But, according to the objective sleep measure, the infants were waking just as often – they just weren't waking up their parents."

www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies

I mean sleep trained babies as a cohort, not ever single one, if that makes sense.

Again you don't know if you baby will be one lying there awake or not till you've done it

Another one for sleep training. Will probably get worse before it gets better. I'd do it now before you're back in work

It's going to take either time, or tears, your choice.

I chose time, and personally I've got no regrets, even though it's been really hard.

I don't personally agree with the sleep training route, and it goes against every instinct I have as parents, but it's a very individual decision.

Going back to work on very broken sleep though isn't 'not humanly possible', it's what many of us have done. Only 4-5 wakes a night would have been was very very good night for a long time. It's doable, but knackering. Less do if you share the night wakes equally.

I think you've got to accept though that 6m old babies will wake at night. They aren't expected to sleep through at this age, and your baby is probably only marginally worse than average. The problem is that you've been given unrealistic expectations of baby and toddler sleep.

So yes you can sleep train, and it'll probably work, but your child sleep is also perfectly normal for their age, and isn't something that needs fixing, if that makes sense.

She'll get there in the end, but for many (maybe even most) if us, sleeping through is something that happens between 1-3, not at a few months old.

Ferber was too much for my sensitivities (but no judgement here, I don’t think anyone who’s had a baby that wakes 6-8 times a night can judge anyone who does what they need to to survive) so we did a gradual withdrawal method where we lay by the cot and gradually reduced the amount of support/input on offer. I appreciated it as I could see her when she was crying and assess how she was. Generally the main emotion I think was anger and confusion at why we were no longer doing it all her way. I expected trauma and felt awful but family life was falling apart and overall it was the best thing. We used a book called Lucy Wolfe sleep solution. Good luck!

I don't expect a 6 month old to sleep through. I'd be happy with two wakes ups.

I've tried purées again today, still absolutely no interest at all - she just wants to scratch her fingers on the tray or grab the buckles, bibs, spoons etc but doesn't even put the spoon to her mouth. She's 6 months today.

I feel like we've gone back somewhat the last few weeks, she didn't need rocking to sleep as much and she was interested in food. Now she needs rocking constantly and isn't bothered by food.

Sigh. I feel so fed up 😢