Support thread for those who were under the misguided illusion that their DC would sleep through by six mo - come and join!

[arthymum]

Did you assume that your DC would be sleeping through by the time they were 6 mo - and now you've hit the milestone you realise you were wrong, wrong, wrong as you stagger out of bed 1, 2, 3 times a night?

Do you sometimes can't help but wonder if you'd done things differently (BF/FF/stuck with the dreamfeed/co-slept/put them in their own cot/followed a GF routine/listened to your MIL ) you'd be getting more sleep?

Do you sometimes dread meeting up with other mums with perfect sleepers (especially when said babies are way younger and tinier than yours)?

Are you in a permanent state of confusion and doubt about whether to 'try' something or not (CC, ssh-patt, PUPD, NCSS etc.) but feel it's never the right time (teething, cold, too young) and not sure anyway whether you have the bottle/energy to see it through?

Do you hold out faint hopes that they'll sleep better when they're on solids/when the teeth come through/when they're another pound heavier/when they're in the new gro-bag/when they're on more solids - and each time - wrong again?

Do you mostly cope okay but every now and then feel tired and miserable and sorry for yourself and burst into tears at the postman or get into a petulant fight in Sainsbury's?

Do you secretly fear that you'll be on here in 3 years time, posting about the fact that you haven't slept for nearly 4 years?

Then come and join me! I've seen you lurking on other threads but feel that we need a place to congregate. Share your tears, tantrums, triumphs and tips - and hopefully one by one, we can all eventually disappear off the thread and into the land of nod....

hmm that's interesting wahwah - we put ds in his own room in his cot for the first night on Friday with the following results:

Friday night - asleep at 7pm - awake at 11pm for feed then inconsolable wailing and eventually we brought him in with us - and only one wake up til morning

Saturday night - asleep at 7pm - feed around 9.30pm, feed around 1am then inconsolable wailing and he's in with us or in his hammock which we left up in our bedroom

Sunday night - asleep at 7pm then fed at 8, 11, 1.30 and 3.30 then whinging til 5.30 (according to dp as I was sound asleep) and in with us, he fell asleep instantly!

not sure if this is a gradual process and he'll get used to his own room or if he will start to learn that wailing means he gets to come into mummy and daddy's bed

hmm I take it that the lack of activity on this thread is because all the babies are sleeping through?

Maybe people are having trouble typing with tightly crossed fingers

ds DID sleep through last night but I guarantee you it's one of his flukes and we'll have a few terrible nights along with some reasonable ones now...

Every 2 hours again here I'm sure it's his teeth, every time he woke up he was chewing furiously on anything within reach and the moment either of us put our hands on him to soothe, he grabbed them and shoved them into his mouth.

Glad to hear you got some sleep albs

Hurray albs - this might be our first sleeping through success story!

Things better here, waking for just one feed and last night I got nearly a six hour stretch of sleep (only happened once before since he was born). But, ssshhhh, can't talk about it for fear of jinxing everything...

Things slightly better here too. We consulted the sleep lady (I think I mentioned we were going to?) & she gave us some good advice. Here's some main ideas in case they work for any of you:

1. put DS in his cot at bedtime sleepy & awake. May seem obvious, but in our case he's been going down completely asleep (because of the bf). She recommended I feed him with a low light on, & then read him a little book (same one each night) & THEN put him to his cot so that he can learn to self settle.

2. She also said- no bringing him to our bed anymore, we need to be consistent with that. Instead, lots of sh-sh-sh-patting when he cries.

3. She also said that at 7 & a half months, & provided they're eating enough solids, he doesn't need the milk in the night. But miraculously, regardless of the sleep lady- once we cut out DS's dreamfeed 3-4 days ago, he just didn't wake for any further feeds So that's definitely something to consider doing if your LO is over 6 months.

4. We agreed for now that we're not ditching the dummy, because we dread doing that (it'll lead to hysterics I'm sure) but we may in fact ditch it 1-2 weeks down the line if things haven't improved.

Will keep you updated on how things go... I'm feeling slightly less optimistic & happy that we're doing something specific & proactive.

Just want to make one comment about something that Awen said. Awen, you recommended relaxing & accepting our particular babies. First, I don't see (at least in my case, I can't speak for others) how it's possible to relax with months of sleep deprivation. The only thing that even comes close to 'relaxing' me is steps I take in the direction of helping DS to sleep better. Second, while I agree that babies are different to each other, I also believe that parents can do a lot to help them sleep better. It's not just down to luck, 'good sleeper' versus 'bad sleeper' (although luck is certainly part of it as we all know)... Personally I've been trying many different things to help DS sleep better; some of them work, some don't. Lots of them are in fact from Gina Ford's books (by the way, she doesn't advocate 'cry it out' or any such thing, and in general she sees sleep training- e.g. CC- as the last resort, only to be used when all other things have been tried). Other ideas I've tried come from the NCSS. I've tried different things, I don't have prejudices. None of them have worked perfectly, but all together have led to huge improvements. The thing is, co-sleeping is good as long as it works for the particular family where it's happening. If it's not working & is just the easy answer to a bit more sleep (as was happening in our case), I can't see how that's a good solution for any family? It means parents are not taking control of the situation, or at least are not trying to take some control.

