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....

Hooray for you MissM. I know what you mean about not expecting it to happen. I gave up hoping and moaning about it to other mothers (of babies who sleep) cos although they're sympathetic, there's always the hint of an assumption that you should be doing something you're not ... could just be paranoia on my part though!

Here's how last night panned out for DD: sleep at 7.45 (after much wriggling around), wake at 9.30, 10.30, 11.20, 11.45- feed, 1.15, 3.30, 5.00- feed and in with me, up at 7.30. Looks worse than it feels as she wasn't up for more than 20 mins with the feeds and all the other wake ups were dealt with in a few mins with a dummy replug and holding hands.

Also, forgot to mention that I have been putting her down on her side most of the time now- not ideal, but she settles so much quicker and then generally rolls onto her back anyway.

May i join?

I know some of you( sambo, cyteen, maria sweetkitty) and those that know me will know my issues are not as severe as some but they feel bad at night .

My dd (nearly 6) only ever woke once a night from birth and slept through (8-8) from 7 weeks. She's not great now (insomnia sometimes) but hey...

ds (7 months) started off not too bad, then became a regular newborn baby. Then between 2 and 3 months we inttroduced a ff at bedtime and he was only waking once, sometimes not at all. Then from 3-4 months we had an entire month of sleeping through. Since then we've had, I think, 4, maybe 5 nights of no wake ups.

We're at the stage where dh goes in mostly to soothe him without feeidng but if he's clearly crying for milk i'll go and take over. It is totally unpredictable. last night he slept from 7.30 til 1am, then between 1 and 7 was up 3 times and moaned a few times as well. Some nights he'll be up once, others maybe 3-4.

I know he can sleep through and I am sure he will one day (please god) reliably but I have re-deiscovered in the last 7 months how much I need/value/like/enjoy/WANT my sleep.

hi albs

well, a minor miracle happened last night - started off badly with ds waking at midnight (just as I was dropping off) - huge fart (food?) and I thought he could not be hungry as had fed at 10pm - after 45 mins of sucking his dummy and shouting, I fed him in bed, we both fell asleep and woke at ..... 6.30!!!! Could not believe it. I woke in an awkward position with ds lying diagonally across the bed so I moved him and woke him aaaargh so who knows when he would have woken if I had not moved him. Anyhoo, I feel like a billion (well a million seems small these days) dollars and dp and me are on cloud nine

Hope others had a good one , enjoy the weekend!

[Arthymum creeps quietly onto thread, slightly embarrassed...]

DS slept for 10 hours last night! I was wide awake for the last two hours, fretting, as he's just learned to flip onto his tummy to sleep. Must be all the sweet potatoes I shovelled into him yesterday.

Glad that some others (Sambo, Miss M, Cyteen) are seeing progress too. Amani - how is the ear infection? Better, I hope.

[Arthymum creeps quietly off the thread before the rotten fruit starts to hit her...]

crap night here. too tired to go into it but dh and i feel like utter poo today....

Oh dear albs Embarrassed here too, last night was decent - asleep by 8pm, fed at 11.30pm, shushed at 3.30am, fed at 5am then in with us and we all slept in till 8am! Since then he's only had a 15 minute nap though and is fighting all attempts to get him to stay down...

Arthymum: 10 HOURS????!!!!! Of course you were awake & fretting, I would be too!! Good for you & DS, really really hope this lasts... but then the thread won't feel the same without you in it . Not a reason to stay in such a sad club though...

Really glad to hear things are slightly better for some of you. And Cathpot, I'm sorry, I too had to laugh (I choked on my tea!) with the image of DD2 hunting you around the bed!

Welcome to ALBS too. Should I say glad to see you here? Not really glad... as I said, it's rather a sad club to be a member of.

As for me. Had a horrid horrid night. DS was literally awake every hour last night. Lots of the times he was crying, sounding a bit inconsolable. DP kept going back & forth. There was also a runny poo incident at 3 am (nice). Lots of angry hissing went on on my part, as after a certain point (around 4 am) I told DP to bring DS to our bed, so that we could (hopefully) get some sleep. Note: we've moved DS to his own room 3 weeks (or so) ago, so bringing him back to our bed, even for a few hours, feels like a huge step back. DP got annoyed with me for suggesting that, lots of hissing back & forth. In the end he angrily brought DS to our bed. That didn't lead to much sleep though, as DS was still rather unsettled. He went on to wake, bright & happy, at 7.00 am, babbling away. I feel like a ghost since this morning....

