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....

me to [the whole food thing] a little worried as ds hasnt eaten today yet due to naps obviously he's had bf and abit of bannana but nothing else mothersmilk very worried about tonight

So the good news here is less night feeds. The bad news is that they've been replaced by an insatiable desire to party and then get up at 5.30.

Gah.

goodness mothersmilk hope you managed some shut eye last night.

we had a breakthrough last night (well, hopefully not a one off event)

ds actually woke up this morning In His Own Bed !!! for the first time since moving to his own room last Friday.

The last 3 nights dp has attempted to settle ds and this seems to have broken the 9pm wake up, now he only wakes at 10 or 11 pm for a feed. Then on the last 2 nights, he's woken around 2am and dp has tried to settle him but I have eventually had to feed him. Last night I fed him in his room (after trying to get him to sleep for about 45 mins without feeding) then popped him back in his cot, he fell instantly asleep and that was that for the night . Ds was happily playing with his blanket when dp went in this morning at 6.30am. Hope this continues.

I have a shocking development to announce.

DS has slept

THROUGH THE NIGHT

x 1 million

Okay, so actually it was 11.15pm-7am but I genuinely think he would have gone 7-7 had DP not accidentally woken him up with a mammoth sneeze I'm now certain that having 3 meals a day helps...last night he had lentil patties, roast sweet potato and rice pud for tea, this morning we are all bright eyed and bushy tailed

congrats to bothe cyteen and sambo well done long may it continue
my night much better only woke 4 times (yes thats a good night) and went strait back to sleep still feel shattered this morning though oh well babysteps i suppose
now wondering that maybe expecting a six month old to sleep through is asking a bit to much?

Well it does seem as if things are going better!!

Congrats to Sambo & Cyteen (Cyteen, fingers crossed & recrossed & crossed again that this pattern will continue! I had to laugh btw about the mammoth sneeze that woke LO up!!)

Things not so great here. After a reasonable night, DS woke at 5 am & wouldn't settle back to sleep. After lots of sh-sh-shing & patting he finally slept around 5.45, until 7.15. I feel knackered once again. Nothing new there!

Cyteen and Sambo - great progress! Hope it continues. And hope it's contagious.

I'm starting to actually feel ill from lack of sleep now. I've spent today doing stupid things like leave my bank card in a supermarket. I attempted to go out this afternoon but everything seemed to go wrong and I ended up just bursting into tears and going home. Hopefully DS is about to go for a nap and I can do the same.

Artifacti, I'm the same. Lots and lots of sympathy. It's no wonder broken sleep is a classic form of torture. It causes depression, absent-mindedness, extreme tiredness & other nice things like that Please try to get as much rest as you can, whenever you can get it! Is there any family member around that can do a bit of babysitting so that you can rest? Or a good friend? It really is important that you get some rest, especially if you've started being absent-minded because of the tiredness. I'm the same & I've actually had our babysitter stay more hours today (she usually stays 4 hours twice a week) just so that I can take a nap. (Instead I'm here MN-ing, but that's another story ).

Hi, we've been away, so just catching up now. Cyteen and Sambo, that's fantastic, I'm always delighted to hear about babies sleeping better, because then I think that mine can do it as well - eventually.

Our routine, for what it was, got totally messed up while we were away, and we've had cold since we got back. I am knackered, so can't even keep track of the night time wake ups at present, but have been feeding a lot through the night. Back to knocking that on the head again I think. Of course during the day I am resolved, but in the middle of the night when I can barely think or keep my eyes open, the easy options are to either feed DS or bring him into bed...

Artifarti, really hope you are getting a nap this afternoon. Maria, go and SLEEP woman, for goodness sakes!

Welcome back Whinegums - from the puree thread, sounds like you had a great time. Mmmmm, tapas...

All plans for napping went very wrong. DS is teething horrendously and was just screaming with pain. Tried snuggling up in bed with him and he nearly fell asleep a couple of times but then next door's builders kept waking him up [irrationally angry emoticon] Eventually BF him to sleep on the sofa and watched crap TV. He was happier when he woke and I was somewhat happier after I'd eaten the best part of a large bar of Green & Blacks. Don't have a good feeling about tonight, suspect that Calpol and me as a human dummy will be the order of things...never mind.

Maria hope you got a nap and that things improve tonight. Will give you a wave at 5.30 tomorrow morning just in case you're up too!

am jealous at these babies sleeping thru.

dd is getting worse now she only sleeps on me

arghhhhhhh how do i break this

Hi! Can I join you? My ds is 8 months old. He was doing GREAT at about 4 months falling asleep alone in his own bed and only waking once or twice in the night. I'm not entirely sure where it all went wrong, but I can no longer count how many times he wakes up at night. He will only fall asleep/back to sleep bfing, often for 30 mins or more before he settles down. He is now permanently in our bed & there's no way to get him out. If I try to move him once he's asleep he wakes up and is up for an hour or more. I feel bad & guilty like I've messed my kid up by not teaching him how to sleep.
My friend has a four month old who sleeps from 7-6 with one waking at 10pm (SHE wakes him to feed him) SUPER JEALOUS!!!!!

cosmic dust I think the fact that you posted at 3am means you are eligible to join our thread! I think Sambo has recently had some success at getting her DS to sleep in his cot so maybe she has some hot tips...

