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....

Hello! cheating a bit cos I haven't graduated from the 4/5mth thread but I just wanted to say WOW hammy!! I'm struggling with one LO and keeping the house clean but with two and working f/t...hope it gets better quickly! That sounds so lame but I really do mean it.

Hammy - big hug and hypothetical large mug of tea coming from me on this too.

Sleep deprivation is awful and a few good nights has made me realise how gloomy I was feeling because of it and I'm not even back at work yet. As you say, though, plans can't really work when dc is poorly so I do hope it is shortlived and you can get back on 'the programme'.

By the way, I ended up using cc on dd2 several years ago and it worked: he wouldn't take a subtle hint that he had to learn to sleep all night! It's up my sleeve if dd reverts

As for the joys of bathroom cleaning, have you thought of getting someone round for an hour a week to keep on top of that? It's the one thing I'd have done differently when my eldest two were tiny - you just can't get near a bottle of bleach with LOs around and I had the grouting to prove it

Marmoset - I have thought of the idea of getting someone to literally just scrub my bathroom once a week as it seems thats the one room I really have trouble getting to and my 2 yr old thinks its fun to help mummy with water...

Well, after 30 mins of controlled crying/screaming as my dd settled last night she finally went to sleep. I did the gradual cc where I went in after 2 mins, then 4 then 6 etc and by the time I got to 10 mins she'd exhausted herself.
However she is still getting over her cold so she was a bit of a snotty mess bless her, I had to keep wiping her nose every time I went in
But she slept until 11.30pm so that was good in itself.
But she would not settle back to sleep and after 20 mins of me trying to cc my dh shouted at me to bring her into our bed as he has got a 14 hour day to work today and he needs his sleep.
Felt like all the work I'd done was pointless as I know I can see this through but my poor dh was so tired last night...what can you do?
Hopefully she'll sleep better this weekend with the illnesses passing so fingers crossed and fingers crossed everyone else gets good nights sleep this weekend!

Hammy - been there! We bought ear plugs from Boots for dh and they worked a treat. You know that you need a clear run at this but dhs aren't always so long term!

We had a bit of an up and down night last night too as dd hadn't pooed all day and so had a grippy tum - think of me and the explosive nappy I'll be getting at some point today....

There's something to look forward to...exploding bottom!!
Ear plugs... will suggest them to him, thanks marmoset!!

Yup - it was a cracker all right!

Have a peaceful weekend all

Can anyone remind me what is the oatibix/sweet potato magic formula for a good night's sleep? Is it 'put oatibix and sweet potato on a plate and serve' or part of a more complicated recipe? My LO has regressed back to 1 or 2 night wakings. Grr.

On a related point, my Baby Einstein DVD (Baby Van Gogh) features the amusing line "If I start to feel blue, I throw some happy in my stew..." What an excellent idea, does anyone have a (legal) source?

i assumed my ds would be sleeping thru by now... at, erm, 16 months

but nope

Hey treehugga . For us, sweet potato only seemed to result in a giant poo at 4am, so I abandoned that idea pretty quickly! DS has half an Oatibix for his 'pudding' at supper-time made into a horrid sludgy porridge with milk and a bit of fruit puree if I'm feeling generous/inspired. I have no idea if it bears any relation to his sleep whatsoever but he likes it and I daren't stop now!

If you'd ever tasted my mum's stew, it would have quickly disabused you of the notion that there was any happiness to be gained therein...

Hello all. Remind me, did I say that my sleep plan was working? Let me rephrase that - my sleep plan was working but has hit a snag. Had two okayish nights this week but dd pulled an all nighter (up, not down) just to scare me......She wins, I'm scared.

Proof of trauma: the next day, I took out a packet of crisps from the cupboard, ate them, put the bag in the bin and made a cup of tea. I then wondered where my crisps had gone. Stumped by their disappearance, i went to the cupboard and got another bag out and ate those. Only when I put that second bag in the bin did I realise what I'd done. Only 3m before I go back to work. Hope my poor sleep deprived brain can recover.

Sleep tight everyone - esp pudding!

Can I reserve a place on this thread? DC number 2 is due in 3 months time and if anything like ds, I will be posting for quite a while

Hello ladies,

May I join? Have 6 month DS. I vaguely remember the days when he used to wake once for a feed. Then he started to feed twice in the night...fair enough I thought, poor little thing must be hungry. Now it is at least three times. Am aware this is not worst sleep problem but has still reduced me to blithering sleep deprived idiot. Am exasperated because we used to have proper feeds in middle of night, now it is sometimes just a minute or two and then back to sleep. He used to self settle but this is a thing of the past too. Trouble is a few weeks ago we had an issue with slow weight gain (badly handled by HV in my opinion) and so I took every oppportunity to feed at night so in a sense I have created this situation. Am now scared not to feed incase weight drifts again (is all much better now)but we had a worrying new development yesterday...totally refusing most daytime feeds (no thanks, mummy, everything is far too interesting, I'll just feed at night if it's ok with you.) AHhhhh! What do I do? Am not looking for a full nights sleep, just a longer stretch at some point at night.

Argggh, back again. I was sooo happy when DD turned 4 1/2 months when she suddenly started sleeping through, i mean it, don't hurt me but from 7 till 6 - so much so I too on a part time evening job....but here we are at 7 1/2 months and she's back to waking 3/4 or 5 times a night, restless evenings, the works. Don't know it if's teething, she's had a stuffy nose which may be teething, does the only way forward back to sleep mean ending bf and cc? Please no!

