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....

la la la OWO, fingers are in my ears and even though you posted twice I cant hear you...

cyteen every night I go to bed thinking, tonight's the night, I will wake at 7am!! It has yet to happen!

what is the oatibix + sweetpotato potion?

Hehe this thread is brilliant! very funny Arthymum!

My DD is 7mths and i think we have had one night of 7 hours since birth.

At around 3mths she was starting to do well but then all of a sudden it got worse again.

Its only the past week that we have gone to 4 hourly feeds. Its been 3 hours for months!!

Genrally shes been easy to get back off so not too much of an issue- could be back in bed in 15 mins. But since shes been sleeping abit longer shes been a bugger to get back to sleep- taking an hour or more! Well suppose I cant have everything!!

DH and I used to joke about "rock arm"! Its what you get when your arms aches sooo much from rocking the moses basket for an hour!! Now shes in her cot its "pat hand"!

This thread is made for me!

I have ds 22 months old and he has only just started sleeping through. He was fine when we were dream feeding, but when that stopped at about 5 months, that was the end of sleep for me. Eventually after 7 months of no sleep we resorted to letting him come into bed with us when he woke up, just so that we could be in a decent state for work the next day. I was terrified at the time that by letting him come and sleep with us, we would never get him back into his own bed, but thankfully this has not happened to us. We moved him into a different room (we are ttc #2 and needed the nursery back!) and lo and behold as soon as he went into his new room, he magically started sleeping through!

I now realise that ds slept through when he was ready, and nothing we did/didn't do had any affect on him.

We still have occasional nights when he is up loads, but I now just bring him into bed with us and don't beat myself up about it.

My best tip - getting a ticking clock in the room, it seems to send ds off to sleep with the rhythm and is familiar when he wakes up in the night.

Morning all,

Hi CAZ10 - remember you form the Dec thread. Hope you are well.

Well, last night, DD2 was up EVERY HOUR. I went to bed at 9pm thinking I could catch up on some much needed sleep and it was just down hill from there. Am so knackered and just want to cry........

HarryJoesMummy - how did you do that???

Pray, tell.

Worst

Night

EVER

gah.

A tiny, hollow LOL escaped my lips at "be strong, it probably won't" . DS is going in his own room this weekend, hopefully with a view to it being permanent. He's ready, we're ready, DP and I need some space of our own if we are not to go completely insane.

cyteen I could have written that post! Horrendous night with ds shouting from 4.45am to 6.30am (and up 3 times prior to that) - we've decided he's going into his own room this weekend too - dp has just to put up curtains. Let's hope it will make the difference!

Can I join? Was up with DS (1.3) twice last night, three times the night before. We have actually made a little bed next to his cot so we can hold his hand through the bars and fall asleep. On Monday night I went in to him at 12 and woke up there at 3, stumbled back to bed only to have him wake again at 4.30. DH went that time and fell asleep until 5.45 when DS was up and full of beans. It is destroying me, our marriage...

(Bit over-dramatic that but you know how bloody awful it is when all you want to do is sleep and sleep and sleep...)

PS I don't want to dishearten any of you with younger ones about to move them to their own rooms, but although it did help DS sleep for more hours at a time, it rarely made him sleep through. Sorry

Hi all, can I join you?

DS will be 3 (years) this week, and has slept through the night once, I think. Maybe twice. He was only waking once a night for a few weeks, but is now back to 3-4 times, so sleeping in 3 hour blocks.

I'm pg, and tinybaby is due in less than 2 weeks. What am I going to do? At least on maternity leave I can sleep in the afternoons!

Please can you share your ideas of how you cope with the tiredness?
Other than wanting to burst into tears - I am working today and I just cant focus and the littlest thing stresses me out. Am drinking copious amount, but really just want to go into the first aid room and sleep on the bed there.

Amani, why don't you? Seriously. Go and have a kip for an hour.

How do I cope? I don't really. I just get through the day and hope tomorrow will be better.

god i feel for you, as my dd didn't sleep thru till about age 3, and then she still has upsets now!! she's nearly 7!!

Coping with the tiredness - mainly mental, I think. I have the kind of job where I'm supposed to be professional, self-motivated, self-directed and sit exams. Hahaha.

1. Try not to hope for change.

That sounds bad, doesn't it? But for me, it is the key. Things are worst when thinking 'maybe he will sleep through this week/month/when he gets to be [age]/when this tooth comes through..' The disappointment is harder than coping is.

1. Nap whenever you can.

Really, weekends, early evenings, sleep rather than eat if there is a choice!

