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....

Yep, Stainesminor was december baby, and have posted on there a few times, but i find it so hard to keep up with all the different posters - - i never function well in crowds!!! i like to run in and blurt stuff out about myself and then go back to watching big brother.

DH is trying to pressure me into cc this weekend - as i advised him at the beginning of the week that there's no way i'm doing it when i've got work in the morning. however, there's also no way i'm doing it when ds has teeth coming through and it looks like we've got four top beauties about to make a proper appearance. it's difficult - he rarely cries, and is such a happy little guy, but i'm afraid he rarely cries cause he still gets the boob whenever he wants all night long. and then i think there's nothing wrong with it, and then i think, oh god, who cares!!!i've bored myself with it today!

anyway, back to big brother. what am i going to do when it's finished?!

Belatedly hello yorky! FG and staines I post on the Dec 08 thread but it is a bit of a commitment - one day away from it and there's pages and pages to wade through! I always feel slightly rude because you simply can't respond to everyone...

kiwi - exactly. i am just too lazy! and self centred. rubbish night last night - two doses of calpol. poor little staines.

wooo hoo! last night was our best since the great sleep through of 12 weeks old. have i said that before??? anyway, 7-3, brief feed, asleep til 6. isn't it amazing how one good night makes you think you're doing ok after all!

DS slept right through from his dreamfeed at 10ish last night until 5.30 this morning

I know I should be please but I wish he could just leave it for another hour or so and get up at 6.30 coz I'm bloody knackered now. He didn't go to bed until 8.30 last night so he's only had 9 hours which clearly isn't enough.

Well done to the Staines family though

Good night for us too! Slept from 8 to 6 then back to sleep after feed till 8.30!!! Mind you I thnk it's cos she's barely sleeping in the day...

7 til 3 again. i am starting to misguidedly hope that this is a pattern. and then he'll go from 7 to 5, and then 7 til 7 and then i'll be like a different person. and i won't be able to post on here any more. what if we have to start a new thread??? funnily enough i was looking at the beginning of the thread the other day and didn't recognise any names - which must be a good thing, right??

Hello again, sorry I fell off the thread for a few days. I know exactly what you mean about keeping up with PN threads, I try and post on Nov08.

Good luck with your pattern of improvement Staines.
Kiwi, is it just me or am I wierd for not minding too much a slightly early start if they have a nap during the day so I can get my breath back and have a cup of tea?

Just to rock the apple cart - we had our best night since DD was born last Thursday, I think 11-6! Unfortunately it was a one off but I live in hope of a repeat one day!
DS has developed the habit of coming into our bed in the middle of the night for no good reason that we can see, which he has never done. If he's ill we've sometimes brought him in for a cuddle but he's always chosen to go back to his bed. I'm hoping its because we've got lazy about closing the babygate on his bedroom door and he's just discovered he can, and theta the novelty will wear off soon. If not and we close the gate religiously will he go back to bed or sit in the doorway and howl?

DD is being a little bit consistent (3 nights) about dream feeding at 1030, then waking at 3ish but not feeding (maybe a small drink of water) last night she woke 3 times between 3am and 7 but at least she settled reasonably quickly - no 2hr screaming sessions

oh yorky, i really do feel for you.

funnily enough, i was about to post on here regarding ds's triumphant 7 to 3.45 sleep last night when the sound of angry cries reached me - so looks like we're in for a bumpy night tonight. more teeth.

Hello friends! We've been away for ages in Canada. In fact I think I posted near the beginning of the trip moaning about how hideous it was. Things got much better, but not before they got worse.

Sleep went absolutely haywire and we were staying with people the whole time so were desperate. He was waking the whole night, staying up for 1.5 hours in the middle of the night, wouldn't even be boobed back to sleep, etc. Disaster. Action was required.

We had been working on slowly reducing night feeds for a while, which didn't really work because he would go to one feed at 3 or 4 for a few days and then start waking at 12:00, 12:30, again. So I decided to try a bottle of EBM for a few nights for the overnight feed. When he woke at 1:00 the first night, tried the bottle...nothing. Wouldn't drink a drop. Wouldn't go back to sleep. Eventually boobed him back after over an hour awake. Then he woke at 4:00, tried the bottle...nothing. Went back to sleep. Next couple of nights, same thing...would not take bottle (he is not a bottle refusing baby...happily glugs from a bottle any other time of day). This gave me enough confidence to think that he wasn't hungry, so we decided to stop feeding at night full stop (he still breastfeeds 4 times/day and eats more solid food than most kids twice his age).

