I am a total failure as a mother.

[turtledove23]

My DS is 9 months today and I can't seem to get anything right. He goes to bed at 7 and (on a good night) sleeps til 1-2 then wakes anything from 2 to 8 times and wakes anywhere from 4-7 for the day. I have to work very hard to get him to sleep well in the day. Lately he has been having an hour in the morning and 45 mins-hour in the afternoon. We try to do 2-3-4. He is still breastfed despite me trying to give up about 20 times. He has 7 teeth which caused him huge extended pain and has been working on the eighth for what seems like an eternity. He is just about walking but can still only manage 6-10 steps so we're still in developmental hell. I have been in tears since 415 when he woke this morning, as have realised that after trying NCSS and all the kind stuff that I am going to have to (TONIGHT) do CIO. No booby, no love, just screaming. It is breaking my heart but I can't do this anymore. I know that I am on the road to PND from lack of sleep. Please tell me it will work?

Ok, he has always snored, has a slightly snotty nose, a history of reflux and is a bit hyper.

Could it be a food intolerance? It may sound random, but DD2 is intolerant to cows milk, and when I was eating it when she was a tiny baby it gave her reflux, a snotty nose (we thought she had hayfever!) which made her snore and was a wide awake all day cat-napping baby. When I cut cows milk from my diet her nose unbunged, the reflux stopped and she slept better. You could test this theory by cutting cows milk from his (and possibley yours too) diet and giving it two weeks, then seeing if it makes any difference. Other common culprits are wheat/gluten, eggs, nuts, fish/shellfish, chocolate, artificial colours, pork/bacon, chicken, tomato, soft fruit and yeast and long-term symptoms of intolerance include anxiety, fatigue, migraine, sleeplessness and hyperactivity in children.

It's worth thinking about!

GM-Thanks for that! I gave up dairy for 3 weeks when he was about 2-3 months hoping that that was the cause. That wasn't it. Hadn't thought about the others. We both don't eat eggs, shellfish, pork, nuts, yeast, gluten(except occasional pasta) and artificial colours. We both at a lot of chicken, tomatoes and fish though. Think I may wither away without them!! Will give it a go, though. Can you get babies tolerance tested? Something non-invasive?

turtle, you can be allergy tested by a kinesiologist for yourself and act as a surrogate for your LO. It's very non-invasive, gentle testing your muscle response against various substances.

Was I in that list of people coming round to sort your DH out?

Just another post to say that you sound like a GREAT mummy and your DS sounds lovely

If you ARE thinking about any kind of sleep training, I would definitely take the advice on here and tackle one thing at a time. Christmas might also not be a great time to try and change anything, because it is all a change of routine and lots of weird stuff going on and strange men with beards etc. so is quite a stressful time for little tiny heads. So I would wait a few weeks until life is back to normal before tackling anything.

Turtledove, I could have written your posts. I am in exactly the same boat and I could (and do) cry with exhaustion. DS is 9 months tomorrow and has only ever slept through the night once. We did sleep training (with Millpond) which worked a bit then fell by the wayside when I went back to work full time in November as I was too tired to follow it through and am incapable of letting DS cry. We had kind of cracked him settling at night (up to 5 months it used to take about 3 hours to settle him as he would scream the minute you put him down) but then about 2 weeks ago he learned to stand up and every time we put him in his cot now he stands up then starts crying when he can't get himself down. When he finally goes to sleep he then wakes at around 11 to feed then again several times through the night. He is often just awake and noisy between 3 and 6 am. Last night he woke at 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 and stood up each time so leaving him wasn't an option as I was worried he would fall and bump his head. We also co sleep a lot of the time and, like you, this gives me only marginally more sleep. He also won't take a bottle - usually takes less than 2oz of EBM during the day whilst I'm at work then feeds all night to make up for it. I also look and feel terrible, am 10lbs below my pre-pregnancy weight and would rather stick pins in my eyes than have conjugal relations with DH who is also completed utterly unsupportive. So, you are not alone. Have faith though that it WILL get better -nothing lasts forever!! I also feel like I am about to drop through exhaustion but the only option is to keep doing what I'm doing and hope it gets better. Good luck xxx.

TD23 -deep breath dont be so hard on yourself! you are certainly not a failure.don't aim for perfection just good enough

who can support you
HV or GP
dont bottle it all up

do take care

When I felt like you do turtledove I just decided to stop getting up in the night, and left the baby to scream. Nothing controlled about it, it was just crying. By the second night he slept through the night (I mean literally turned into a baby that sleeps properly all night), and does not appear to have suffered lasting trauma. It's not very nice for anyone to go through the crunch nights of screaming, but better than PND. Anyway, lots of people make too much drama about this kind of thing. Crying for 3 hours is hardly akin to suffering child abuse.

