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....

well the 9 hours was just a one off - why do i always get my hopes up and think i've cracked it!
grumblin - yes now and again i lose patience and tell him he can't be hungry again! on the rare occasions i have raised my voice he just laughs which just makes me laugh.
and as for naps during the day - forget it!!
can we tell ourselves we must have highly intelligent children or something who's brains are so active that they have no time for sleep??
mmm thought not!

Sigh.

Well it's time I joing this thread or sleep-deprived semi-mad mums club. I really really REALLY didn't want to join, but here I am. Saw this thread a few days ago, thought 'well I won't need to join. SURELY tonight DS will start sleeping through'. In the end I decided to join when I read about the 'bad sleepers equals very intelligent children' theory. LOL!!!

Sigh sigh sigh.

So here's a bit of background. DS is a lively, happy, gorgeous 7 month old (well, I think he's gorgeous, but humour me for the moment). He's never slept through. My definition of sleeping through is 7-7 (at best) & 11-7 (which is also adequate). He's never done the former (of course not) but hasn't even managed the latter, apart from one weird night which was never replicated (and during which I didn't sleep, of course).

I have to say. There's loads of stuff we've tried, when he was 4 months & things were getting desperate. And lots of these things worked. So now he basically has a bottle of formula (that's one of the things that helped) at 10.45. He then doesn't feed again until after 6, even 7 sometimes. So basically he's dropped- on his own, with loads of encouragement from us- the 4 am feed. Which is a great step.

Problems we still have:

--dummy addiction (between 7-11 he wants dummy replugged 1-2 times. We can live with that. Between 11-7 he needs dummy replugged usually once. Which is getting exhausted
--Waking randomly for a hug, cuddle, or because he pooed

So basically our nights look like this: he sleeps well 7-10.45. Has his feed. Then usually sleeps well until 2.00 or so. Dummy replug requested. DP deals with it. Me wide awake. Then he usually sleeps to 6-7. This is the USUAL pattern. Very very often though (recently MUCH more often) he wakes for other random reasons. I think teething might be an issue atm actually. Last night was particularly bad, DS pooed & leaked (very very runny poos) at 2.00 am... And then woke for the day at 5.45.

But just to help a bit, here's what has helped get us from a point of DS waking every 1-2 hours, to having longer stretches:

--encouraging a routine at 4 months. Regular feedtimes (except when he was clearly hungry). Regular (or semi-regular naptimes). Regular bedtime.
--Dealing with my milk supply which was getting low. Working to increase it. And working on regular, larger feeds.
--Gradually working to cut out the night feeding. No crying was ever involved. He dropped it in his own time, when he was feeding enough in the day.
--3 solid meals a day from 6 months. This has DEFINTIELY helped.

What helped & also didn't help. Co-sleeping from birth until 3 weeks ago. We moved DS to his own room 3 weeks ago, in the hope that this would help, and basically we wanted our space. This has created further difficulties, because it means getting up in the night in order to replug the dummy or for whatever other reason.

Anyway. I still live in hope that things will improve further. Lets hope tonight's the night ladies that our babies sleep through!!

Ooh heck, something's gone t*ts up here tonight. DS normally out like a light at 7.30pm, has been for months. Tonight won't go to sleep. He's had a big feed and we gave him Calpol as he's teething badly. But 1.5 hours later and we still can't settle him. Cuddles, patting, nothing working. Think he's got himself overtired now.

Changes to routines like this terrify me. I know it's an anomaly but I just think Oh crikey, is it going to be like this every night now? The evenings were always reliably okay...

DP checking his nappy and he's really screaming now. Poor lamb.

So, am feeling, and sadly looking, like a slightly gritty, grizzly sleep deprivation veteran. My now four year old DD1 started to sleep perfectly aged 2 and 4 months.. the night her sister was born. Essentially she passed the baton to DD2 who has taken it and run.

I tried everything with DD1. I have gone for survival with DD2- which essentially means I may start my night in the marital bed, but I have yet to finish it there. At least she is now in a bunk bed and I can just get in with her.