1. Give yourself a break.

Don't try to be superwoman. Accept help. Lower your standards.

Um, there will be more, but like MissM, I just get through a lot of days.

Oh, and try not to kill anyone who tells you it is all your own fault for not doing CC at [whatever age], going to them too soon, breastfeeding, cuddling too much etc etc. If you really must kill yell at someone, so be it, but try not to. It's better for your mental health to view them as deluded.

Morning all, sorry to see we don't have any sleep-through champions this morning and that some of you have had a bad night. Ours was okay considering The Teeth - up at just 12.30 and 5. But that makes up for the crappy night before.

Coping with sleep deprivation is a funny one (funny peculiar, obviously not funny ha-ha). Somehow if I just expect things to be dreadful and take it on the chin, it all feels okay and adrenalin, tea and crumpets get me through the day. If I expect a good night then I'm invariably disappointed and end up crying, beating chest, gnashing teeth etc.

But then my DS is only 6 months old and I don't have to go to work or function much above pureeing some fruit and putting the washing machine on. So in fact I don't have any useful tips for the long-term sleepless and I'm going to shut up now [arthymum sends sympathetic vibes and shuffles off to put said washing machine on]

Hi MissM, another crap club we're both members of then Right now I would bite your hand off for DS sleeping in longer blocks of time - I'm actually at the point where I don't think he'll ever sleep through so have stopped hoping for it at all.

You ladies seem so positive despite lack of sleep. I admit, I occasionally go through the 'WHY ME?' phase, but always give myself a shake and try and put the positives into perspective.

You wouldn't be saying that if you had seen DP and I 'discussing things' this morning!

Hello,

Think it is time I stopped lurking and introduced myself. I certainly qualify. Great OP by the way.

DS is 8 months and is utterly gorgeous. Up until 3.5 months he slept remarkably well at night, but almost never napped in the day. He was and still is a very big lad and he just fed and fed and fed. Since September his sleep has deteriorated and recently he has been waking every 90 mins between 11 and 6. He is also extremely bad at napping in the day unless I take him to bed with me.

Recently I have been full of self-reproach for all the things I did "wrong" early on. In truth though I know that I did my best and that DS is just not the kind of baby to self settle: we tried all the things you are meant to do and they didn't work.

Tomorrow we have a hv visiting who specializes in sleep problems. I will let you know what pearls of wisdom she has to offer...

had horrid night too - DD woke at 1am and came in bed with me, Ive given into it for the mean time and will get her back into her bed when Im a bit more able to cope with it.

Good luck to the rest of you

can I join
all of my girls never slept through before the age of three

well gecko is on 2.1 at the mo so maybe there is hope lol but I doubt it

captainK your 3 coping strategies are deeply depressing but probably the only way forward

I find that a constant supply of hot tea helps tiredness, especially in banishing that early morning sick-with-tiredness feeling

amani I feel for you ,cannot imagine having to work on spreadsheets when feeling so tired

ali please report back with the hv's advice, I am agog the only solution I can think of is to drop ds off at someone else's house at night and pick him up in the morning

Ali - please let us know if the HV say anything useful...I know part of the reason why DD keeps waking is due to teething, but it just seems to be dragging on and on...

this thread would be hilarious if it wasnt so SCARY! Lady that was up 17 times in the night - jees, you deserve a medal. All of you with babies over 1 still up all night - scary prospect for us mums with 5-6 month olds, its a long road ahead! Spoke to a midwife this morn re 5 mth old suddenly waking every 2 hrs for a feed. She assured me it wasnt due to hunger (good so Im not starving my child!) but a comfort thing - its true he does have a quick BF and nod off within 3 mins a lot of the time.She reckoned my whole BF to sleep and gentle rock to sleep a big no-no. Giving baby wrong messages - ( I do it for an easy life, gets him off in minutes). Apparently I could try, putting him in another room, CC, settling him while awake and not feeding him everytime he wakes at night, just patting and settling back to sleep. Just thought id mention these incase some of them work for you?!! Not a fan of cc, moving him out yet or spending hours patting through the night when a 3 min boob feed would do the job so not sure what next, hmmm. Did someone say total sleep deprivation for foreseeable future??

didn't mean to be so depressing, sorry.

On the positive side, these sleepless infants and children may have exceptional amounts of energy, drive & imagination to draw on when they are older...

DS needs about 10-11 hours sleep in 24, can spend the rest of the time literally running around, has a vast and descriptive vocab. and is the most sensitive and loving person, with huge empathy as the flip-side of his huge need for 24/7 human contact. Sleep is only one part of your DC's personality...