Gangle I could've written that a year ago (apart from the sleeping through once). I'd love to tell you it gets better. DS is currently screaming to be picked up (by me, of course) and for milk but has his dad in with him. This is not a typical bedtime (he is over-tired having only had half a nap) but I cannot take the comfort nursing anymore. Oh hang on, silence.

OK, so he had 3 hours sleep in the day yesterday. He wouldn't go down til 730, woke 1130, 130, 300, 420, 500, 6 up for the day. I had decided to give it one more night to see if I could take it as we have family xmas do today and dont want to turn up with nobody having slept.
Ugh. Will try and make sure it isn't food related, but am remembering that at end of October we had a run of 7-5 for a week and wasn't doing anything different. I am convinced he just likes booby.
On that note, I walked around with no top on yesterday for an hour (he'd just fed) and he chased me the whole time. He is just obsessed.

They all do that if they can see your boobs, why didn't you just put a top on?

Hi turtledove,

Just want to say I sympathize. Lack of sleep is a killer. As you said before, in a previous post, perhaps at this point the breastfeeding is not the priority. The sleep IS. There's no use for you breastfeeding or doing everything else right if you're so exhausted that you can't think straight. Of course you're a lovely mummy, but I do think you need to sort out the sleep issue as best you can. What the others have said is right, try to make a list of what the problems are, with the biggest problem (sleep, from what it seems) at the top. I agree that it would be great if your DH could help, but if for whatever reason he won't / can't, then perhaps that's priority number 2, AFTER you've sorted out the sleep issue. To be honest, I'm convinced that it's NOT normal for a 9 month old to wake at 11.30, 1.30, 4.20, 5.00 and then 6.00 for the day. It may happen to lots of people, but that's not to say it's normal. I'm sure your boy is as sleep deprived as you. There are ways to deal with these problems (ways other than co-sleeping / breastfeeding which lots of people seem to suggest as the ONLY solution to everything). Sleeping as a mother who breastfeeds / co-sleeps but is exhausted too (my boy is 5 months), I really believe there comes a point when the parents' mental health & tiredness have to be the absolute priority. If I were you, I'd make a choice on one method of sleep training- perhaps Pick up / Put down? or whatever feels right to you- and stick with it, and cut back on the night breastfeeding (which in turn will encourage your boy to eat more in the day). If I were you, I'd also forget about all sorts of other semi-solutions (your diet, explaining it away as teething etc) & would deal with the problem head on, which is his constant night feeding- which at 9 months he simply doesn't need. As Daddy J said, you can get good support here, but please don't beat yourself up, I think it's very hard when people like you (or me) describe their tiredness & semi-depression and there are all these posts saying 'it's normal'. Well I would say lack of sleep & constant night-feeding is normal if you don't do anything about it & if you want it to be normal, but there's a lot to try, & ultimately (however harsh that may sound) it's your choice whether you want to continue feeding in the night or not. Lots & lots of hugs, again I want to stress there's a lot of support here of all kinds.

What I forgot to say was that I have put up with the night feeding for a bit as he was teething very badly and couldn't eat much. He gained almost no weight between October and December, and in the last few weeks has started eating and drinking normally again.
Thank you Maria, and to all the rest.
People keep saying not to worry as nobody is judging you, but the truth is that people do. I have a husband who doesn't understand why I let my son rule my life, MIL who thinks I am disgusting for BF and bring the bad sleep on myself because of it, friends whose babies sleep like dreams who I overheard saying "poor girl, when will she learn..."
And there are more than a few MNers who have been very judgemental.
I just want to feel better. I am so sick of crying. So tired. And the worst irony of all is that I am working at the moment here and there as a PN doula...giving mums a break so they can sleep...

Turtledove - I posted previously about how I've managed to sort out dd's sleeping problems. I always said I would never do cc as I didn't agree with it, and the parenting style I'm most attracted to is bfing, co-sleeping, sling wearing etc. However, I was desperate like you and feeling that I couldn't go on. Co-sleeping didn't help either me or dd get much more sleep and I was getting a really bad back. I ended up doing a version of cc, but only after I had worked up to it in a gradual way, and I'd already stopped feeding her at night first. So in the end it was a gentle method. It is entirely possible, if hard work for a couple of weeks to do this. Now she's sleeping so much better, but also she is much much happier and more relaxed in general. I feel I'm able to devote more of myself to doing things with her, where before I felt too tired. So, I know I've done the right thing for us, although others would say she's too young for sleep training. Sorry, this is rambly, but I'm agreeing with Maria that there are options for you and you could choose something and be consistent if that's what you want to do. It doesn't have to be an extreme measure if you do one thing at a time and make yourself a plan for doing it.

