I give up. I submit. DS2, you've won, now will you please go to sleep!

[MissVictoriaNSqualor]

I am so fecking tired today.
Both Dd&DS1 slept through within weeks.

DS2 is now 21weeks and will not sleep.

We were co-sleeping, well, sidecar, but I've just moved him into his own bedroom as he is going in his own room when we move house next week and I wanted him to be used to being alone before we moved to a strange house.

Up until about 12 weeks he slept from 9pm til 8/9am, with only one feed at 4am.

Now he is awake every hour. I'm shattered. I spent most of last night just sitting sobbing in his room praying for him to go back to sleep.

I can't do the 'sleep when he sleeps' thing as I also have a three year old and seven year old and as of next week will be having to leave the house at 8:30am/11:15am/3:00pm to do the school pick up/drop offs, so any sleep I get would have to be based around that. I can't/won't ask DP for help during the week as he is currently in his second month of training for the police force so needs all the sleep he can get, plus I'm too tired to even think about expressing so he couldn't feed the baby anyway.

Someone tell me what to do to get him sleeping, please!

Oh, would try giving water but don't see the point as he doesn't always want a feed, just someone there awake with him.

No?

Sorry, no suggestions, but didn't want your thread to go unnoticed. Someone with advice will be along soon

They bloody better be

does he have to go into his own room when you movew? i find the worst co sleeping nights still better than the alternative

maybe he's worried about tmmj too

'just someone there awake with him!'

Flippin' heck! He can entertain himself imho.

Can you ignore him and let him learn to go back to sleep on his own?

If he is fed, clean and winded, he shouldnt need attention at night so I would ignore him as much as I could.

Difficult I know.

I do feel for you if that helps.

As he is so little, maybe he just needs to be your 'mummy' smell to be comforted.

You could try getting one of those little hankie type teddies and wearing it inside your bra round the house so that it smells of you then putting it in his bed. Alternatively, put a top that you've worn next to his crib.

This may sound mad but when our DS was 5 months we took him on holiday and he just wouldn't settle at all. As soon as I picked him up, he'd snuggle in and doze. In desperation, I took my top that I'd been wearing all day, tied it into a ball so that he couldn't get tangled in it and put it next to him in the crib. He snuggled into it and slept within 15 mins.

SPB, He is actually worse when co-sleeping, he starts grabbing my face and biting my nose and stuff. I think TMMJ may have tipped him over the edge, I'll say we found her

Majeika, tell him that! If I could just leave him there to play I would, but it's not practical when he screams the house down waking everyone up.

VS I feel your pain (am elfsmummy BTW)

DD2 is now 20 weeks and still wakes 2 hourly overnight. As a two week old she slept 8pm til 5am consistantly. Not any more.

I can't understand it - she takes herself off to sleep during the day- goes to bed awake, is well rested during the day (but no too much day time sleep) but she still wants to feed at 1, 3 and 5 am.

I'm assuming its because she's big (17 lb 10 oz) exclusively breast fed (won't even take a bottle so water/EBM isn't an option here)

Am keeping everything crossed that starting to wean will improve things. But 6 weeks seems a very long time away - not sure I can last that long.

Am a walking zombie. DD1 is crying out to be potty trained but can't even face that at the moment.

Will think of you in the small hours tonight.

I've just printed off the thread in this topic 'co-sleepers help me with my constantly waking 6 month old' it speaks a lot about a book called 'healthy sleep habits happy child', I shall go sit down and read through it (and another thread about over tiredness).
What are daytime naps like with you?

It suggests babies should nap every 2 hours or they get over tired and suffer from fatigue, causing sleep ishoos.

vs my advice would be
get daytime naps in a regular routine put him down when he is happy and leave him try to do this at set times in the day every 2hours
goback to co sleeping if you can bear it
I feel your pain
ds1 slept through from 6 months no probs
ds2 has only just started sleeping through at 14mths and was bf 2/3 times a night tlll 12mths

i've poured over that thread! Thing is she does nap well. I'm really careful not to let her get over tired. She's not able to stay awake for any more than 2 hours since she last woke up so she naps at least 3 times a day. Prob has about 3-4 hours asleep each day.

She's in bed by 6.30 each night and I wake her at 10 for a dream feed.

DD1 was a nightmare about overtiredness so I'm hot on that. DD2 is happy and placid during the day.

Bring on 26 weeks!

andiem - please don't make me weap! 14 months!

Am off to start the baths - will check in later

I'm from the other thread! I find that times to begin naps are very good but the length of the nap makes little difference to the night's sleep.

Just wanted to stop you starting to obssess abou tnaps. When you get to the end of our thread as it stands you'll find out why!

I agree witht he length of the nap being irrelevant but the regular offering of a sleep option is I think helpful

vs don't wnat to scare you but in the end ds2 did it on his own no cc or anything he just started sleeping through more and more once I stopped bf completely which I did at about 13 mths
now he sleeps from 7 till almsot 8 most nights with one daytime nap
I suppose I just became hardened to the night wakings and I have worked as nurse in the past so have done a lot of night duty which helped me

Thing is he used to only wake at 4am, and after looking at the other thread I noticed the nap times suggested are the times he used to go, which were imposed by school runs etc, so am now going to make a conscious effort to do the same thing.

vs we had good sleeping until 4 mths then it all went pear shaped

Something has to give!!!

I can't do this any longer, I'm already bursting into tears constantly, one, two or even three wakings a night cool, I can do that but at the moment I'm not even getting back to sleep myself before he wakes up again.

Oh, also LaTrucha, Does how often they are awake make much difference?
Did you find when they are not overtired they slept better at all?

vs so sorry for you it is soooo hard

have you thought of just taping a dummy in .........

Haha, he won't take a dummy long enough to tape it in

duct tape attached to the dummy before you ram place it gently in

I have tried several nap schedules. She definitely sleeps better with good day sleep. If she only goes for 30 mintues I get twitchy and so does she. ATM our usual nap schedule is
7am up
9am short nap - 45 minutes minimum with feeding back to sleep if she wakes
2pm after lunch nap - I like this to be two hours, often it isn't.

I tried three naps but it made life feel like a hamster wheel what with bf and solid meals and it didn't really seen to suit her either.

Good naps definitely makes for an easier life, day and night.

latrucha mine is on exactly the same nap schedule

Ok, DP did PUPD with him, he settled, then cried again, I went up and did PUPD, and left the door ajar, with the light on, and he settled much quicker, wonder if he doesn't like the pitch dark?
I had to go up just now and do PUPD and again, he has settled, he was awake when I left him but falling asleep.
Everytime he has cried and needed PUPD he has been upside down or sideways stuck in his cot.