My sanity is purely based on the unfounded belief that she will miraculously start to sleep through at 2 years and 4 months (3 and half months from now).

I do not know what I will do with myself if she doesnt.

The only faint light of hope i can offer is my DD1 now sleeps 7 to 7 and you could drive a truck past her and she wont stir. I firmly believe that at some point DD2 will suddenly do the same and real life can begin again...

Arthymum, hope this is a one-off. I really think it sounds like a one-off actually. Maybe has to do with teething. Poor baby... (and poor you of course )

Cathpot: LOL about your post. Loved the image of your DD2 taking the baton & running. How cheeky (and interesting) of your DD1 to start sleeping the night her little sister was born! Also smiled at your hope that the sleepless-nightmare will end in 3 & a half months from now. Maybe (hopefully not!!!) we'll still be on this thread then, & you can fill us in about what happened. Are you pregnant with a DD3 in 3 & a half months btw?

As promised, an update from my meeting with the HV who deals with sleep problems.

...try controlled crying

I am sure non of you have ever thought of that one .

Actually, I had just about decided to take this approach myself. DS who is 8 months has a serious BF to sleep habit and after 2 months of the NCSS (or my execution of NCSS) not really cutting it, I had concluded that more drastic action was required.

The HV said that I had done the best thing possible for DS up to now, with BF, always responding to him etc, but that it was now time to stop BF to sleep both at night and in the day. She thinks feeding him once in the middle of night is ok for now, although really at 8 months they don't need it. In the day, no more napping with DS in bed , and I really only need to BF twice in the day plus a bedtime feed.

So, I have bitten the bullet this evening and started CC at bedtime. I was braced for over an hour of wailing, and was staggered when he stopped after 11 minutes . He then woke twice more after 40 mins each time which is fairly typical for us normally. I continued with CC and he slept after 30mins the first waking and 5 minutes at the second waking.

I will come back and let you know of the outcome overnight.

Hi im another knackered mummy to join your ranks....

I have dd1 (7) sleeps like a dream and always has right from day she was born.

Then we have dd2 (3.11) who still refuses to sleep in her bed most nights Even the nights she falls asleep in her own bed she manages to make her way in with us at some point during the night

The dd3 (17m) who will go to bed in her own bed but we have to sit at the bottom of the bed until she drops off and then creep out, she wakes up once or twice a night for a swig from her bottle which dp usually goes in and passes to her.

Then we have dd4 (20w) goes to bed fine, wakes a few times for bf during the night (3-4times) but drops back off immediately,

So really reading this i suppose dd2 is my main sleep problem, however after about 4 years without a full night sleep im bloody knackered!

4andnotout I take my hat off to you and should really stop whinging about the ONE non sleeper I have!!

goodness ali - your post started off a bit sarcastic of the hv and I was lol but maybe she's right. Look forward to your report tomorrow . Well done so far, not responding when they cry is pretty heartbreaking.

Hi maria missed you on the Aug08 thread . (I'm in my rugby guise atm) Good to see you but you find yourself in our club. I started weaning today, I am pinning my hopes on that making a difference.

cathpot that sounds really very hard, dont know how you have survived so far.

I dont care if my ds is intelligent or not, I just want a decent nights kip!!

Thanks caz I must be mad, especially as we aim to ttc again in december time (well if dd2 ever lets us have a bed to ourselves!)

see, I've tried controlled crying with DS... it doesn't work unless he's lying down... which he often isn't ... plus he can keep it up for over an hour.

Having said that - he's currently asleep and in his cot - yay! who knows how long for though.

Does anyone else ever wonder how many hours they have spent sitting/lying by their dc's bed, patting/rubbing backs? I was thinking this tonight, whilst (you guessed it) sitting by the DS cot patting his back waiting for him to drop off. I lost count at some ridiculously large number.....

Ahaha. Mine is currently wailing upstairs, he must be immune

Hello, can I join? DD is 8 months and nearly slept through the night once, er.. about 4 months ago.

