Let's dispel the myth that 'everyone else's baby is sleeping through the night'- ha ha!

[Floppytulips]

Mine was up at 11, 1.30, 3.30 and 5.30 last night- a good night for her (3 1/2 months).

Also, silly things you do when you are knackered: me, stopping the buggy in the middle of the street for 5 minutes cos I couldn't figure out how to put my gloves on......

How about yours?

AGED not ages (blame lack of sleep)

this thread's scaring me... 3 month old DS wakes a couple of times in the night, but was so lookinjg forward to a longish (4-5 hours) stretch of sleep some time in the coming months.

Now I'm worried it will never come! :-O

meep

Oh, and of course all the other NCT babies are sleeping through the night, or only waking at 11pm..
Ha, yes... what bollox!

bed at 7.45
DD2 up at 11
DD1 came into us at 4
DD2 wanted milk at 5
DD1 did a poo, came for me to wipe her bum at 5.30
up with DD1 at 6.10
had to wake DD2 for nursery at 7.40 !

and they are 3.11 (DD1) and 2.4 (DD2).

and though that was a bad night, they're not THAT unusual

PS Olihan - that 'sleeping through = 5 hours' thing is true apparently - if you read any medical stuff, that is there definition

Last night went like this:

6:30 - all 3 dcs in bed
9:30 - ds2 wakes up, fusses/sleeps/fusses/sleeps every 10 minutes until 12:15 when I give up running up and down 2 flights of stairs and get him up.
1am - ds2 goes back to bed and finally goes to sleep
1:15 - I go to bed
1:30 - dd wakes up, I put her into my bed
5am - ds2 wakes up, get him back to sleep
6:15 - ds1 gets up.

I was so out of it at breakfast I spent 10 minutes staring into the fridge wondering where the spoons had gone.

The bags under my eyes are like bin sacks!

funnyhaha, really? That's madness, considering they say adults need 8 hours or so. So the 'myth' that all babies sleep through probably isn't that far out by that definition.

DS is 2.7 and has regularly slept through since he was 15 months. Before then, our nights were, ahem, eventful.

DD is 7 months adn is nowhere near sleeping through! We're up every 2 hours atm. When she crawls, I'm hoping it'll get better. Perhaps even every 3 1/2 hours! (We have had that in the past, but she clearly can't switch off right now).

i'm really glad i only have one..ds is enough for me with the sleep depravation. he's 7months and i'm going back to work soon..i'm panicking as i constantly find things in the wrong place(keys in the fruit bowl, remote control in the bathroom) dunno how i'll function in the "real world" eek!!!

my son just rolls over in his sleep then wakes up and can't roll back so howls..so i spend the night jumping out the bed to pop him back over and shove a dummy in his mouth...(repeat till fade...)

I've lost a few tulips and am down to one but still the same...

Hope all you tired mummies are going to get some help in the early morning shift this weekend!

Since I started this thread I've been trying the No Cry Sleep Solution and unbelievably, the following has happened:

1. Dummy is gone (how??? never imagined it possible without many tears)
2. I've managed to put DD in cot at night and buggy in day AWAKE about 60% of the time!!
3. Last night she slept 6.30-11.30 then fed then til 3.30.

And no tears, though a fair few grumbles.

I'm amazed in a not believing it will last kind of way...

On the other hand, I stupidly stayed up til midnight last night and after the 3.30 feed it was settle settle resettle til 6, so not exactly reaping the benefits yet!

Anyone else tried or trying the No Cry method, or fancy joining me on the ten day sleep plan?

I also read that 'sleeping through' is medically defined as 11pm-5am - but I just wish we could get that much sleep!!

Last night, my DS (16 wks) slept:

Bed at 9pm (after trying to get him to go down from 7pm)
Feed at 10.30pm
Feed at 12.30am
Not sure what happened next as he came into bed with me, but two more feeds until I got fed up with it at 3.30am, when I put him into his basket
4am up for another bloody feed
Put him in his moses basket at 4.30am and put said basket on the landing (!) so I couldn't hear him fidgeting
Awake at 8.30am for a feed

He was apparently not at all bothered by being on the landing (my mum's staying over so is in 'his' room so nowhere else to put him but he's not gone in his own room yet as trying to stick to the sodding six-months-in-with-mum-and-dad guidelines)

REALLY glad to read this thread as so, so tired and as rocking and sobbing at 4am wondering what on earth I'd done wrong. Didn;t help that some random woman in a shop asked how old he was earlier that day and when I told her, she said, 'oh lovely, so you're getting your nights back then?' Er, not exactly...

