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....

I saw the thread title and just had tyo come in to laugh.
SLeeping throgh is overrated in my very expert opinion on these matters

Have just sat down and read all 15 pages of this thread (phew) and now realise that my previous post sounded pretty smug when I said this year I had had one week of DD sleeping through every night!

I hope that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me and let me join this thread as my friends have babies that sleep through (yes I know )and they are getting sick and tired (no pun intended) of me moaning to them about lack of sleep.

My history - DD is 17 months and was an OK sleeper up till 10 months old then got a bad cold and stopped sucking her fingers overnight and since then been a poor sleeper and in habit of waking 2am to 3.30am (or since clocks went forward 3am to 4.30am). Have tried so many things to get her to settle / sleep through that I have lost count. Came across this thread and it has given me comfort that I am not alone in this (but some posts also scared living daylights out of me i.e. not to expect sleep till she is at least 3 yrs!)

About to hit the sack and keeping fingers and toes crossed for a good nights kip.

Hi Iggleonk - we forgive you

Your situation sounds very annoying - especially when you know that she can sleep through okay. What kind of things have you tried (CC? Wake to sleep? etc.) Hope you had a good night last night.

My friend has a BF DS three months younger than mine who has been sleeping for 10 hours+ since he was about 8 weeks. I love my friend and she's never smug but sometimes I am Our situation isn't even that bad, probably fairly typical of a BF 7 month old - but sometimes a good moan helps to ease away the weariness - so welcome and moan away!

Ah, but arti, doesn't that mean your friend is about to hit the 4 month sleep regression?

Cyteen - hehehehehehehehehe [evil laughing emoticon]...

Tried it all except wake to sleep because I just can't get my head round waking a sleeping baby! That just seems so wrong - does wake to sleep really work? Has anyone tried it?

Been away for a few days so all sleep training went out the window and when she woke we just brought her into our bed. However we are home now so trying CC plus limiting lunchtime nap to 90 mins.

She loves lunchtime nap so much that she could quite easily have 3 hours but I think this is doing us no favours at 3am. So yesterday I woke her after 90 mins. (Realised I have just contra dictated myself about waking a sleeping baby! somehow during the day it doesn't seem difficult but to wake her at 2am just seems crazy!)

Then last night put her in cot at 7.30pm and she was awake till 9.15pm! Not crying just chit chatting so we left her and she slept through till 6.30am! Yee hah.

However won't count my chickens as one good night means nothing as I have come to learn...

Iggleonk - Here's hoping for you that last night may have broken the pattern.

Well done littleOnk Long may it continue.

I have gone back to basics with the nap situation, i.e. sod napping in the cot, do whatever works. So this morning DS has had over an hour lying next to me in bed and then about an hour and a half in the carseat on the living room floor (the rocking motion seems to be key). Still rubbing his eyes now though but overall we're both much happier.

Hi, I've just seen this topic and I think I definitely qualify in having a moan... I have a 3 year old son that has never slept through the night and I also have a 15 month old daughter and she also has never slept through. My son will wake once or twice on a good night and my daughter currently wakes about 5 or 6 times!! So after 3 years of never having had a nights sleep, any suggestions would be gratefully received!

Happy Easter everyone! My, it's quiet on here these days - does everyone have lovely sleepy babies now?

vodkaandcoke - oof, two of them waking up so much makes my nights look like a fairytale land of nod. Not sure how great we are for tips on this thread (or we wouldn't all be on the thread IYSWIM!) but feel free to come and moan whenever you feel the need.

Artifarti - thanks for the optimisim of thinking we might have broken the pattern! Sadly last night proved that was not the case and DD was up from 2am till 3am. Mind you she was not doing the usual standing up in the cot yelling so maybe we have turned a small corner. Will keep you posted with any progress tonight!

Think maybe everyone has disappeared for Easter?

Iggleonk - how peculiar that she always chooses that time! Is there anything happening that could be waking her - heating coming on or off/neighbour coming back from shift/red arrows secret practice? I know what you mean about waking a sleeping baby, it just seems so wrong - I'm sure if I woke DS up, it would take hours to settle him. But maybe it would break the pattern. It's a big risk...!

We have settled into a nice one here at the moment - sleep from 7.15ish until somewhere between 3 and 4.30 and a ten minute feed and he's back down until 6 or 7. Some observations about DS and sleep are:

Length of and number of naps makes no difference to DS's night-time sleep
Late naps make no difference to DS's night-time sleep
Feeding to sleep or not makes no difference to DS's night-time sleep
Hot or cold room makes no difference to DS's night-time sleep
Having a cold makes no difference to DS's night-time sleep (well, it actually improved it - we got a ten hour stretch that night!)

The only things that determine a good night or not for DS seem to be: teeth, hunger, habit and too many vegetables for supper (=big poo at 4am!) Oh and letting him sleep too long in the mornings which means he wants to get up at 5.30.

So there we go. I might set myself up as a sleep guru now. [don't give up the dayjob emoticon]

Hello Sleepless Ones.

I bring some small hope...

I posted on here in early March. My then 13 month old had never once slept through and typically woke 3-6 times a night.

However,for last 3 weeks or so she has

sparky thanks for those uplifting words

quite a horrific week so far - teeth grrrr

ds up crying about 6 times between 11pm and 7am. Nice.

Sparky - hurray for you and yours I like it when people come back and give us hope. Long may it continue.

Simnel - oh, you have my sympathy for the teeth. We have a temporary abatement here (although bizarrely only at night, during the day he's a dribbly bitey misery, poor thing). Have you tried baby nurofen? We found it the only thing that hits the spot at night. Apparently raising the head of the cot (if he is in one) is meant to help too, relieving the pressure I think.

Sweet dreams everyone.

