i think my baby boy is different ( not in a sgood sense) from all u guys babies here...

[Sanaa]

its gonna be a long message...
my 10 month old is ofcourse a horrible horrible sleeper. sleeps by 11:30 after a whole bedtime routine involving bath, bottle singing and rocking. wakes up 2 and a hlaf to 3 hrs later and after that its a nightmare. and finally wakes up at 8:30.
i tried all sorts of comfort items, blanket, my nightshirt, a music toy that projects images, dummy, do u know wot, he dosent even try any of them, rejscts every single thing. just wants me and me and ...yeah me.
tried control crying 2 times to teach him to fall asleep but...welll that was a disaster cause everytime he vomitted wotever he had in the evening cuz he would cry so hard although i wud b by his side , just not picking him up, so never doing that again! cuz hes a horrible eater ( no surprise there)
he wakes up at night just to be patted to go to sleep or sometimes breat milk but ive cut tha down.
so hmmm any help would be so ggr8. im gonna try this lavender oil tip that i read but i know it wont work.
ive lost my personality, am always angry now and just sulky cuz i dont get enuff sleep and keep getting migrains and i never had them before.
ok need to sleep now before he wakes up
do reply....someone....anyone..

Hello, must reply because you sound at your wits end.

A couple of things, I would expect to still be bfing during night at this age personally, and/or rocking/singing/pacing/bouncing/dancing

A book that may help is No cry aleep solution E Pantley this works for some and when it does whoopie! potentially gentle and effective

thankyou so much for taking the time out to reply. ill try the book .
realy ! cause im just tired of mums saying that a baby should be sleeping without any help from mums and u knoiw sleep through the night, no bfing and certainly no rocking ..i think this is a mere fantasy for me ...
but now that uve said that its ok to bf and rock....haa makes me feel a lot better. ...thnxxx

Does he sound like the Sears definition of a High Need baby? If so (and your feeling of "my baby doesn't act like other people's" makes me suspect that may be the case as I remember that being a constant refrain for me with DS), I highly recommend The Fussy Baby Book.

Yes do whatever works I reckon. I promise you will look back on this time and think 'I got through it, I'm supermum' because you are! He will learn to sleep longer. In the meantime, could you leave him with anyone for a couple of hours in the day to have a nap?

have you tried pick up put down baby whisperer method? I think you have to be really patient as it can take a while but apparantly has good results and although your baby will cry, you are there holding them throughout it.

my dd was an awful sleeper, a very awake baby.

Just to let you know you are not alone x

sanaa, your ds sounds just like mine! he is 9.5 months and still wakes up at least every 2 hours during the night.
sometimes for milk, sometimes just needs to be patted back to sleep.
he cluster feeds in the mornings, from about 4.30am onwards, which is knackering.

I just wanted you to know you are not the only one. you're doing the best thing for your baby, being there for him and letting him be safe and secure in the knowledge that you're there when he needs you.

it is tiring. bloody knackering in fact, but it won't be forever

DS was a terrible sleeper at 10mo. Too early for CC and cutting down on night feeds IMO.

Get as much rest as you can whenever you can, cut down on anything non-essential, take any help that's offered and if it isn;t offered, ASK

The NCSS book I found reallt helpful, less for ways of getting DS to sleeo longer but more for understnding why he was so bad at this sleeping thing.

People lie about their babies' sleep. I think it is a conspiracy.

My baby boy is the same - he is 1yo now and only just beginning to show small signs of improvement.

Hang on in there - I am grumpy and stroppy too btw

Sanaa, my son wasn't a great sleeper at 10 mths and didn't sleep through until he was 2 and a half. I also have two friends who had absolute nightmares with their babies' sleeping patterns - much worse than me or you, even!

Sleep deprivation has got to be one of the hardest things about parenthood. It's just bloody brutal, and so frustrating when you try everything and nothing works.

