Tearing my hair out

[Sk1sk0]

Posted on here a while back and got some extremely helpful advice so hoping the sleep wizards return with more for me!

ds, 11 months, has never been a good sleeper and at his best would do 3-4 hr stretches through the night. Ah, what I wouldn’t give to have those back.

The past 6 weeks or so have been horrendous. He wakes every 30 min - 2.5 hours. All. Night. Long. In a variety of ways - sometimes screaming suddenly, throwing himself back, sometimes stirring then whinging. Either way he takes ages to go back down and works himself into hysterics.

current routine is 2 naps, 3-4 hour wake windows, solid bedtime routine of quiet play, bath, feed, book, bed. Is combi fed, feeds over night still (unsure if he’s hungry or not but it does help settle him sometimes).

we have tried co sleeping, cot in own room, white noise, lullabies, no noise, varying sleep sacs, room warmer/colder, a variation of ferber, shh pat, he was even left to cry for 30 mins or so the other night while I had a minor breakdown and he just screamed relentlessly. I am back at work now with a toddler too and low iron and I just feel like a shell of a person.

Respectfully , if he was mine I’d wean him.. feed him potatoes with evening meal at 6 pm/ evening meal.. they have a high feeling of being full for longer score.. God love you no sleep is hard. Try lose a nap too, or join them together to a shorter one in the middle of the day.. I did the sleep training outside the door thing.. start on a chair in the room, move towards the door.. no eye contact.. I’m so sorry for you I remember silently screaming too as there’s no reasoning with them sometimes.. can you get paid or unpaid help? Can you do calm app at lunchtime at work ?

Thank you so much I’ll get him on the spuds and play around with naps and see what happens! I know there’s so quick fix but wish there was one!

Poor you! I've been there and so I understand how unbelievably horrible it is! It feels like torture!

Night weaning might help. But it might not work straight away. When I night-weaned, it didn't stop my daughter from waking up a lot (5-6 times). She still needed to be comforted in other ways during the night for several months. However, over time she needed less and less from me to fall asleep again, and night-weaning was the first step of this process. (She was also very angry at first at being denied mummy milk but we were patient with her, gave her lots of cuddles, and she got over it in about three nights.)

I'd also try to find out if there's a reason for the frequent wakes. Could it be teething pain? Or stomach ache? Or a disturbing sound? If it's something like that, then night-weaning won't make a difference. On nights when my daughter wakes every half hour we assume it's her teeth and give her some Calpol. Then she sleeps fine and in the morning, low and behold, red swollen gums.

If you're worried or struggling, ask GP or HV.

im going to tell you what I did with both of mine (now 4 and 6 and sleep great) but I just want to preface by saying it’s entirely up to you and I’m not trying to suggest what you’re doing isn’t right for you-I remember being broken by lack of sleep and feeling like everyone was lecturing me!

I had them moving towards one long nap at that age. This does mean for a while you get the witching hour of doom as they’re hanging by a thread in the evening but it meant better overnight once we were through the worst

I also completely weaned overnight and just offered water after an evening meal with something heavy like porridge. Again, this was tricky at first but eventually meant sleeping longer periods.

The biggest things I did was sleep train. I’m not talking crying and screaming babies, but a gentle method like the disappearing chair. Hands in the cot, shushing, patting, singing and slowly removing and moving further towards the door. in fact, I still now leave the room at bedtime the same way as they find it familiar and comforting

Good luck and it will improve!

Reduce to one nap

Thanks all, really helpful ideas! I did speak to HV she had no suggestions and advised against night weaning until later. I’m planning on stopping bf when he’s one so the countdown is on. Will maybe be more preemptive with calpol, perhaps it is teeth sometimes. He does seem to have a million.
Think I will build towards one long nap to start. Any ideas on how to do this as his wake windows are only normally around 4 hours now?

A dummy saved us at that stage.

Start by capping the morning nap shorter and shorter, you haven't said what it is now, but reduce by 10 mins each day. Get it down to 15 mins (we always did it in the buggy as quicker). This will get them used to having a longer nap after lunch. He's probably having too much day sleep, especially as sleep needs reduce at the age. Wake him by the same time every morning as well.

thanks so much this is so helpful. He usually has around an hour so shouldn’t take too long to cut down🤞