It's not about any holy grail of sleeping through- what does that mean anyway? I couldn't care less if babies in general 'sleep through' or whatever. What I care is that I get a good night's sleep after months & months of not sleeping. It's not about competitive parenting (as I said I couldn't care less if other babies sleep or don't sleep); it's about TIREDNESS....

(OOPS meant to say I'm feeling slightly MORE optimistic. Wonder why I wrote I'm slightly LESS optimistic... Months & months of not having much hope, probably!)

Hello to all you other sleep deprived parents out there!
My DD is two in a couple of weeks and has been going through a terrible patch for the last couple of weeks- waking every 2 hours. Partly due to teething but also due to the fact that, until we move, she and I are sharing a bedroom and disturb each other endlessly. I slept on the sofabed in the living room last night and she only woke at 1am and 5.45am, but the sofabed is dreadful and my back is so sore today, but at least DD is less grumpy...

maria i kind of disagree. I do think there are intrinsically good sleepers and bad sleepers. I've had one superb sleeper, and one not so superb and apart from the fact that ds is more bf than dd was (she was very mix fed from early on and off the boob at 5 months - ds has one ff at bedtime but the rest, night included are bf) we've done nothing different. I do think you can work on bad sleepers to try and foster better habits (though it works on some but not others) but.....

Feel free to flame me

Hello all glad to see from reading through some of you guys have experienced some sleep i sadly have not although the last two niht ds has slet from 7 till 8 then untill 1 then 4 then up to greet the world at six 5.30 this for us is pretty good
iwas wondering if anyone here had experience of siblings sharing a bedroom as my ds will eventually have to share with dd, 3 obviously not untill he sleeps alot lot better but how did you go about it and what age did you move the youngest from your room to the older siblings room how did you deal with lo waking and feeding ect.
oh and to any who read my previous post i chickened out of the gro bag and cc yes were still mudling through feeding him when he wakes and re wraping him everytime he stures

ALB- I don't disagree, to be honest. On the one hand, there are good sleepers. With those whatever you do- routine or no routine, demand feeding, co-sleeping, whatever, will probably work.

And then, on the other hand, there are....errrm, shall we say less good sleepers. Or pretty horrible sleepers. Or appalling sleepers. Whatever we want to call them. With those, I think, it does make a huge difference what parents do to help them learn to self settle etc. Am talking from my own experience- our DS has gone from a waking-every-1-2-hours boy to being able to sleep basically long stretches (he does backtrack though, so it's an ongoing project). I strongly believe that if we had done nothing (when he was about 4-5 months) to help him along, he would still be waking every 1-2 hours, and he would also be very hard to settle. I can't really prove this, but I do believe it, because I see in him both potentials, the potential to sleep well, and the potential to be completely unsettled. So it's really which direction we want to encourage, iyswIm. I've seen kids that are 2-3-4 years old & are still not sleeping well. It does happen (as we know very well from this thread)- it even happens when parents have done all they can to help things along. Which is why I'm all for trying whatever works. There's no harm in trying in any case. What's the worse that can happen. You can fail & be at the starting point of no sleep again

My issue is I know ds CAN sleep all night. From 2 months he did it maybe 4 out of 7 nights each week, then from 3 months every night for exactly a month. Since then maybe 6 sleep throughs. And i have no idea what makes hims sleep, nothing I can pin point to say that's why he wakes/can't self soothe etc etc. ARGH.

Dd on the other hand only ever woke once a night from birth and from 7 weeks slept through. The odd blip as she got older (and sometimes now, aged almost 6, she can be a nightmare - insomnia, needing water, covers tucked in, but hey, she slept as a baby )

So Maria have you started implementing her recommendations yet? I'd be especially interested to hear how the not BF-ing to sleep part goes. I put DS down wide awake for his naps and semi-awake at night-feeds but his bedtime feed almost always knocks him out. Have been trying to put him down awake but even if he is, he's practically asleep (ie rolls over and goes straight out). I just haven't quite got the bottle yet to break up the routine entirely with, as Sleep Lady says, a book or something.

Anyway, hope it all starts making a difference.

we have started plan Z - which is that dp will do the settling and if that fails (after a reasonable amount of time), I will feed him or we will bring him into our bed as he seems quite upset to be in his own room when he wakes in the night.

the trouble with dp settling ds is that he has no patience, 5 mins of crying sounds like an hour to him, he is very keen on using the dummy all the time and he cannot distinguish between hungry/tired/something's wrong cries.. but I'm hoping to get more sleep . We hope that because dp is settling, ds will realise there is no food in the offing and go back to sleep quickly. I did feed him at 11pm and then once more - a big improvement on the 5 times the previous 2 nights.

