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Original poster

12 months of next to no sleep!

3 replies

Fin252329 · 19/11/2024 14:19

Hi mums out there,

I’d like to just start by saying I never knew mums net existed until a colleague told me that it helped her when her daughter was little! Just writing this I’m finding some type of comfort that there are mums out there who might have ideas or words of wisdom that could help.

My nearly 15 month old son has never been a good sleeper. I could probably count on one hand the amount of times he’s ‘slept through’ or slept more than 5/6 hours at once. His sleep changes constantly and he seems to go through different phases all the time. Around 5 months old we spoke to a sleep expert, who did help and had loads of knowledge to share with us, and what she told us to do did work! But for about 3 weeks, when he got poorly again and it went out the window. We’ve tried to pick it back up and re-try the things she taught us but it just doesn’t seem to work anymore. We’ve tried all sorts, and I’m now quite literally desperate.
For the last few nights, his new thing seems to be that when he has his bedtime bottle, he’s very sleepy and drifting off in my arms (he absolutely will not go to sleep if I just put him in his bed to do his own thing), then I put his dummy in and he relaxes and seems to drift off to sleep for about 5 minutes. He then pings up, wriggles out of my arms and wants to run around upstairs. He seems to get a bout of energy from somewhere and sleep is the furthest thing!
We tend to give him his bottle around 7:30/7:45pm. He has one nap during the day which can be anywhere up to 2 hours 30mins, dependant on where he is etc. His wake windows are around 4-5 hours and he has a very plain supper/snack about an hour before bed to make sure he isn’t hungry.
I’ve played with the temp in his room to make sure it’s right, we’ve changed what he wears for bed, we’ve played with the times we put him to bed etc to make sure he’s not overtired or under tired.
He’s in a cot which is on the lowest level as he’s too tall for anything higher. Since we lowered it, his sleep has changed again and I’m not sure if maybe he doesn’t like being so low down with the sides towering over him. He has a duvet/pillow as he seemed to enjoy that when he got into our bed.
There’s a lot more we’ve done and tried and I feel completely at a loss. We’re reluctant to ask grandparents to have him for the night as we understand how difficult it can be. It’s taken me 2-3 hours to get him to sleep the last few days, and he’s waking up a few times a night. Last night, he woke at 2:15 and didn’t go back to sleep until 4:30am, and I don’t want to put that on our parents, so we currently don’t really have a life! Once we take him up for a bath, that’s the day over, as it takes so long to then get him to sleep.

I’m out of options, out of mental capacity for anything else, and quite frankly, completely out of hope that we’ll get fairly consistent good nights sleep anytime soon.

Any tips, words of advice or support would go a hugely long way.

thank you!

OP posts:
YouveGotAFastCar · 19/11/2024 14:27

My son is about to turn 3, and has started sleeping through in the last month or so. He had never slept through at 15 months.

It sounds like he's currently having split nights, which is a really normal regression - we found that just taking ours down to play was easier than trying to fight him back to sleep.

It sounds like he's hitting overtiredness at night, when he gets that sudden rush of energy - it's cortisol. He's very likely to wake up when the cortisol has all been processed by his body, too, so that'll add to your night wakes.

Have you tried him in a bed? My son always slept better in his bed, although it was minimal - he didn't start sleeping through, but he woke a bit less often and was a lot calmer when he woke, which meant he went back to sleep faster.

To be honest, this sounds like fairly biologically normal sleep; so you'll have three main options - crying it out, putting up with it the best you can, or co-sleeping. The first was never an option for me, although it's very popular on Mumsnet. We did try the middle, and managed to adjust and tweak things so we were waking every two hours, which I survived for a few months... but then DS started rejecting DH and needing me to do every wake, and then go to work in the day, so we started cosleeping from midnight. He'd go to bed in his bed, and then when he woke after midnight, he'd run through and I'd let him sleep in between us so I got some sleep too. He woke a lot less frequently then, and I got some sleep, so it worked for us. Like I said, he's nearly three now, and sometimes he's back in our room at midnight - maybe two or three times a week - but most of the time he chooses to stay in his bed until 6am, he can soothe himself back off to sleep, and then just comes through for cuddles. It's been gentle and lovely and I'm starting to feel more human.

It is really tough. There's a couple of great facebook groups like The Beyond Sleep Training Project which have some checklists of things to try/rule out.

Original poster
Fin252329 · 19/11/2024 14:52

YouveGotAFastCar · 19/11/2024 14:27

My son is about to turn 3, and has started sleeping through in the last month or so. He had never slept through at 15 months.

It sounds like he's currently having split nights, which is a really normal regression - we found that just taking ours down to play was easier than trying to fight him back to sleep.

It sounds like he's hitting overtiredness at night, when he gets that sudden rush of energy - it's cortisol. He's very likely to wake up when the cortisol has all been processed by his body, too, so that'll add to your night wakes.

Have you tried him in a bed? My son always slept better in his bed, although it was minimal - he didn't start sleeping through, but he woke a bit less often and was a lot calmer when he woke, which meant he went back to sleep faster.

To be honest, this sounds like fairly biologically normal sleep; so you'll have three main options - crying it out, putting up with it the best you can, or co-sleeping. The first was never an option for me, although it's very popular on Mumsnet. We did try the middle, and managed to adjust and tweak things so we were waking every two hours, which I survived for a few months... but then DS started rejecting DH and needing me to do every wake, and then go to work in the day, so we started cosleeping from midnight. He'd go to bed in his bed, and then when he woke after midnight, he'd run through and I'd let him sleep in between us so I got some sleep too. He woke a lot less frequently then, and I got some sleep, so it worked for us. Like I said, he's nearly three now, and sometimes he's back in our room at midnight - maybe two or three times a week - but most of the time he chooses to stay in his bed until 6am, he can soothe himself back off to sleep, and then just comes through for cuddles. It's been gentle and lovely and I'm starting to feel more human.

It is really tough. There's a couple of great facebook groups like The Beyond Sleep Training Project which have some checklists of things to try/rule out.

That makes me feel better, maybe I’m expecting too much from him!
I have mentioned trying him in a bed instead, or at least dropping the sides of his cot down (it’s a cot bed), as I really do think that would make a difference. But my OH is reluctant to try as he’s worried it won’t be safe enough.

Crying it out isn’t an option for me either - no judgement to those who do! But I’ve tried for a couple of minutes and then going in to soothe and leave again, he’d cry for a couple of minutes and I’d go back in and do the same again. And that worked for a very short period of time, but nothings seems to stick.
He does come into our bed most nights but always goes to sleep in his cot first, even if it does take hours. I’ll bring him into our bed if he’s really struggling to go back to sleep or stay asleep in his cot. Sometimes he sleeps great with us, other times he struggles in our bed too!

thank you for your advice and tips! I’ll definitely have a look into maybe shortening his wake window in the afternoon slightly, and have another conversation about dropping the sides of his cot at least!

OP posts:
IdgieThreadgoodeIsMyHeroine · 20/11/2024 17:10

Split nights are very common at this age- I know it's shit, though! I would try reducing the length of his nap- start by not letting him go past 2 hours.

I would also recommend switching his cot for a bed with bed rails and cuddling him to sleep while you both lie on the bed- it's much easier for you to sneak away without waking him like this than if he falls asleep in your arms and has to be transferred into his cot.

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