Oh, and I've also got a trapped nerve in my shoulder after co-sleeping for the first two months, which gives me numb arms and hands and wakes me up in between feeds!!!

Thanks to OP-er and everyone else for making me feel like I'm not the worst mum ever - though if anyone has any bright ideas about what to do about it I'd happily pay them my life savings!!

As for stupid things, I keep calling DH by my ex's name , which he's not at all happy about.

We had an epic last night.

To set the scene, all four of us have the same appalling cold: all hacking away like 40 a day veterans. We've been taking it in turns to run a high fever (too cold/too hot, weak as a kitten, feeling sick plus thumping head - the works) DW went first last week, then DD1, then DD2 and now it's my turn

7.45 Both DDs in bed by with no fuss (DD1 who's nearly 3 likes to throw the mother of all tantrums just before lights out).

11.30: DD2 (6m) woke for a feed.

1.30: DD1 woke up having peed the bed (there's a whole other story here). I got up changed the sheets; flipped the duvet around (very idle) so the wet bit was on the upside near her feet; put her into clean PJs and calmed her down as she finds bedwetting very distressing.

2.00: DD2 wakes up and, get this, doesn't go back to sleep until 5.00. THREE HOURS Poor DW is absolutely stuck by herself as I am now lying in bed alternately sweating and shivering and in that horrible hallucinatory state between waking and sleeping. She tries everything and ends up going down stairs to watch TV.

5.00: After some crying and grumbling DD2 goes back to sleep. DW falls into bed like a felled tree.

6.30: DD1 wakes up with shouts of "Daaaddddyyyy, Daaaddddyyy". I stagger out of bed and go in to her. Her covers are off so I rearrange her and then ask if she's going back to sleep. Unbelievably she says yes.

6.45: DD1 decides it's time to get up so I wobble downstairs with her and we do drawing etc. in the hope that DW will manage a bit of a lie in.

8.00: DW arrives downstairs with DD2. They both look like they've been pro-am boxing.

This is not untypical for us. DD1 used to be a total sleep champ until she decided that she wanted to be potty trained at which point she decided that, despite still wearing nappies in bed, she needed to get up to do a pee at least twice a night. She now refuses to wear the nappies at night and just wets the bed!!! Go figure..... Arrrgghhh!

DD2 has always been a night owl much to our dismay. And she shows no sign of improving either.

Just goes to show that it's the luck of the draw as (virtually) everyone says.

The only thing I know for sure is that DW is a very, very wonderful woman.

Hey Sufi,

DD is the same age as your DS and situation has been identical, especially the 'oh, what a lovely big baby, they should be sleeping through by now, lucky you' type comments! Aargh...

Have you tried the No Cry book? I've seen quite a few posters on here who said it was useless but so far (touch wood) it's helping with us...

OMG Barcode, I think that's the craziest night so far on here. Poor all of you, hope the bug goes soon!

Men with babies don't have the same stereotype of being half round the twist with sleep deprivation as the ladies I don't think, but they do do some very funny things too.

My DH has lost more things in the last few months than in his whole life I think, and at the moment we are sharing one mobile phone and one set of keys between us... (I lost the phone, he lost the keys...) He also left a bag on a train, and when he went off with my car key, he forgot to take the steering wheel key and of course locked the wheel, so he had to abandon the car and return for it the next day- men can be dappy too!

I am new to this but seems like you are all making sense and now I feel like I am not the only mum who feels like a failure. I have 2 children and my first child slept through from 4 weeks so I thought I was good!! Second child not so good, is soon to be 9 months and is still not sleeping through. Some nights are better than others. I thought I would try and alter his bottle feeds as at the moment he is having one after breakfast, one after lunch, one after tea and one at bedtime. I seem to have lost my memory and can't remember what I did with my first child so I thought that maybe I should drop his tea time bottle as he doesn't seem to be gagging for it and sometimes he is too full for his night time one. I tried it last night and he slept from 7.30 to 4 but then thought it was getting up time and had to give him a bottle at 5.30 as I had to get up for work and thought he would be shattered for the childminder if he didn't get much sleep. Can anyone give me any advice as to when to drop the bottle, if I am doing the right thing and how to get him to sleep through!! Me and my husband look like zombies, we are so tired!!!