We followed a plan recommended by a sleep consultant to one of the mums on the Dec 08 Postnatal thread. Plan as presented by the sleep consultant was as follows but we adapted this (care of Artichokes...thanks!):

(1) Room must be pitch black
(2) No sleep props should be used (e.g. white noise) - the training is aimed at teaching the baby the art of self-settling without props
(3) Once you have stopped feeding at night you must not go back. Ever.
(4) You have to accept that some crying will occur. In the first couple of nights your baby may be hungry and angry but within three nights they will learn to adjust as long as you are consistent - and they will never feel abandoned as you are not leaving them alone to cry.

My DS was already going to sleep alone at bedtime so we did not have to teach self settling from scratch. If you are training a baby who can't self-settle at all then you have to tackle that first.

By the sleep consultant's rules, she would sleep in the same room as the baby and wait for him/her to wake and cry. At that point she would sit next to the cot in the pitch black and tap baby's leg very fast but softly with her fingers. As soon as the crying subsided (even if there were still quiet moans) she stopped. If proper crying came back the tapping recommenced. However, she never tapped until baby was fully asleep otherwise the tapping would have become a prop.

We did this a bit differently. DH didn't sleep in the room, just went in when DS woke. DH did a hand on the chest and shhing. He didn't pick up. He had his IPOD on the first night as it was pretty bad! I think this was possible for us as we had spent months doing lots of things from the No Cry Sleep Solution, DS falls asleep from awake at naps (try to at bedtime, but he always falls asleep feeding), we had ditched the dummy around 6 months, had been doing lots of things to reduce night feeds, etc. Also DSs cry was very much angry yelling rather than scared crying or tears.

This thread is much more about comiserations than plans, but I wanted to post it in case it is useful for anyone else.

Am shocked to report that it seems to have worked. Night 1 was pretty bad (DS didn't wake until 2:45, but then DH shhing for 1.5 hours), night 2 was very good (a bunch of peeps, but always asleep by the time DH got there, except for 3 minutes of shhing), night 3 a bit dodgy (45 minutes of shhing at 5:00 am). About nights 6 and 7 there was a regression and I had to shh for about 45 mins at 4:00 am. Since then we have had a few 5:15 starts, and quite a few nights with a peep or two during the evening before our bedtime (seems to be related to teeth), but most nights there has not been a peep from when I go to bed until 06:00! Very scared to even write this, but it has been over a month so I'm getting cocky!

I know that as soon as I post this our sleep will go out the window, so I wouldn't count on my graduating yet. But oooohhh am I not taking even one minute of sleep for granted while I have it.

Hope everyone is coping and don't be scared about keeping up with the Dec 08 thread! Just pop on and say hi every now and then.

MoM, that's pretty much exactly what I've done! And DS has followed almost exactly the same pattern (give or take a few teethy moans). I don't tap him though, just stroke his back or put a hand on his head to reassure him.

We do use white noise religiously however, and I'm not going to stop. Our house is v noisy; polished creaky floorboards and no carpets and also inbetween two building sites so I need white noise if I want to sleep during the day and us creaking around would wake DS in the evenings without it too.

Last night was an exception to his good week though; awake grizzling about his gums every two hours. Had to drug him back to sleep with calpol and calprofen and gave in and BFd at 4.30 coz I felt sorry for him coz he was so miserable On the plus side, looks like he's cutting 3 teeth at once so hopefully we might get a bit of a break after. He's very nearly got 7 whole teeth, how exciting!

Feral - Meant to say that we ignored the white noise bit too. NEED it. We no longer have an IPOD for ourselves, it is dedicated to purely white noise for DS. It is all about covering up household sounds for us too. Our floorboards are so creaky it is a joke. In fact, now that I think about it, we have double white noise. On the IPOD and we have one of those womb noise sleepy bear thingies that is voice/motion activated.