Sambo: sounds like there's an improvement! that's great. Particularly good that your DP has taken over. I think he'll gradually learn how to settle the baby; the thing is (and I have the same issue) we don't necessarily trust them to 'do it right' & then they don't actually have to make the effort to try out different things, because they know 'mummy will solve the problem'. Last night DP settled DS at 11 pm, with a lot of sh-sh-sh-ing & patting & our 'code sleepy word' (!!!!!) which is 'sleep!' (how original!) He managed to settle DS & was so proud. The night before he hadn't managed, & I had to go in. But I'm making a very conscious effort to let DP deal with most of the night wakings, not only does it help me () but also it helps DP to build his confidence with looking after DS.

AF: last night we tried our new routine (i.e. feed with light on, & book after). It went ok, DS settled easily & was more aware of his surroundings. We're now working on 2 things: Keeping in his cot permanently (no middle of the night trips to our bed) & cutting out night feeds. So we offer one bottle, between 7-7, when he wants it (last night it was 3.20 am) & we're diluting it. In a week's time that'll be done, & then we'll just use 'sh-sh-sh' and patting to settle him, & hopefully he'll drink more milk for breakfast. I'm discouraged though by the dummy situation which still persists as an important issue, but one thing at a time...

It all sounds very clinical & organized, especially when I compare to DS sleeping in our bed all these months & breastfeeding all night, but I feel that at 7 & a half months it's a good time to help him learn to sleep a bit more independently. And- equally importantly- our tiredness has reached a level that we just can't ignore it anymore, we have to do something. So far though the plan seems to be going relatively ok, we had 1 waking last night at 11 pm (lots of crying for about 10 mins, DP settled him). Then one waking at 2 am (dummy replug). Then one waking at 3.00 for the milk. Then he was up at 6.00 am for the day ()... Not horrible, but we do have a long way to go still...

Sambo and Maria - sounds like there's some improvement for you - excellent news. I do think DPs doing the settling is the only way forward. Mine is very good at it but at the moment he only does it before 1am, partly because he has to work long hours at the mo and partly because until DS is on three good meals a day, I think he might still need a feed. But in a month or so's time, we have agreed that we (DP that is!) might need to bite the bullet.

I think we had a return of The Teeth last night as we were back up to three wakings. DP settled him at 11 and I fed him at 1 and 5. Both feeds were short and quite obviously for comfort. I think that's our problem. When he's not teething, he only tends to wake up once. But I'm going to find it hard to cut out the milk feeds when I decide to because that's the only way I've ever comforted him when he's really upset/in pain. Obviously throughout his childhood he will wake because of these reasons and I can't just shove my nipple in his mouth forever but how to make the transition with minimal distress for all?

Maria and sambo those sound like much improved nights Very encouraging.

Am still quite amazed by last night - DS slept from 7.30pm all the way through to 3am without any rousing at all I don't think he's ever done that before. He had managed quite a lot of sleep during the day, had savoury flapjacks for tea (slow release carbs) and I put him down awake and sang him a song with my hand on his chest, thus allowing him to drift off on his own...wonder if any of that made a difference or if it was just a random fluke?

Guess we'll find out tonight!

Maria - I saw from your other thread that it was Andrea Grace you used - just checked out her website and it's really good, isn't it? Some great tips and food for thought. Maybe I will brave the little book after the bedtime BF tonight...yikes...

can i join the ranks of the sleep deprived? we are mostly happy co-sleepers but a terrible night last night - and you know how one bad night can make you think you're doing everything wrong?

at the mo i am very slack - my 6 month old naps on my lap or in the sling, stays in with us in the evenings asleep on one of us, and goes to bed when we do. i like it, most of the time. but at 5 this morning i was determined to start a proper sleep regime with naps in cot, putting down awake etc.

now i am up and about (and we both slept in ), things don't seem so bad. the times i've tried to be more organised/disciplined it just stresses me out.

i don't mind the night feedings and stuff, just don't like having to get out of bed. fingers crossed for a better night tonight...

very very very tired have been awake since 11pm ds just didnt want to sleep very unsettled didnt evan want to feed or sleep with me, today does not look good no naps lokking after 3yr old dd feel for me pls

Oh mothersmilk, poor you. That is a bad night. Is he teething or something? Hope you get through today okay - get yourself to bed as early as you can tonight.

possibly teeth though not realy sure lukily dh and i went to bed at 8.30 last last night so we did get some sleep will do the same again tonight me thinks
i just hope everyone elses lo are being better behaved than mine

Urg, hope you're making it through the day okay mothersmilk.

More shock nap news: I put DS down for his morning nap today and he slept for an hour and a half Do I dare to hope that he is moving in the right direction? Last night was back to business as usual re. 3 hourly wake ups but he didn't have tea...won't be skipping that tonight, am intrigued as to whether it is actually making a difference.