To FLOPPYTULIP

I am unable to form sentences anymore through sleep deprivation, I will join you on the 10 day sleep plan, what is it and do you think it will work??

Floppytulip - I've just been on Amazon and bought a copy. Quite a few people have recommended it, so will give it a try.

And yes, I get quite cross when people say things like, 'oooh, isn't he a bonny baby, and sleeping through no doubt?' Surely the suitcases under my eyes, grey skin, wild hair and glassy-eyed stare might just be a clue as to the fact that no, he's bloody well not!

second the no cry sleep solution - you have to stick at it but it works!!!

dd is 2 next week. I have had three times I think where she has slept 6 hours through.

But she is getting better ...s...l...o...w...l...y...

Its great to see this thread. My 6 month old daughter did sleep through for a short period of time, but now wakes at all times in the night. I cannot even set the clock by the times she wakes, sometimes its 12.30, sometimes its 3.30 and sometimes its 5.30. More often than not its all those times! I came downstairs at 3.30 this morning to prepare my daughter a bottle and decided to make myself a cup of tea at the same time to try and wake myself up. I ended up putting my milk, sugar and teabag in her bottle instead of the cup, and I was so tired I stood there staring at it for ages as I couldn't figure out what I had done wrong!!! I have lost the power of speech and find it impossible to onstruct sentances properly anymore. And why is it that eveybodys baby in my NCT group sleeps through the night from 7pm until 7.30/8am, even the breast fed ones? When I was exlusively breastfeeding my daughter she was waking up every hour to be fed. I had to introduce formula into her diet in order to try and get more sleep as I was going insane. Still, it will all get better one day, won't it????? :-)

Re things people have done.

i have withdrawn £100 from a cash machine. taken my card and walked off and left the cash behind. TWICE! And never happens when I take out small amounts of dosh, just when I seem to need wads of the stuff.

LO is nearly 8 months now. Best stretch of sleep is about 8pm - 11pm (while I am up!) then recently... 1.30am, 2.30am, 4.40am and 6am. have tried not feeding and just picking up and cuddling in the early part of the night but still waking up. think it might be teeth. or the last few nights, sore eyes as they are sticky. or wind.. who knows.

DS1 was a text book baby and was going through 7pm - 6am by this point. I haven't done anything particularly different this time around either but DS2 just doesn't seem to sleep through. As many have said before, it seems quite individual. i am hoping that he will see sense soon as its getting very wearing.

the bit that worries me is sometimes (usually around 3 or 4am) when I have been up so many times and am sooooo tired that i start to get quite angry with him. that makes me feel very bad.

Hi Fishy Lucas,

It's part of the No Cry Sleep Solution (name of the book), see above. You basically create your own sleep plan using her suggestions, then commit to sticking to certain things for 10 days. You do a sleep log at the beginning and the end of the 10 days and then you try and analyse what went right/wrong, then another 10 days etc. I'm only on day 3 but I'm quite enjoying the challenge, as well as feeling that my nocturnal shenanigans are not just fire fighting, but helping to improve the situation.

I'm going to be sensible tonight and go to bed NOW whilst DD is sleeping! Happy feeding/shushing and hopefully sleeping all...

Tiddler, I've had some moments in the early hours of the morning when I have come so so close to hurting ds2. Luckily I've always managed to put him down and walk away but I understand completely how awful it is. When you're up for the umpteenth time in a night, you haven't had more than an hour or two's sleep in a row for weeks or months at a time it's impossible to stay rational and reasonable.

I'm so ashamed and guilt ridden about some of the things I've shouted at ds2 in the middle of the night but long term sleep deprivation pushes your ability to cope to the limit.

I won't say 'don't feel bad' because you will anyway - it's mother's guilt! - but you're not the only one it happens to.

Tiddler, I've been there too - in the small hours things can look very bleak. I've muttered some quite unforgivable things to the poor little mite, and wept copiously beside his cot.

They sound quite similar - ds (also 8 mo) usually sleeps soundly until 11pm, then until around 2.30am, but it's downhill from there. I keep thinking I should just go to bed when he does but that's just too depressing and I'd never get to see dh that way.

I will think of you all tonight as I stumble around trying to settle him...