Wonder if it's teething? Wonder if it's a tummy bug (we took DS to doctor on friday; a serious virus was ruled out, but it could be, doctor said, some kind of mild tummy bug).

What to do? I officially declared to DP this morning that enough is enough, I simply CANNOT go on like this, with so little sleep. I suggested that- for now- we sleep separately, so that we look after DS on alternate nights. DP didn't like this idea, but we really really need to SLEEP as we both are exhausted...

maria lots of sympathy
xx

Thanks ALB

ALBS and Maria - sorry that your nights were not so good. I am under no illusions about my ten hours - he did it once before but wasn't repeated for a couple of weeks. I think it means we're moving in the right direction - but suspect that top teeth are about to be on their way, so all hell will break loose again - so please don't think I'm smug and hound me off the thread I really hope you have a better night tonight.

Maria it does sound a bit like teething, especially the inconsolable bit. When DS finally woke this morning at 5.15, he was sobbing and screaming, shaking his head and biting his hands. I had to get into the spare bed with him and hug him back to sleep. It breaks your heart to see them so distressed, doesn't it? Hope it sorts itself out soon.

Thought an update would be helpful after I followed the HV's advice to try CC.

Well...it works! The first night went like this:

6.40 bed, cried for 11mins
7.30 woke up cried for 30mins
8.40 woke up cried for 10 mins
1.45 woke up. BF back to cot
4.30 grizzled and went back to sleep less than 10 mins
5.30 woke up cried for 45 mins, v angry until I picked him up, fed, changed and started the day at 6.15

Second Night
7.00 to bed. Stopped crying after 3 minutes
8.00 grizzled slightly, thought I would leave it 5 mins before checking, went back to sleep after 3 mins
9.30 same as 8.00
2.45 woke for BF
6.00 woke for day

Third Night (tonight)
DH did the whole bedtime routine including putting him down.
DS cried for 1 min if that (I hadn't even switched the timer on before he was asleep)
That is as far as we have got.

DS is also settling himself for naps in under 5 mins. However he is waking up again after 30mins. I am assuming this is the end of a daytime sleep cycle. I can't get him back to sleep after this.

I had been fairly anti CC and so TBH I am just staggered at how quickly we have seen this transformation. I am even a little that after 9 months DS no longer needs me and my boobs in order to go to sleep. We had been trying NCSS for the last two months and hadn't made any progress. It has also been far less traumatic than I expected for both of us. DS seems to be his usual jolly self in the day.

Ditto- sorry to hear about your rubbish nights albs and Maria. Maria DP and I have been in separate rooms on and off for a few months, there's no point in both of you getting no sleep and at least this way you can share the burden. DP carps on a bit about being banished from his bed, but if you're at the end of you tether (as I was) it's worth it.

This is me! I've decided to tell myself that at such a young age they are not designed to sleep through and that society is unreasonable to expect otherwise. I also co-sleep. I am a bit with all those who boast that theirs sleep through. It makes me doubt my own methods. I'm just not prepared to some kind of bizarre sleep training programme until she's at least a year old. I think that before a year they should just be babies and we should just be knackered ;-)

I would love to try pick up and put down though but I'm stuck in my owm routine and am too lazy knackered to change.

Hi there, sorry to come back but this is still on my threads I've been drawn back in lol... I am having terrible nights too at the moment but they are just teething I think. Like Ali I used CC to get my babies to sleep and it works and its quick! Everyone should try it .

Just wanted to say for those with babies 6m-ish, come over to the puree thread on the weaning board for tips on how to fill those babies up and help them sleep. I know on MN you are not supposed to say that food and sleep are linked but they are .

here

Oh sleep deprived ones, may I join you?

My DD2 is 13 months and has never come near sleeping through the night.

I feel as if I have aged a decade this past year or so. My sanity is hanging on by a very thin thread.

I feel saddened that what could be such a
special time for us to enjoy as a family (i.e. whilst the children are very young) is
marred by DP, DD1 and I being so shattered by being kept awake each and every frigging night....

...

OnlyWantsOne shite, the only thing that keeps me going is the naive hope that 'tonight could be the night...but you're probably right.