Staines - I noticed the same thing re: the people from the beginning of the thread being gone. Then I found them all again on a newer thread about early risers! Seems that could be the next challenge. But I still feel like getting up at 4 or 5 is still preferable to have broken sleep (or no sleep) all night. At least you can go to bed at 10 and get 6 or 7 hours in a row, and how could anyone wish for more luxury than that?! Clearly my standards have become very low.

Hello all - popping back in again to give you all a baby fufulina update. Last time I wrote she had dropped to one night feed and was getting up about 6. So at the weekend (after a week of only one boob at the last remaining night feed) we went cold turkey on the feed.

First night was quite hard - she was awake for 2 hours from 1. In hindsight, DH and I were both quite wired about not feeding her so stayed in her room with her - which we wouldn't have normally done on a reassurance wake up. I think that confused her. Anyway - she went back to sleep and then slept until 6.

Second night she was awake at 1 and I needed to bob in and out about 10 times for an hour while she grumbled.

Third night she went from 6 until 6. Not a peep. And she's done that for the last 3 nights.

It's weird - it's supposedly the holy grail but I feel all emotional! I think it's the not feeding in the night has sent my hormones crashing or something - and after 8 and a half months, it's odd not seeing her at all in the night. And I feel like I didn't make the last night feed with enough ceremony! But - I finally felt she really didn't need the night feed (we're BLW, so wasn't totally convinced before this) - and it seems she was ready. Now I've written it down, it will probably go haywire again. But there you go.

So - to drop both night feeds I went down to one boob first for a week or so (first the 3ish feed, then the 11ish feed) and then just shushed when she woke. To be honest - I wasn't expecting it. Although I knew I'd not feed her - I thought she might just need a shush or something. I think it's unreasonable to expect a baby to not need you at all for 12 hours - but seemingly she doesn't!

Anyhoo - that's where we are now (and how long will it last...??).

This thread has been a life-saver when I'm convinced my DD is the only baby in the world not to be sleeping through - so thanks all. (She says - what's the betting I'm back here next week...??).

Gah. DS has a cold and teeth and I have a stomach bug. It's all rubbish. I was just beginning to get used to decent longish stretches of kip too.

MoM, I've been on the early wakers thread. It seems to be the pay off for not waking in the night. I really need to organise myself to go to bed earlier so that the 5am starts are less of a killer.

Fg Poor you, hope the teeth, cold and tummy are better soon...

fufulina am x 1000... though DD is actually being really good at the mo and I think 2 of the last 3 nights has gone solidly from 8 - 6am, though one night she woke up and wailed at about 2. So she's going 10 hours without feeding, then has feed and goes back to sleep. That seems pretty good really (especially when I look back a few months) but I do flirt with the idea of trying to push her on a few hours. Would that be silly and pointless given she is now sleeping well (mostly) ? If she'd done the dreamfeed thing I guess she's be going through but she's never done that and if I tried I think she'd probably just wake at 6 anyway, I think it's become a habit for her.

Incidentally I say 6 but at home it's usually between 4 and 5 - we're in Germany for a month so she's on German time IYSWIM! Hence me not wanting to get up at that time, especially in winter

Hello! Clocking in to get back on the thread before going to bed. Got back from the holiday from hell sleep-wise today and as a parting shot DD woke us up at 0030 this morning and we've not slept since then sooooo I gave up reading all the happy sleeping patterns cos I'm just too tired and grumpy to be pleased for you all [grumpy cow emoticon]

Well Chulita I cursed myself by posting anyway, dreadful night last pm, I thnk BabyPanda is teething though I can never tell really as she whacks me if I attempt to look in her mouth. But she's been in a right grump today too. Ugh. Hope tonight is better for you, Chulita, and us too!

Don't worry ladies, no envy warranted over here. DS is taking ages to cut his top two teeth and now also seems to have a cold, so sleep not so good these days. The only good news is that it isn't boob he wants, and DH is as capable of providing nighttime cuddles as I am!

Hope you don't mind me joining ladies.

DD2 has been a dreadful sleeper since birth. She's 6 months now and has had evening colic (screaming for 2 hours) since birth too. Thought we were out of the woods when the evening crying stopped for a couple of weeks, but it's returned with a vengeance along with much more frequent night waking. I'm bottle-feeding in the day and breast feeding at night but will have to stop soon as I need someone to do night duty for a while before I go crazy.