Fellow mothers of sleep-dodging babies, I have an announcement to make...

[drum-roll, please]

[artifarti waits for the excitement and anticipation to build to fever pitch]

[more drum-rolls...]

DS SLEPT FROM 7.15PM UNTIL 6.00AM!!!!!!!!

(well, okay, he had a little shout/chunter for 10 minutes at 2.15 but still...no boob, medicines or shushing were required)

WOO-HOO!

(Obviously, it won't happen again for months but still...)

fab news arti, I do have hope that one day it will happen here too. Last night not too bad - awake at 11.30pm and tried dummy twice, then calgel then boob. Slept til 3.54am, fed and brought into me out of laziness cos I wanted to lie down to feed. Then up at 7 ish. I am dog tired now as stayed up late [stoopid emoticon]

I've tried wake to sleep Iggleonk, just a couple of times with.. er.. limited success (I have posted here a few weeks ago and DD is still waking through the night, but she's better than she was: ie waking every 3-4 hours- or even sometimes 5-6 hours- instead of every 1-2 hours.)

As far as I understand it, you don't fully wake your DC, just do enough to rouse them slightly and they fall back to sleep without ever becoming fully conscious. You might re-plug their dummy or rub their tummy or back a bit. I tried this with DD's naps which were only 30 minutes long.

On the first attempt, I went in about 10 mins before she was due to wake up and replugged dummy and rubbed her tummy. In retrospect I must have been too rough because she woke fully about 2 mins later - hmmmm.

Second attempt- re-plugged dummy only. DD rolled over and sighed. She slept for another hour and her naps have improved since (not sure whether to attribute this to one wake to sleep episode though).

Third attempt (as DD now habitually wakes around 5am. I woke up at 4.20 and thought I'd try it since I was up!) Went in, replugged dummy, but it fell out immediately. I crept out, mindful of my unsuccessful first attempt. She woke up at 5am. Bah.

So, it seems to me that it's quite tricky to get this right, but I suspect that if you're consistent and careful (and willing to haul yourself out of bed even more than you are now) it might just work. My problem is that I'm too tired to make the effort, sadly. Hey ho.

[MS looks at watch and realises she has squandered valuable sleep time on mumsnet...again Off to bed]

Hi, I posted on here a few weeks ago when dd was a week off 6 months! I was all full of hope and dellusions of good nights sleep! And I had a glimmer of it. At 6 months she had a week of sleeping 7-5 then feed then few more hours and even 3 nights of 7-7. Bliss!!!!! but it was not to last. She is back to waking at least twice which doesnt sound bad but she is wide awake and it takes ages to get her back to sleep. I am trying not to feed her at night but eventually give in and feed her (just to settle her as she is not particularly hungry and only has 2-3 oz but drops off immediately) or we bring her in our bed- again which settles her immediately. I am going to get tough next week! we wil see.......

Gosh, glad someone has posted - thought I had killed the thread with extreme smugness.

nicnic01 - she's given you hope, that's good! Is she trying to roll over, sit up, crawl etc. at the moment? Or teething? All these things make my DS a bit bonkers in the sleep/nap department.

Hello all, this has dropped off my threads since being away over Easter and not having time to catch up properly. Sleep went totally to pot while we were away, and we've had a few bad nights since getting home. However, last night was pretty good (for us). DS went down about 7.15, lay awake for a bit, and then went off himself - until 10.30pm! This is the longest he's ever slept in this slot - although his breathing monitor went off once, which freaked me out. He'd flipped onto his stomach and was on his hands and knees which presumably meant his movements weren't making enough impact to trigger the sensor.

Anyway, I fed him when he woke, he normally has a feed then, and he wouldn't settle back in his cot, so he came into bed, woke at 4am, fed, then woke a few times between then and 7.30 when we got up. This is a huge improvement for us!

I have been putting him in a lightweight grobag and into his cot for afternoon naps when we're home, but I don't know if this has made any difference. Also, he's very active and mobile now, and is eating tons. (I have changed four, yes four, dirty nappies this morning, the little crapmeister that he is...).

Arti, how are you getting on now?

[Arti whispers in a quiet, grateful and not at all smug way]

Four nights without him wanting a feed. Two he slept straight through, one needed some tooth medicine and a quick cuddle and one a 10-min shush from Daddy. I am not counting any chickens...

Glad things are improving for you, Whinegums (and sorry for stealing your rice pud thunder, haha!) BTW, I love the pics of your little fella - he is the spitting image of my DS when he was a couple of days old, they could be twins - very handsome .

good point artifarti. she has been sitting for a while but She is desperately trying to crawl and roll and sit from lying. She literally never stops during the day other than her naps which are fairly trouble free. Maybe all the movement is to blame but then I suppose that doesnt give us much hope as I guess she is going to be developing at a huge rate for quite some time! 18 years or so!
last night wasnt too bad. She woke at 10, 11 12, 4(feed), 7. Sounds bad but she settled quiickly with very little help from me which is better for me. lets see what tonight brings.

Arti, excellent news, good for you - long may it continue. I must post some new pics of the pygmy - I don't know how I ended up with such a cute baby. BTW, you remind me very much of a friend of mine who recently had a baby called Arthur... Now wouldn't that be strange...

Good luck to everyone for some decent weekend sleep.

Afternoon - thought I was suitably sleep deprived to join.

DD is 7.5 months, she can sleep through the night, but she doesn't.
She will have one good night - say wake at 10ish then sleep on till morning, then two wake ups for a couple of nights, then three for a couple of nights.

Currently hovering between two and three wake ups per night with a sprinkling of not settling after waking up at 4 / 5ish.
I am getting to see some beautiful sunrises.

Virtually no daytime sleep for the last couple of days either.
Everyone except the cat is frazzled.
The cat sleeps through