No advice, really (sorry ) - my DS started sleeping better around the age of 2 and a half and is now a great sleeper at the age of 3.5 yrs old....but it was nothing I did or didn't do, really - it just happened.

hahah god u guys are great. im kicking myself for not asking this question earlier on. at least u made me laugh.
yes i did try that but as i sed he cries sooooooooo hard u have no idea... well im sure u do as u r a mum! so i dont wanna go tru the vomitting thing again as hes to hard to feed as well.
my husband helps alot so thank god im not alone, even now he has taken him to his granny for the whole day, which helps me alot.
georgimama i think ur right hahah this is a conspiracy. i mean ive lost so much sleep just reading bout mums who have managed to tackle this prob by 3rd month, and feeling like a horrible mother.aaa but then they must b supermoms....sobsob
thissisyest have u got a clone of my son or ive got ur sons clone! yeah urs exactly the same. whew now wen i wake up 5 times a night u know wot , ill b smiling, cuz ill know that somewhere out in this world...another mum is sitting there with a baldy attatched to her boob as well.....ahhh bliss thankuuuu
everyone muahhh

I have only just detatched 18 month old from my boob, almost certainly not for the last time before morning - from the age of about 10months he did start to sleep a bit better, and I usually get a stretch of at least 4 or 5 hours sleep at some point during the night, then up to him and back to sleep for a bit. Mostly he just comes in our bed. I do not care if this is a bad habit or not - I imagine his behaviour will change by the age of 21.

Hang in there, whenever your 10 month has you up, its pretty likely I am up too. But it does get easier, and easier to take. They start sleeping better eventually, and you get better at handling it.

My DS slept really well (up once or twice a night, settled back easily) iuntil about 7mo when he became high maintenance. Don't think it's ever been quite as bad as you describe, not for more than a night or two.
DO you co sleep? Can you breastfeed through the night? Does he wake up tired wanting to feed, or awake wanting to play? Does he fall asleep on you in the evenings buyt then refuse to be put down?
My Ds is 16 mo. SOme nights are good, some are a feedathon from midnight to about 5 or 6...but I think I can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Sana - just wanted to offer my sympathies as your baby sounds just like my DS1 (7 yrs now). In the end we co-slept with him and we all got a good nights sleep. He eventually moved into his own bed when he was two.

However, some of my friends used the E Pantley book and swore by it.

If it is any consolation DS1 was a dream baby - he really was like an adorable handbag. Best to have a highly strung baby first than the other way round.

Good luck x

I bottle feed and my DS usually sleeps right through (10-11 hours). Now and again he wakes for 1 feed per night. He's 14 weeks old and has been this way from 8 weeks. Before that he wanted feeding every three hours.

I always put him down awake so that he can settle himself off to sleep. I leave him in a pitch black room and the only lights are from his apnoea alarm and his Tommy Tippee apnoea mattress- both flash. i try to turn these away from him.

I sometimes bath before bed, but in all honestly, he sleeps better if he's not bathed before bed. he also sleeps better if he doesn't go down straight after a feed, though I usually feed him before bed.

I know this is mostly against normal advice. I followed Miriam Stoppard's advice.

have you tried swaddling him? do you wear perfume? have you tried spraying that onto a comforter if you do? have you tried white noise?

another vote for DrSears and Elisabeth Pantley
in my opinion gives you back your sanity and gives you the confidence to parent the child you have

I know it is a cliché but indeed all children are different

aviatrix- my baby sleeps through and go to him if he even whimpers because of his apnoea, it gave us a terrible fright previously. He sleeps through of his own accord. Some babies are just easy.

Just another note to say that my DD was the same. At about 16m (when she walked) she started sleeping through, still bf to sleep most of the time but I could cope better. Then gradually she stopped bfing to slepp. Now she is nearly 2 I can put her down awake and even DH can give her a cup and then she falls asleep in his arms.

It was gradual, I did CC too and although it helped us it was not a cure for every sleep problem she had.

