Have I ruined everything

[mumtoababygirl]

DD has been a terrible sleeper since about 3m old. She’s also had poor weight gain up until we introduced solids at 5.5m, she’s gone up percentiles and is eating really well so I decided to start some gentle sleep training with her, starting with naps as she’s BF and would only feed to sleep. It’s been a few days and has gone really well:will fall asleep after less than 5 mins of barely crying now and in her next to me too.

I got her to sleep tonight at bedtime and she woke up twice, got her back off and she woke up again after only just over an hour.

At my wits end I decided I wasn’t going to feed her back to sleep, but it was awful and she screamed her head off until I eventually gave in and BF her.

Have I fucked everything up completely now. The progress of sleep training so far, and her love for me 😢

I feel so bloody awful and regret letting her cry so much. I think I went temporarily mad from the sleep deprivation. I’m so worried I’ll have caused some kind of lasting damage

I think lack of sleep is awful. Am currently awake because the dog keeps barking at foxes doing foxy things and my husband keeps on snoring. I don't think you have effed up. You've made some small wins so just build on that. Mine used to wake up every night until he was three. He was bottle fed so was quite easy to go sling in a bottle then all go back to sleep. I changed to a sippy cup of water and after a bit of angst he stopped waking up. My brain is fried so have no words of wisdom but that it won't be like this for long and your child will, eventually, sleep.

Listening to a child cry is torture, let alone their screaming! Add is sleep deprivation and it's the perfect storm. Don't worry about giving in tonight, you have to look after yourself.

No you haven't fucked it, re the sleep training or her love for you. Cliche but it's a marathon and not a sprint. At worst you will have a slightly grumpy baby who didn't sleep as well as she should. Keep going with your sleep training tomorrow.

Once you have both had a sleep things will look brighter and you won't feel so bad.

What you're doing is ultimately for your daughter's benefit, so don't lose sight of that an d honestly, try not to be so hard on yourself 💐

Oh and it won't have done any lasting damage at all. Honestly, I let mine cry it out and they are well adjusted big strapping chaps now.

One day you will have a 10 year old who will sleep with no problem at all. You will say goodnight and then will go.

And nothing you do now will have mattered.

That day is unfortunately not today.
You matter more right now. You do whatever you have to to keep your sanity. And that's not a joke.
I was so exhausted I hallucinated.
Fully understood why some parents pack up and never see their kids again in that moment. I was broken.

I have had hallucinations too. It’s so hard. Thank you all so much for some reassurance.

i keep telling myself it’s the best thing for her, she’s been so bad at sleeping and these past few days since starting she has been SO much happier at the end of the day when before she would be overtired and grumpy. I know it’s the right thing to do but I jumped ahead about four steps in my plan last night and it didn’t work.

I will go back to wht I was doing today and hope she doesn’t hate me!

I had a crap sleeper the only things that worked were-

Teaching him to put himself to sleep. So always making sure he was slightly awake.

Stopping night feeds , I dropped them when solids were established probably around 8m

Getting rid of the dummy, I did this when he was 1 as I was sick of him waking when it fell out.

During the crap sleep phase I went to bed at 7pm, dh gave ds an expressed bottle at 11!pm and he usually woke around 1am. So I got 7-1 plus any snatched sleep between wakes and dh slept 12-7.

Yeah that’s what I’ve been doing for naps, feeding her until she was sleepy but putting her down awake and cuddling her til she fell asleep and the next step was going to be not cuddling her, and so on.

Ultimately I also want to stop feeding her during the night but I just went about it all wrong last night.

how long did it take to starting this for you to your son sleeping through?

How old is she now?

You haven't fucked anything up, and you haven't done any lasting damage to your baby.

Bad sleepers are torture, literally. You and your baby will get there in time. And then get worse again, and then better. Until one day you suddenly realise you're going to bed at bedtime and not even thinking about the possibility that you'll be woken during the night.

The only step change we had in sleep was with our eldest who was a truly shit sleeper until she moved to her own room at 7 months. She slept through that first night, after being up every two hours in our room. Worth a try if your baby is old enough.

@mumtoababygirl

It gradually got better. It's all a bit of a blur now but I think dropping the feeds came first and it took about a week but then he stopped waking as often (like maybe 3 pr 4 times instead of 10) then I realised we needed to teach him to go back to sleep which we did like you are doing gradually and it took a few weeks, I only did it for putting down to sleep for naps and bedtime. I did whatever was quickest in the middle of the night! Then he would only wake if the dummy fell out, it was easier as I just had to put it back in and he instantly went back to sleep (he didn't seem to manage finding it himself) but it still got me up a couple times a night so I dropped the dummy. First in the day and once he got use to that at night. That literally took a few days and suddenly we had a baby that slept 8-6. When he dropped naps (he was late it was around 3) he started going to bed at 7 and getting up around 7.

I don’t think sleep training is the answer and I couldn’t let my babies cry for hours (I tried once and it was worse than the sleep deprivation!) I had a v bad sleeper first time, he would wake 8+ times a night. It didn’t last forever although I felt it would. What I did with second baby was go to bed when baby went to bed until I had restored myself and recovered a bit!
if you want to sleep train that’s fine but don’t feel pressure by everyone to do it if your gut is saying this is wrong (it was going against every fibre in my body)