Beyond my breaking point... desperate for advice

[poppyinyourhair]

I can count the number of 'full' nights sleep (uninterrupted stretch of 6 hours) on less than one hand in TWO YEARS.

I am so, so so, exhausted. Even when DH does the night shift I am still woken up by DS crying. Once I'm awake it's really hard for me to quickly fall back asleep. I feel broken and my mental health and work performance are really starting to suffer.

DS is 16 months now and I swear slept better as a 4-6 month old than he does now. 2-3 night wakings are regular occurrence, usually solved by finding the paci and a few back pats but sometimes when he is truly inconsolable (30 mins or more of crying) we give in and give him milk. This instantly settles him and sends him back off. We don’t ever feed to sleep though, he always goes down awake and puts himself to sleep, but It seems like the only solution when he is really worked up in the middle of the night.

I really don’t want to set this precedent of reintroducing night feeds. He seems to eat ok (not great) in the day and even if he doesn’t people say he’s old enough to fast through the night at this age?

I don’t know what we’re doing wrong. I don’t understand how anyone does Controlled Crying or any other sleep training when half the time it seems like he is genuinely hungry or teething etc.

Today I’ve been up since 4 am when he woke, unable to go back to sleep from anxiety thinking about work today and how I wasn’t going to be rested for an important meeting… fast forward to now and I never was able to fall back asleep, now requesting the meeting on Zoom as I need to WFH, feeling a complete and utter failure and that I’ll probably get sacked. I don’t think I can go on like this.

I hear you. I'm the same.
My 14 month old is horrendous. It's either a split night where she wakes between 2-3:30 for 2 hours or she wakes at 4:30/5 for the day. I'm on my knees. I'm going to bed early but from midnight my heart and brain are racing. I'm so broken.

I'm breastfeeding but this isn't working anymore. Mine self settles too.

@sunflowerandivy I can't see a light at the end of the tunnel, let alone imagine doing this AGAIN if we ever want a second. I am so low. I'm sorry you're going the same

Hi,

I'm so sorry you're going through this. I know that all children are different and its not one solution fits all, but hopefully there will be light at the end of the tunnel soon.

I have a 17 month old who sleeps 13 hours a night but it really has taken a lot of work to get there. I'm sure you probably do all this, but just for reference our routine is this, to a tee every evening without change:

1. If i know he hasnt eaten well in the day, I give hime something i know he will eat around 5pm that is quite filling, for example a bowl of porridge or a banana

2. Bath and baby lotion on his tummy, and a cotton nappy liner so he definitely wont leak.

3. As soon as hes up in his room, its straight into his bag, white nose on and a milk feed. Sounds harsh but i dont speak as soon as we're in the room, its milk and cuddles only. CUddle for about 10 minutes and then i put him in the cot and leave the room.

4. even if he fusses i leave him and its got to the point where he doesnt even cry anymore. He will usually sleep from 6pm to 7am uninterrupted. If i know hes teething, i give him some calpol just before bed.

Im sure you proably do all this but i hope something here helps. I know some parents frowned on it but controlled crying was our godsend.

Good luck with everything, i really hope you have a breakthrough soon xx

Poor you that sounds really tough, it was tough to get ours sleeping through too, this was what we found helped:

Give him a really filling tea about half an hour before bed. Something like porridge or weetabix made with full fat milk and banana.

Then I’d make sure he has a dozen pacifiers so it’s not your job to replace it. If he’s anything like my DS and will throw the extras for sport before falling asleep then wait for him to fall asleep before sneaking in to drop them off.

Have you looked at his naps? 16 months is the typical age to drop to 1 nap, which should be after lunch so there’s no making up for missed overnight sleep in the morning, and there should be 4-5 hours of awake time before bed to hit that tired but not overtired sweet spot.

At this age I would also leave mine a non spill sippy cup of water so they could have a drink if thirsty.

If baby is teething give nurofen (or motrin if you’re American, I saw you said paci!) before bed and not calpol/Tylenol because it lasts 8 hours.

Finally, any wake ups go in once to check all ok. Lay him back down, kiss good night just like at bedtime then leave the room and do not go back in.

My LO is 13 months , he goes to bed fine, falls asleep by himself etc but every night he's up at around 11pm and nothing and I mean NOTHING will get him back to sleep, I've tried milk, leaving him to cry, rocking him, putting him in my bed but he just will not sleep! Last night was up from 11-4 and has been like this for the last month... it's slowly but surely killing me so I know exactly how you feel and then I'm going to work like a zombie! I cry most days now from exhaustion. All everyone keeps telling me is "it's not forever" :-(
So you are not alone... we all deserve medals!! It's bloody hard work!

@Kellyt86 bloody hell. These split nights are hell aren't they?! It's awful! Right, I'm off to bed so I can sleep a bit until she's up causing havoc from 3am - 6am

My oldest was an awful sleeper - wouldn’t self settle, split nights that ended just as I had to get up for work, wouldn’t resettle in bed so had to come in with us and just climbed all over us, etc. It nearly broke us, our marriage was hanging on by a thread.

