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Sleep

Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler. Need more advice on your childs development? Sign up to our Ages and Stages newsletter here.

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Original poster

lack of sleep is going to be the end of me

50 replies

BellaBear · 25/05/2008 14:44

(started to stop hijacking the other thread):

DS's sleep is getting owrse and worse and it is making me feel so so terrible. He rarely sleeps longer than 2 hours in a row at night, and it is more often 90 minutes. And that is asleep on me so I at best doze. I am finding hard to function., And the ADs give me insomnia.

He is bf so can't leave him at night.

He is 18 weeks - don't think is growth spurt as it has got worse and worse slowly for the last 8 weeks. Not a sudden new thing, iyswim.

OP posts:

HereWeGoRoundTheMulberryBag · 26/05/2008 14:19

Message withdrawn

plusone · 26/05/2008 14:42

bellabear i could of wrote this post-i too really dont understand why ds is getting worse. If anything i thought he was on the verge of sleeping through as a couple times he slept for 7 hrs straight but now he is actually worse then when he was a new born grrrrrrr. I seriously could cry

Original poster

BellaBear · 26/05/2008 14:51

let's cry together

seriously, the "it's happening to me too" post is so helpful, even if I feel mean for being happy that someone else is sad. it just stops me thinking I'm crap at this

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Caz10 · 26/05/2008 21:10

Good luck tonight everyone!!

Original poster

BellaBear · 27/05/2008 08:37

Good God. 2 hours, 3, 1, 3, 2!!!!!!!!

So only three wakes up while I was in bed (went to sleep after first wake up)

That's TWOOOOOOOOO 3 hour sessions! It's a miracle!

For some reason I didn't sleep during the one hour session, and the last two hours were on me, so just dozed, but I had six hours in two lots which is Not Bad At All.

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HereWeGoRoundTheMulberryBag · 27/05/2008 15:40

Message withdrawn

Shitemum · 27/05/2008 22:47

Bella - glad you got some sleep last night!
It's hard to do CC if you are not sure if DC has wind or whatever but you can stil try it after youve picked him up and patted him or whatever helps the wind. Have you tried drinking fennel seed infusion? It can help with the Dc's wind if you are bfeeding.

(Am at your friend who did CIO with a two week old btw...that's horrible!

Original poster

BellaBear · 28/05/2008 08:05

Spoke too soon - think DS was sucking on me for half the nigth last night.

SM - 'friend' is a loose term.

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plusone · 28/05/2008 16:14

i cant wait to go to bed tonight that was my first thought when i woke up this am! must go early though because after mid-night anything goes with ds.

Original poster

BellaBear · 28/05/2008 17:26

snap

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talilac · 28/05/2008 17:30

Hey BellaBear, did you know there are children's sleep counsellors? Your GP may be able to refer you, or there is Andrea Grace who various MNers have used.. Andrea helped us in a similar situation to you. I remember how desperate I felt, and how much help it was to have someone telling me, step by step, how to solve it..

LadyG · 28/05/2008 17:46

Brings back memories. DS now nearly 3 was an awful sleeper. I think I read every baby sleep book ever written.
What worked for me (eventually-only slept through at 8 months) was:

feeding/nap/bedtime routine (sorry but it was GFs)
getting him to go to sleep from awake (bloody hard-did in daytime for naps put him in cot on tummy (was already rolling onto tummy and back again by 4 months) patted and shushed until asleep. Went to sleep after 20 minutes crying 1st time but not hysterical. Couldn't leave the room but thats just me.)From about then (4 months) started to sleep for longer stretches ie 4 hrs at night 3)Getting some rest during the day ( if necessary beg for help from family friends whoever!) and/or cosleeping during night -baby beside you so you can sleep too just to make sure you are resting enough for milk supply. I think one gets into a cycle of exhaustion/not enough milk/baby needs to feed more often/more exhaustion etc
Once we weaned onto the bottle at 8 months or so sent DH in with bottle of water 3 nights in a row and miracle of miracles finally a full nights sleep!Obviously you may want to breast feed for longer and others may have more advice on this. This has been on my mind recently as we have no. 2 arriving in 6 weeks or so!

Original poster

BellaBear · 28/05/2008 17:56

talilac - what 'type' of sleep counsellor is she? Is she a 'tough love' sort of person?

ladyg:
1- we do this
2- he doesn't feed to sleep in the day, just when he wakes at night.
3- ADs give me insomnia. i take them in the morning so this is only a problem during the day, not at night. so no sleep in the day. and for the second half of the night we co-sleep. it makes him sleep better at this time, but me sleep worse.
4- gp said water at night from 7 months or so. he is still young enough to be genuinely hungry at night now.