Hello new and old alike! Well, if any of you were holding my DS up as a shining beacon of light at the end of the tunnel - don't! He is now waking at silly o'clock i.e. before 5am. Not sure if it's a hunger/teething/developmental thing but it's horrid. Hey-ho.

Marmoset poor you but lol at your crisps episode. Are you sure you 'forgot' you'd eaten one packet already?!

albr My DS also went though a 'I don't want daytime feeds' phase at six months. It did pass eventually but was frustrating/upsetting/annoying. He also had a weight gain problem just before but once we started weaning him that sorted itself out (I know that I'm not supposed to say that on MN but 'twas true...) Hang on in there - he might be having a little growth spurt?

tenacity - aahhh, you have a sneaky baby too, lulling you into a false sense of security. Teeth are the pits IME. Have you tried tilting the bed a bit, it might ease the pressure.

Repeat after me, everyone - this too shall pass, this too shall pass...

artifarti - it shall pass, it shall pass ....but I may be the size of a Ford Fiesta by the time it does..

hello? DD's just reached 6 months and I was wondering if I could sneak in from the 4/5 month thread? [touches all the wood in the house] she's only waking 2/3 times a night at the mo as opposed to the 9/10 times 6 weeks ago but I was told by several people that 16 weeks was the 'sleeping through milestone'. I hung onto that beacon in the darkness til about 20 weeks then realised that it was all a load of tosh She's just finished a feeding frenzy that lasted a week and now she wakes up but only feeds for about 5 mins so I'm trying to decide whether she actually needs it or whether she just wakes up and is checking that I haven't gone anywhere.
So...room for one more?

Absolutely!

Welcome Chulita - sorry you have to be here! Help yourself to some Proplus a cuppa. I am a graduate of that thread too, won't tell you how long ago though, hahaha...

9/10 times a night - wow, how are you even still alive. I thought that 16 weeks was one of the worst sleep periods for babies?! Several of my friends' little darlings who had slept through from week 6 all went mad around that time.

Shortly before he started sleeping through until 6am (oh, that halcyon period of 6 weeks!) DS was doing the 5 minute feed thing. He sort of dropped them of his own accord after a few weeks.

Anyway, hope you don't have to stay around long.

marmoset - I have just put the Oatibix back in the fridge and the milk in the cupboard...

Hi, my 6mo DD wakes 2 or 3 times a night... I just thought that was normal, it's the best she's ever been! We used to have hourly wakings all night.

She goes down between 7 and 8, wakes about an hour later, sleeps til about 12 then is up again at 2 ish and 4 ish, then up for the day around 7.30.

I do feed her to sleep though . Any tips?

pookamoo - [whispers so as not to scare people] - I think it is fairly average to be honest. Some people have wonderful babies that sleep through early and some people have nightmares (I can say that because I was one apparently!) that don't sleep through for years. Most seem to sort things out somewhere between 6 months and a year (this is from a very unscientific straw-poll of my friends!) This thread exists for people to come and have a good moan when the lack of sleep starts to get to them.

I'm not now convinced that the feeding to sleep thing makes a lot of difference, if it's just last thing at night and for night-wakenings. But lots would disagree with me. We managed to break the link by getting DS to look at a little picture book after the feed. TBH, I don't bother anymore...

Thanks artifarti At long last I am normal!
I have been there with the lack of sleep and no doubt I will be there again... I've fallen asleep before in the public library, just because DD would only sleep when we were out and she was in the pram! I found that the best advice I had was from a lovely health visitor who told me at 3 months that I really needed to make sure I ATE ENOUGH! I was really struggling on about 1.5 to 2 hours total sleep a night, usually less than 3 hours sleep in 24, and making sure there were plenty of things to eat in the house made so much difference!

artifarti, I fear you are right and it does take time to settle but I am on top form today as I only had to get up once last night. Oh, the joy - still,I'll be in bed v early tonight doing one of my catch up sleeps!

Wonder where you'll find the breakfast tomorrow morning?

DD is celebrating her graduation by flatly refusing to settle tonight. Usually she's in bed and asleep by 6pm. This evening she was asleep as usual, woke up at 7, I fed her til I was bored, she played for an hour then started whingeing, I've just stopped feeding her again and she's still complaining...what is up with her???!!! She's not hungry cos I've just fed her for a total of an hour and a bit in the last 3 hours...her room's a toasty 24C and I can't get it any cooler so maybe she's too warm but if I take any more clothes off her she'll be cold in a few hours. ARGH!!
pookamoo I fell asleep on the bus during the 15 min ride to town thought only oldies did that!!

Hello to everyone

Thanks, arti, good to know that the aversion to feeding during daylight hours might pass. Also reassuring to hear that your DS's weight gain sorted itself out. My DS seems to love solids so am thinking of calorie rich foods I can give.

Chulita, 9/10 times a night! I remember how that felt in the early days. I am finding the 3+ wakenings a night exhausting so you have done really well to get through that.

pookamoo, think 2-3 times might be average too but am hoping that this might magically change.

Just debating with DH whether to feed DS at every wakening or try rocking back to sleep at one. Am sure will end up feeding!

pookamoo and Chulita have woken up dribbling in the M&S coffee bar before, DS in the buggy looking at me with a quizzical look on his face!