I think that 3 hours sleep during the day is an awful lot for a 9 month old, especially one who is wakeful at night. DS started to improve when he dropped his second nap. By 9 months he needed a max of one hour's sleep during the day. Babies do need to sleep during the day otherwise they are over tired but if 3 hours is typical he is probably getting too much sleep at the wrong time.

No one here is judging you. We are udging your husband, who frankly sounds like a complete arse. Mothers in law seem to have been designed to think BFing is mad/bad/sad, I don't know why. I am fortunate in that DH supports me BFing DS to 2 years. His family all think that there is something perverted about BFing.

Your "friends" with babies who sleep like a dream are the ones who will learn when they have another one who doesn't. They aren't doing anything right, they aren't better mothers, it is pure luck of the draw.

My mum had three children. Her first slept "normally" - he would wake a couple of times a night until the age of about 6 months and then slept through 7-7 most nights. Her second was like your son, and like mine. She said if he had been her first he would have been an only child. He finally slept all night in his own bed when he was seven years old. Her third, me, slept through the night from birth. She did exactly the same things with all three babies, and she was a nurse so had a fair idea what she was doing.

Please stop giving yourself a hard time.

Oh, and as for your husband - your nine month old son "rules your life" because that's what babies do. Your son is completely dependent on his primary carer (that's you) and knows it too. He needs to command your total attention for survival.

I wish I had a more constructive suggestion to deal with your husband other than to tell him to grow a fucking pair of balls and stop behaving like a needy baby himself, but I'm afraid I don't have any...

georgimama-3 hours is NOT TYPICAL!! 1 1/2 hours, sometimes two is typical. Quite frankly, I think this is the right amount for him because any less and he falls down a lot and cries over nothing, any more and he just doesn't sleep. Difficult though, as if he has a bad night he is more tired so wants to sleep...etc.
As I think littleduck mentioned earlier, I suppose it is because I was a nanny and maternity nurse in RL that I feel like a failure as well. I have got loads of babies to sleep well. I'm sure I will be wishing he would get OUT of bed in a few years time.

My husband is a prize shit when it comes to this sort of thing. We are going to go to Relate in January (he finally agreed) and I have decided that if things do not change with him soon that he will have to go.

No fair enough, 1.5 hours is probably about right - what time of day does he have the nap though? DS cannot be allowed to sleep after lunch as otherwise he won't go to bed. He has to havehis nap late morning.

Turtledove, can I just hijack to ask what a maternity nurse actually is/does?
I have seen the phrase on here a lot and don';t know what it means!

Thanks

A maternity nurse comes in after you have had a baby and helps out 24 hours a day(although some do less.) More often than not (in MY OWN experience) the mums were FF and happy to let someone else do the tiring bits. Did have a few mums who BF and had baby brought to them. A PN doula is more there to support mum, Mat Nurse is there to look after baby more.

Georgimama-He's asleep right now. He usually has a sleep 2 hours after he gets up (45 mins) and at about 12(45 mins-hour.) He then doesn't sleep again until 630-730(usually 7.) Would ideally like to get him onto one good sleep, but he just isn't ready yet.

Turtledove, I wanted to say that I think we are being sold a myth about babies, but I guess that with your job you alrady know the reality.

The myth is that babies are cute and cuddly and fluffy aand that life with a baby is a rosy haze of walks in the park with the pram, coffee with a circle of slim, young and beautiful mums with their adorably cooing babies and being able to work full time/start your own charmingly baby-centered business between nappy changes.

The reality is that babies are messy, demanding and alien. How could they be otherwise? They are very new human beings struggling to understand/survive in the world, with no capability yet of empathising or taking their turn. (I love my dd totally, whatever that sounded like )

We are told 'they turn your life upside down', but the realiy is that they destroy life as you know it, they blow it apart and you are left to construct something new out of the pieces.

It sounds as if your dh has fallen for the myth and is blaming you for the reality. I really don't think it is the BF or the sleeping which is dragging you down, it is the adults around you. Where do you live? Surely there must be some MNs near you who are not smug liars have normal, demanding babies and could meet up with you?

Your MIL finding breast feeding disgusting is a sad symptom of her generation and needs ignoring (hard to do, I am sure).

I am not being judgemental. I have just realied that this post sounds as if I am saying that your situation is 'normal' and you should put up with it. I'm not. I am saying it is unacceptable and you may have to do things that you don't really think are ideal to survive it your the sake of your own survival, but it is NOT your fault.

turtle how are you today?

ah, thats the problem, being a nanny or a maternity nurse you don't know the reality cos they aren't yours!!
then you have a baby and you can't get your own baby to do the things you could get other peoples babies to do!

I've got good experience on this, it isn't the same, not even close