Things got really bad around 5-6 months when she would wake every 1-2 hours and take aaaages to resettle (I was getting 2-4 hours of broken sleep a night and remember hitting lots of pillows, crying a lot- especially whenever In The Night Garden came on for some reason- and on one occasion calling DP a c*nt about 6 times when he lashed out at me one morning for buying a crib.

She's about to go into her own room in the next week or so, which I'm dreading because sometimes I wake with my hand in the crib and don't even remember putting it there. Gnnn. I know everyone says it's a Good Thing to move them into their own room, but I dunno. I'd be interested to hear how other people have found it, especially the first few nights.

Anyway, it's bedtime for me now. Good night and good luck all.

She woke up the minute I posted- gah!

just read the bit about 2 hour naps - DS was nearly 11mo before he got the hang of those, prior to that it was max of 30mins - he still only does the 2hr ones occasionally. He has also taken to missing either the morning or the afternoon nap if possible - not good.

Maria 2007, no not pregnant, thought we would stop at two serial insomniacs.

I do enjoy finding a fellow sufferer at playgroups etc. I find there is a tendency to form defensive packs; we know each other's pain. We look upon the mothers of 'slept through from 6 weeks' babies with indulgent gentle smiles and acknowledge that they know nothing of the frontline of mothering, (unless of course they start implying their babies sleep due to their superior mothering, in which case, we growl in a low menacing manner).

I also have the added complications that when I do get in bed with DD2 she tries to get into my cleavage. She has always done this, but now she is bigger she is more capable, determined and screams hugely when thwarted. She can winkle a hand down the tightest top and root around until she finds a nipple, which she then pulls. It is hugely irritating and it means we are now locked in a battle over my boobs and she hunts me round the bed. I often end up sleeping in a defensive position knees tucked in under me , arms crossed over my chest. Last night we had an extra waking as she had hunted me across a large double bed to the very edge, made a final desperate lunge for my top, misjudged it and fell off the edge.

hmm that sleepy dust must be out of date, another horrible night of 4 wakings some extended with general caterwaling (sp?).

I have no sympathy for dp -he wakes with 'god I'm knackered, I have never been so tired etc'... if I was him I'd be in the spare room with earplugs in

Just to be specific, that is 4 wakings between 7ish pm and 7am

Yes sambo your DP doesn't really help himself does he? Personally I'd have thought that having 'something in my ears' would be far preferable to having screaming noise in my ears, given the choice, but hey ho.

Cathpot I did laugh at your DD2 hunting you round the bed They're such weirdy little things.

Shocked to report yet another good night here Fast asleep by 7pm, about an hour of crying at 10pm while DP tried to soothe, then fed and back in his cot. Then no wake ups till 3.30am when I fed him again and got him back in his cot - got up about 6.30am

However, he has now roused himself after a paltry 30 minutes' worth of nap, so I suppose I'd better go and rescue him.

cathpot, I'm sorry, I actually nearly honestly pmsl reading your post about being hunted round the bed! Hope she didn't hurt herself as she launched off the edge.

DS - bless him - managed to wake up at about midnight, fully wide-awake, none of this "sure I'll go back to sleep" rubbish, no. In my bed all night again, but at least we do get some sleep that way - but it's getting to be a very bad habit.

just a quick note to say I've got to the root of why DD2 has been sleeping so poorly - got an eat infection - took her to the GP yesterday and he's given her some AB. Last night she slept so well, that I woke up several times waiting for her to get up, which she didn't. So am still sleep deprived but nothing to do with DD2!

oh poor love - still, at least it's getting sorted hope you both get a good rest tonight!

Well.... DS slept till 6am this morning!!!!! As we heard the first squeaks and I realised how late it was, DS gave a sleepy cheer and then said that this was probably the latest he'd slept in six months (when he was about 6 months old we went through a weird honeymoon period where he slept through till 7 every morning. He's never done it again.

So obviously I feel on top of the world today! What I have learned by bitter experience though is not to now expect this