Good Luck and try to stay positive.

the solution is to convince yourself you are the kind of mum who thinks it is fabulous to spend 24/7 time with your baby. read up on 'attachment parenting' and tell everyone in a smug voice that you don't believe in putting your baby down as it is bad for him and you are such a fabulous mum that he wants you all to himself.

there are a lot more mums out there in the same situation than you would think. dd is a shocker. she's 17 months and still bf at night and co sleeps from whenever she wakes up at night. she'll grow out of it eventually. what makes it easy to deal with is co sleeping and bf her at night time (lying down so I'm not really awake tbh). that way I get enough sleep and keep my sanity

You have my sympathies. Sleep depreviation is a shocker. I don't know if this is helpful or not, as you have already had a horrible experience with CC, but I thought I might share my experience of terrible nights. My DS was a nightmare sleeper and I eventually went to talk to someone from a sleep clinic. They recommended doing a very modified version of controlled crying. It worked like this:

When the baby cried, go in and settle baby. This meant, lying the baby down if it was standing or sitting. If it was lying down, maybe giving it a quick pat on the back. Also, saying some soothing words like "Ok, back to sleep now". Then leave the room. Don't hang around in there.

If the baby continued crying, to go in every minute to repeat the settling process. If the baby was really distressed, go in every 20 or 30 seconds.

Repeat the above until baby falls asleep.

The first night I did it, my DS screamed for a long time but he did get better over the next few nights. I had attempted CC previously and it had been completely hideous. My DS and I were very upset by it and it hadn't worked at all. Doing the modified CC felt completely different. I really believe my DS didn't feel abandoned, because I was going in every 30 seconds. (He was, however, pretty damn cross with me and let me know.)

I would like to say that this kind of CC is a miracle cure, but it all went to pot when another tooth appeared. In fact, in retrospect, I think my DS was such a terrible sleeper because he had a lot of pain from his teeth. Once they all came through his sleep settled down really well and he is now a fantastic sleeper. No method, other than neurofen, worked when he was in pain. Sometimes it is just about sitting it out until they move into a new stage.

Best of luck.

Sanaa, your baby is not abnormal and you aren't doing anything wrong. You're just one of the unlucky blessed people who has a -difficult-- challenging baby ;)

I can sympathise so much. DS is 13 months and a long way from sleeping through. At first I felt like you - I thought everyone else had it sussed and I was meant to be trying to crack the sleeping through thing at 3 months and all that. But we had a tough start for the first few months and I eventually came to realise that the one thing you can do to make it easier is to accept things. I look at it this way - people say co-sleeping, feeding to sleep or using a dummy or rocking to sleep or whatever will cause a problem. But if your baby's waking up ten times a night then you've got a problem anyway, so why not just give in and do what works?

They really do grow and change and get better at sleeping. With DS it seems like he's reached stages where he resists sleeping less and is more willing to at least try to nod off. It's so cheering when they suddenly get a bit better.

In the meantime just do anything you can do to get through it. I highly recommend cosleeping and BFing all night. We have a system where DS goes into his cot to start with then when we're too tired to keep settling him he comes into bed and we cosleep. We get some decent 4 hour stretches sometimes and he does seem to sleep better when he's with us. And slowly he's getting more fond of his cot. We're not doing anything to make him change, he's just doing it as he gets older.

Please take confidence from all the advice here - some babies are just not good sleepers and mums who haven't had a baby like ours are trying to help by telling you what they did to get their baby sleeping all night (although you and I know it's just luck ;)). It will get better, and until then do what you like to survive, anything goes

Horrible isn't it and its so hard to see a way out when you are so tired.

My middle child didn't sleep more than two hours until 8 months and is now the best by far at 2.5. They do get it eventually. His sisters were both really good.

It does help putting them down awake but happy. Mine have all cried for a five minutes before dropping off. Not screaming but niggly cry to wash the day away. Consistency seems to be the key and not expecting too much too soon. it seems to take at least two weeks to get them into the habit you want but only a night to break it.

Don't despair. Am now trying to enjoy night feeds as my last has nearly grown out of them.