When we had our second I vowed we would never get to that point again, but somehow we did. We ended up doing CIO (having tried every other method over and over again) when DD2 was 14 months. She hasn’t caused us any issues since. I know lots of people are against it but they don’t understand that it was either that or something awful happening to me/our marriage/the baby. It was 3 really tough nights but I tell myself that she cried less in those 3 nights than she would have done if we’d carried on the way we were.

@Twdfn123 thanks for reply, what do you do if he's teething? Still leave him to fuss or is he not that bothered by it?

@Twdfn123 ah sry I meant to add if he wakes even if you give Calpol at beginning of night

@FlounderingFruitcake thanks, can I ask what time you give dinner if you're offering such a big snack before bed? Maybe I need to move dinner back and then offer a last snack as you say.

@Kellyt86 you poor thing, I'm so sorry. I really hope it's just a phase for your sake. It's so hard. Sending a hug

@Marie248 a good friend did exactly the same as you. But I guess similar to my question for another PP is what about if they are teething?

I think the trouble is that he doesn't show any signs of teething during the day. Maybe a bit fussy but that could be anything. No drooling, hands in mouth etc.

So it's almost like process of elimination in middle of the night. Stage one: dummy. Stage two: pats/cuddles. Stage three: teething granules. Then depending what I think it is from there stage four either Calpol or milk

Would hate to leave him screaming if he really needs comfort but I am also past my breaking point

We give him dome calpol before bed but admittedly he's never been that bad so I can't really help you on that one. 🥲

Please don't hate me but if milk settles him why not give him milk? I'm a whatever gets the most people the most sleep parent....

Dinner is at 5, and his breakfast supper snack is 6.30.

Also, if he’s not showing signs of teething during the day it seems unlikely that’s it. Does he have all his first molars? If yes then it’s even less likely because the second molars don’t usually come through until 2-2.5 years.

@CurlewKate you sound like DH

Well I suppose because I don't want him to gain too much weight - he's quite chunky as it is and giving more daily calories/milk than he needs doesn't seem like a good idea.

And off back of that, risk him displacing calories from real food if he knows he can get milk later by waiting it out. He's very inconsistent eater so worry this would be slippery slope to picky eating.

But yes, sometimes needs must, and if it's been going over for 30 mins or more and nothing else has worked we do try that (usually try to offer water first too)

I think I read on here previously about someone watering down milk e.g. 4/5ths milk 1/5 water, then reducing it incrementally until they were having full water....at that point they generally didn't bother to wake for it. I'm sorry you're going through this....sleep deprivation is torture.

@poppyinyourhair sleep train, sleep train and sleep train!

Contact Lisa Clegg the blissful baby expert and she’ll fave DS sleeping through in two nights! She’s a miracle worker.

I remember being utterly miserable with my first son. And anytime I was just about to break, he would respond to some gentle change I made. But the main change was time and he did start sleeping through the night.

My first DD was exactly like yours. I spend whole nights on her nursery room floor basically just napping myself while holding her hand through the cot bars then getting up at 6am and going to work! I nearly died.

This isn't what you want to hear but it just takes time. My DD improved at about 19 months and then finally slept through at about 3.5 (years)

Second baby has always slept better. We did nothing different. You can't fix it; it's better for your mental health to just go with it. Don't look at the clock when you're woken, don't count wake ups or hours awake. Nap whenever you can. See if you can get a night away entirely staying with family or a friend at a hotel so you get one whole night of sleep to yourself. Even one night can be very restorative

OK- I'll say this because we'll never met and it's fine for you to hate me/shout at me! If milk settles him quickly then I reckon he's hungry. If he has his needs met and gets sleep he's more, not less likely to eat better during the day so the need for milk at night is going to decrease. And don't worry about him being chunky if he has healthy food during the day-his weight will sort itself out as he grows. (I'm assuming here that he doesn't live on an exclusive diet of fried chicken nuggets and chips and full fat coke!) So I really think you should give him some cereal or something shortly before bed time, then milk if he wakes in the night. As I said- the most sleep for the most people.

I wait for 10 minutes before getting out of bed in the night, which sometimes does the trick, and if little one is still crying, then I give milk. They don't feed to sleep, they have what they need, let go of the bottle and then roll over and go straight back to sleep and I immediately leave their room. I can't stand being tired so I do whatever means I can get back to bed quickly.

I tried giving water but that resulted in epic meltdowns, so gave up. @Santaslittlehelper83 gradually watering the milk is a GENIUS suggestion, so I may try that next - thank you.

My god though, I cannot wait until we go back to sleeping through the night...

This is how I got my eldest from formula to cows milk and it worked wonderfully. It’s a genius suggestion to use it for milk->water. But obviously it’s only going to work if he’s not actually hungry. I wouldn’t worry about him being a little chunky OP, if he’s eating healthy food then it’ll be normal toddler podge. Nor is one drink of milk overnight going to ruin his appetite. It can happen that they favour milk over food but unless he’s also on several cups of milk throughout the day then you’ll be fine, and if you are, then those are the ones to cut in favour food so that he’s full up at bedtime.

If it’s really affecting you that much can you not buy a mattress and move into their room or bring them into bed? At least everyone will get some sleep and reevaluate in a few weeks once everyone’s been able to recover a bit