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Original poster

BellaBear · 28/05/2008 18:05

nevermind, just googled her, too expensive

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Caz10 · 28/05/2008 20:14

zzzzzzzz from here too

i am not being cheeky/belittling anyone's exhaustion (couldn't, I'm exhausted too!) but I honestly don't think this is a problem as such...obviously it is a problem in that we are all shattered, but given that the wee ones in question are all less than 8mths or so (I think?) surely this is just typical baby behaviour?

I know there are some who sleep so much better, but from reading on here it seems that loads of people go through this, would a sleep counsellor not just say go away?!

talilac · 29/05/2008 12:23

Hello Bella, no she's a very gentle kind of counsellor. But she is quite expensive, so maybe your GP could refer you to an NHS sleep clinic?

FWIW, it was less when we used her (£120 I think) but worth every bloomin penny.

Caz10 · 30/05/2008 17:16

bella how is it going?

pretty disastrous here - no chunks of sleep longer than 2hrs last night...also the one thing i can count on, which is dd being asleep by 7.30 (if only for an hour!) went out the window last night and i couldn't get her settled till 9pm

i don't think i was as tired as this when she was a newborn...

Original poster

BellaBear · 30/05/2008 20:20

hi! Not so well, same as you, nothing longer than 2 hours (remind me not to post on here if he sleeps (relatively) well, it obviously tempts fate.

that said, he's asleep now (for five mins!) and I have not gone to bed as well, so some progress. ha ha.

I do see your point re sleep counsellors. We are still in the boundaries of 'normal'. Do you think bad sleepers are born or bred? I keep thinking we must have done something wrong.

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pevie · 30/05/2008 21:43

Bellabear, your baby sounds like my baby who is now a year old. Total bloody nightmare and thought I was going mad!!!!! It got better at about 6 months when we did a very mild variation of sleep training and she learned to go to sleep herself. Unfortunately, I couldnt keep it up as I was always worried she was uncomfortable and we went back the way again!!!! We've had a number of ups and downs since and one period when it got as bad again after an illness!!! We are now looking at getting a sleep consultant to help us.I think main problem has been both the reflux and the fact that I still bf her in night which causes wind but am just unsure how to proceed!!!!!! If I have learned one lesson it is that you should probably teach them to go to sleep on their own. Also it does definately get better than this. Lying on stomach helped mine as did propping up!!! Felt like a miracle when we first did this and got about 6 hours!!!

Gimli · 01/06/2008 20:36

Hi, sorry, I'm male but yours sounds very much like ours. DW co-sleeps with DS (nearly six months) and she has succeeded in getting him off us - he used to sleep on me for the first part of the night and then on top of DW. Just read your post to her and got a wry smile!
We tried a sleep counsellor and it helped up to a point, but their ideas of how you should do things - their plan wd have had him in a cot after no more than three weeks - would never work with DS who is a very determined child. It took several nights (and a couple of failures) to get DS on the bed and off us but it more or less worked. Adopting a firm(ish) bedtime routine (we're generally awful at routines), with feed, bath, story etc helped a lot. Cd yours be going through early stages of teething? Ours has gone backwards in recent days because of that....
Good luck from both of us. You're not alone...

Original poster

BellaBear · 02/06/2008 07:42

Thanks for the words of support! (but, really, you don't need to spologise for being male!)

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Caz10 · 03/06/2008 20:36

how's it going? Looked at the andrea grace pages and this was interesting - although I think I do all that already and 7-7 is just a distant dream!!

Original poster

BellaBear · 04/06/2008 17:34

8.30 - 12
12.30 - 4.30 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
5 - 6
6.20 - 7.30

Am in shock. The good kind!

I was up at two, thinking, he'll wake in a second, he will. He didn't!

OP posts:

Caz10 · 04/06/2008 20:50

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah can i have your baby?!!!

i have to say, dd has occasionally done that, it is so so nice isn't it? esp that 12.30-4.30 bit!!

dd did a similar stretch last night, 9.45-2am (very random time but not complaining) I felt like a new woman at 2am!!

Don't you find though that all the mucking about with tiny bits of sleep in the 5-7ish slot makes you feel really tired even when there HAS been a good stretch in the night?

Original poster

BellaBear · 06/06/2008 09:27

Yes!
But that night was a blip. BAck to 'normal' now.

Actually this morning he woke up wide awake at 6 and I felt knackered (our room was too hot last night and I had a headache all night) so I tried to feed him to sleep, which eventually worked, but I had to spend twenty minutes pretending to be asleep as I could see him looking at me the whole time and I knew if I opened my eyes properly he would smile at me!

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