Also, DD2 has nasty habit of not going back to sleep after a feed in the night. She frequently wakes at 4.30, won't go back to sleep until 6.30, when her sister wakes up.

Have to say that the lack of sleep and the crying are really getting to me now and I feel very resentful that I haven't enjoyed any of DD2's babyhood because of exhaustion and stress and just want to fast-forward to when she is two and (please god) sleeping 12 hours at night.

Also, things complicated here at the moment as she's had a dreadful cough for about 10 days that's been stopping her settling back to sleep, as well as (I'm pretty sure) teeth coming in.

Hello Elsy, welcome to the group. I know what you mean about resenting their babyhood - people say DD is so jolly and cheerful and she is a very happy little girl but it comes at a price. DH and I while away the wee hours discussing whether we'd rather have a happy sleepless baby or a grumpy baby that sleeps through...we're still undecided.
The holiday was rubbish. We would have enjoyed it had we not gone with DD. We were all in the same room and she decided that she wouldn't sleep for longer than 90 mins at a time. She just started crawling and when she wakes up her instinct is to sit up. Once she's sitting up she wakes up properly and then it takes her ages to go back to sleep. She's also cutting 2 teeth at the bottom and 2 at the top but they've been visible white lumps under her gums for about 4 weeks and they've still not come through so goodness only knows how long they'll be. So we got no sleep and then of course all outings were timed by her naps because she doesn't sleep in the car/buggy/carrier. We had one meal out at lunch but she started fussing and we were both fraught by the time we left cos you don't want your child to be the one disturbing everyone else. The evenings were spent tiptoeing around the flat trying not to wake her and then crawling into bed as quietly as possible. Rubbish, rubbish, rubbish...we may as well have gone camping - would've been cheaper and we've have got just as much sleep.
So...I'm trying kiwipanda 's idea now of giving one boob at a time at night and I'm going to only feed her once. She deffo doesn't need 3 feeds a night but I don't want to go cold turkey cos I don't think that's fair on her. We'll see how it all goes.
I'm off downstairs to find a glass and I'll drink to a goodnight for all of us

welcome elsy, and sorry you're having a rubbish time with your dd. lack of sleep is absolutely the worst torture at a time that you should be happiest. things really improved for me when i went back to work. though ds still doesn't sleep through - see recent jubilant postings re sleep 7 til 3.45 - that little run's over, btw - the break from all that responsibility has given me a new lease of life. i'm not suggesting you go back to work btw!! but i am astounded to find that i suddenly feel so positive and am still having broken sleep.

the worst time for me was our holiday funnily enough, so full sympathy for you there, chulita. i can't see the point in leaving the comfort of my home if i don't have 100% guarantee that i'm going to sleep a minimum of 6 hours in a row. i've pretty much resolved that holidays will be taken at home for the next ten years.

Oh Chulita, that all sounds just miserable. I am so sorry.

This is why I refuse to go on holiday with DS. I figure you're under so much pressure to have fun on holiday - you're paying a lot of money for it after all - and it's impossible to enjoy yourself when you're knackered so I just don't want to risk it. We took DS to a wedding for a weekend about a month ago. We were away for 2 nights and it was sheer hell so I've decided we're not doing bloody anything until he's less crap.

And hi Elsy, welcome. The colic sounds horrendous, DS was like that when he was weeny but thank christ he's grown out of it. Is there anything you can do or do you just have to live with it? Do solids make a difference? I took DS to an osteopath coz he was a really sicky baby and it kind of worked I think.

Just a wee update on our situation. It's been nearly 2 weeks since I stopped feeding DS at night and has it made a difference? Not really. He still wakes up and howls for an hour in the middle of the night; he's not hungry, I pick him up and he goes back to sleep, I put him down and he howls, repeat to fade.

It's teeth, I know it's teeth, but seriously how bad can it be? I've got a recurrent and very painful infection in the gum around one of my pointless rubbish wisdom teeth but I don't keep the whole bleedin' neighbourhood awake screaming do I?

Er, I would just like to, very quietly, say that DS slept from 7.30pm until 6.30am last night.

Woohoo!! well done baby fg !! Now delete that post quick before he sees it