A better night here. Ds was asleep at about half 7. woke at 1.15. dh tried to settle him but I ended up feeding him. Asleep by 2 and woke again somewhere between 7 and 8 (I was dozing and only woke when it got loud ). I can cope with this - although I know he can do all night. Why is there no pattern?

Nb we did give him calpol before bed as I'm sure his teeth are creating a lot of the whinging we;re getting . number 5 appeared last week so i think number 6 is on it's way...

Welcome Posh and Sparky - hope you're not a member of our crap club for long!

Ali - sounds promising, how did last night go?

Neenz - I am fast becoming a sweet potato convert! I dared to go without it last night and not so good. Check out the thread, non-believers!

ALBS - Glad yours was better. Our ten hours were, unsurprisingly, not repeated. Fed him at 1am and then awake at 4.15, chatting and blowing raspberries, which then escalated into shouting and then crying (The Teeth again). A disgusting nappy change, a spoonful of Calpol and ten mins on the boob later and he settled. So not too bad. He just seems to have endless teeth poking through, at this rate he won't sleep through until he's ten!

I am becoming obsessed. Watched the drama about Margaret Thatcher last night and when it panned to in the hotel rooms where all the ministers were scheming, I just kept thinking "Oooh that bed looks nice..." or, at one point, "He doesn't have any kids with him, bet he sleeps for at least eight hours..."

Lord yes I find myself staring agog at those dreams adverts, looking at the beds wondering if they're as snuggly as they look and wishing i could leap into the advert and have a snooze....

yes, I am a sleep pervert too. I fantasize about going to a hotel with DP and sleeping all weekend.

Arthymum- last night was better again. 7 till 7 with one BF at 3.40, and under 5 mins of grumbling at 5. Just amazing the difference in 3 days after months and months of waking up every couple of hours. I never thought I would be an advocate of cc, but I have to conclude that at the right time and on the right baby it is a godsend.

Now I need to work on naps.

lol at 'sleep pervert' - that's it exactly The worst pang of jealousy I ever felt, like a sharp stab in the heart, was when DS was about 3 weeks old and I saw a scene in The Wire where two characters get woken up in the middle of the night. The man picks up the phone, sighs and starts getting dressed while his wife snuggles back down into her massive comfy duvet and clearly drifts back off to sleep....GRRRRRRRRRRRRR.

Am definitely a sleep pervert too Sparky, I have the EXACT same fantasy; actually without DP necessarily, the important elements of the fantasy are:

1. hotel
2. BED
3. me
4. a weekend

Guys, here's what happened last night. After our horrid night (on friday) we then had a horrid horrid HORRID day yesterday (saturday). Namely, our kitchen completely filled with water (won't bore you with the details), & we spent all day bucketing water (what a word) out, so that we wouldn't drown. 2 different plumbers came (it was a huge problem, apparently) & in the end it was fixed. But, after the previous night & the water-bucketing, we were....well. Exhausted is too inadequate a word. So DP said 'tonight DS comes to our bed; no sleep training or anything tonight. We need to SLEEP'. (Just to remind everyone, we moved DS to his own room 3 weeks ago, & since then it's been like being on a diet. We mostly manage well, but sometimes- particularly at 5 am, we....errr, slip up!)

Guess what happened last night, with DS in our bed. Come on, guess....

Am definitely a sleep pervert too Sparky, I have the EXACT same fantasy; actually without DP necessarily, the important elements of the fantasy are:

1. hotel
2. BED
3. me
4. a weekend

Guys, here's what happened last night. After our horrid night (on friday) we then had a horrid horrid HORRID day yesterday (saturday). Namely, our kitchen completely filled with water (won't bore you with the details), & we spent all day bucketing water (what a word) out, so that we wouldn't drown. 2 different plumbers came (it was a huge problem, apparently) & in the end it was fixed. But, after the previous night & the water-bucketing, we were....well. Exhausted is too inadequate a word. So DP said 'tonight DS comes to our bed; no sleep training or anything tonight. We need to SLEEP'. (Just to remind everyone, we moved DS to his own room 3 weeks ago, & since then it's been like being on a diet. We mostly manage well, but sometimes- particularly at 5 am, we....errr, slip up!)

Guess what happened last night, with DS in our bed. Come on, guess....

(oops. Sorry for the double post).