How is everyone today? DS slept until 4am but then decided the day was to start at 5.40 . Can't have everything I suppose. What do others do if their DC wants to get up super-early? I have been getting up and starting the day but wonder if I'm just reinforcing a(nother) bad habit?

That's progress of a sort artifarti My DS decided to hold an all night pooing festival so fun and games were had around midnight, but after that he slept through till 7am in our bed Didn't mean for that to happen - was just trying to get him off to sleep and fell asleep myself - but never mind, fortunately DS doesn't seem to mind sleeping in his cot so the odd night in with us is something I enjoy.

hi, can I join in!
My DD is beautiful, gorgeous, cute, fantastic.... but not a good sleeper. She is nearly 6 months and I was hoping that she would be one of the ones who had read the book and started sleeping through at 6 months. I have 9 days to wait to find out. She has slept through 6 times and counting. The first 5 times were a long long time ago, the sixth was last week. And did I have a great nights sleep??? NO. my DH chose that night to wake me up 3 times to tell me about his bad dreams! I could have killed him.
So 9 days and counting... I see from this thread that it may not happen, but im sure my clever little girl will sleep 12 hours from next monday, no doubts at all (can you hear the perfect mix of dillusions, sarcasm and wishful thinking in my voice????)
x

Oh God, the title of this thread says it all! DD now 6 months and 1 week, she hasn't slept without waking me about 8 times since before Xmas, she was soooooo good when she was younger, then she hit 4 months and it went horribly t*ts up!

Things not going well here. DS is ill atm, has a high fever. So he slept in our bed for the last 2 nights & we kept waking to check his fever etc. All sleep training of any kind out of the window atm...

Sorry to hear that, Maria - hope your LO perks up soon and gets well. It's so horrid when they're poorly, you just want to scoop them up and make it all go away.

We had a good night on Saturday night with a record 10.5 hours. But last night The Teeth were back again, poor little thing, and so we are all bleary-eyed again this morning (well, except him, who has been napping for nearly two hours now, having decided to start the day at 5.40 again.)

Oh BTW Maria - your tip about not feeding to sleep at bedtime and looking at a picture book seems to be helping him to self-settle in the night, so thank you - and I hope when DS is better, you can get back on track and get some of that elusive sleep.

The last two nights for us have been back to two wake ups which is still really not a problem - interestingly, they've been midnight and 4am both times, whereas previously he tended to wake at 11pm and 3am...not sure what this means, if anything, but it's nice not to feel like death all the time.

Will be interested to see what happens after this weekend - I am off to a hen weekend so DS will be in DP's care for two nights. I have suggested that instead of doing things 'my' way round at bedtime, i.e. bath then feed then bed, DP might try feed then bath then storytime/songs and bed. I know DS finds the evening breastfeed comforting and taking a bottle isn't quite the same so having a different routine for Daddy makes sense, I think. I've been wanting to change the routine around so it's feed-bath-bed anyway but haven't had the nerve. Part of me is hoping DS will prefer it this way and want to carry on doing it after the weekend!

ok down in the dumpd again s is getting worse now wakink as early as 9 i put him down at7 he's waking every 2 hours sometimes more i dont know what to do but something has to give im quite happy to do cc as it worked for dd but keep putting it off because i know how strong willed he is and he is still in our room ans i dont want to move him yet as he will have to shar with his sister so i was going to wait untill sleeping through was regular enough to risk it also i have dss sleep round in week aswell and he's always been easily disturbed even thiugh he's 9 so im at aloss as what to do any ideas? i just know i cant carry on

mothersmilk my ds also used to wake at 9pm after going to bed at 7. Now if he wakes between 7 and around 11ish, dp goes to settle him with his dummy and he has stopped waking at 9 now - I think he realises there's no chance of bf at that time so no point waking up.

ds is still in his own room all through the night His sleep pattern has changed, he;s now going 3.5 to 4.5 (and once 6.5) hours on the trot. This means I go in to feed him between 11 and midnight then between 3.30 and 4.30. Interestingly the last few days his daytime naps have changed - he used to have 3 or 4 naps lasting about 50 mins to 1 hour. Now he's having a 2 to 2.5 hour nap around midday. He's also started teething and last night I had to give him calpol as teetha powders did not calm him. We are freely using the dummy (sorry maria ) during the early part of the night cos I refuse to feed him before 11pm. We are blw and I'm hoping as his food intake increases, the night feeds will drop off (hopeful emoticon)

sambo i used to settle with a dummy the same as you but like my dd my ds has decided at 6 months he no longer likes it great i knoe but not at all good for my sleep dh and i are noe thinking were just going to have to camp it out down stairs wilst he's in our room and do cc wish me luck

Is it just me or is anyone else's DC getting up at daft o'clock every morning? 5.15 this morning. Oof.

Hi, can I join? Baby is 4.5 months, and wakes up anything between to times at night.
he used to fall asleep at pm on the dot but for some reasons (maybe bc BIL was home for a week) he just doesnt anymore. also doesnt soothe himself back to sleep in his cot so end up in our bed most every nights.

The plan is to stick to the routine until he is 6 months and then try CC at the last resort.
id love to try to give him a bottle of formula last thing at night but he wont take the bottle...

help!!!