Misguided Illusion Part II - Baby still not sleeping through by six months? Come and join us!

[MomOrMum]

Thought I would start a fresh thread as, sadly, we have almost filled the first one.

Feral, Kiwi, Chulita, et al...shouldn't we have graduated from this thread by now?!

Now welcoming a new crop of 6 months+ babies determined to help us reach new heights/depths of sleep deprivation.

Here is the original thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/713951-Support-thread-for-those-who-were-under-the-misguided-illusion

Oh Galena! Sorry that Skye is so poorly, although sounds like she is a strong little thing. Fingers crossed she gets properly better soon.

I succumbed to the vomiting bug last night - yuck - so DH has been an absolute star and let me lie in bed all day, despite him also being iffy. DS seems a bit perplexed by it all, and didn't like being given a bottle feed in the night - didn't go to sleep for two hours, after DH brought him to bed for me to feed. Hopefully we'll all be properly better soon too.

Oh Galena, you poor thing how is Skye doing now? Are you still in the hospital? Sending positive thoughts and big hugs.

IsItMe - bloody norovirus, I know so many people who've had it recently. How are you feeling now?

BB - that definitely counts as a full night - well done Alex Oscar does the squawking that you described as well some nights, and then settles without properly crying. I wonder if they are waking up, automatically crying out for us because that is what they are used to doing, and then thinking 'oh, actually, I remember it's safe in here and I can go back to sleep on my own' or something similar in baby-speak. What do you think?

Dycey - that is AMAZING I need this encouragement as although O has improved with The Plan (based on EP's no cry sleep solution) he's not yet sleeping through (he's done it once) or being consistent in the way he is settled/when he wakes etc. Really hope your little one has cracked it.

1stMrsF - everyone has an opinion (and not usually a positive one) on my unwillingness to let O cry (also considered new-fangled parenting it would seem). Apparently I'm a) spoiling him, b) making a rod for my back, c) mad. Ho hum - I've learned to filter, nod, say 'hmmm mmmm' and ignore

So to update...

Oscar hasn't slept through again since day 11 of The Plan. In summary our nights have been like this: Day 12 - one waking at 02.00 (no pick up), Day 13 - awake from 02.00-03.45 (yaaaaaaawn - teeth I think), Day 14 awake from 02.05-03.00 (pick up) and at 04.20 (pick up), Day 15 (last night) awake from 05.00-06.00 (pick up). So a mixed bag but overall not too bad and still think we're on the right road. We had a house full of guests this weekend which I think is part of the reason he was unsettled the last few nights. Plus his teeth have been bothering him (bright red cheeks, drooling like mad). Got to stick with The Plan. Long game long game.

So there are a few of us in SW London - how about we try and meet for a bleary-eyed coffee and cake at some point? Anyone up for that? (thought I'd bold the important parts of that message)

Galena-I am so sorry Skye is in hospital. I hope she isn't to distressed by it all. It sounds really rotten for you all. Let us know how she is doing.

IsItMe-I too know so many people who have had 24 vomiting. Really horrible. I hope you make a speedy recovery. I am awful with vomiting so dread it (I think it was the worst part of my labour). Also Ran is a bugger with taking a bottle so it wouldn't be good at all.

Bicnod-Good going Oscar. I think that 2:00-4:00 time must be when they have had enough sleep to be wide awake. On a positive note Ran woke up for about an hour at this time last night, I could hear him chatting and playing with his airwrap. But I think he exhausted himself without exhausting us, so slept a bit longer. I think you are right, it is no longer scarey for him to be on his own as he knows we still exist. Cake sounds good! There are alot of us in nappy valley.

We're home! Skye's done 24 hours without needing extra oxygen, so they let us out. She still has a really chesty cough, and apparently will have for a few weeks yet. She's never really been miserable though, although the past 2 nights has decided that 5am is a good time to be awake. Couldn't get her back to sleep this morning unfortunately. (Yawn)

Sorry to hear you're poorly IsItMe, hope you're on the mend soon.

Sorry, too tired to process all other messages just yet, will comment further when I've slept!

Just a quick post - his one nap is so short now! Just to say sorry for galena and also for isitme.... Must be very frightening Galena for you with such an experience.... and isitme - sick bugs are awful. My DS basically was ill with bugs and infections and rubbish like that on and off for a couple of wintry months and it was merry hell. Crying all day, feeding all night (and most of the day) so sympathy all round.

I have spent SO much time this past year thinking about sleep and my methods for getting DS to sleep etc... Read a lot and thought a lot and obsessed. I have worried I was doing it ALL WRONG and I have comforted him when they say you are not meant to etc.. rod for back etc.... But frankly it has just worked out. Now 5 nights of sleeep for me. Total heaven! He does wake up but settles fairly quickly and I don't need to get out of bed. I just want to say to anyone who is KNACKERED and WORRIED and got down by it all - try not to worry. I have been in your situation for the last 11.75 months and suddenly it has got sorted out - not sure how. I may be speaking too soon, of course.

Not quite sure how we got there but we did in the end. ANd I really think his being older helps. He doesn't feel lost and alone in his big cot but knows what is what - a bit!

I ramble... but if I can be of any support to anyone I will keep checking this thread....

BEST of luck to all ill babies and parents of ill babies and to exhausted Mothers. It is TOUGH being tired and being on call 24 hours a day. You are doing a great job though.

Get well soon Skye and the Isitme household.

Terrible night last night, but night before DT1 only fed once at 3am (easy settle at 10.45, no other wakings)! Perhaps there is hope?

Hi All

Im new to this but im desperate. My DS is 7months and does not sleep. He will go for 2 hrs but more often he sleeps about 40 mins with only one 2hr sleep. This week however he has been terrible we cant seem to get him off till about midnight and he has been crying in the night when we put him down. We co sleep so at least i get to stay in the warm.

Ive been going to the osteopath which has helped a bit. he was settling much better and there was a while when he slept in 2 hr slots. If your baby was born by ventouse i really think that osteopathy can help relax. Apparantly my DS still has more tension so i keep going. I guess that part of it is that i just feel good doing something about the lack of sleep. I go to a charity in london where you pay by donation. Here is there website for anyone in london who has not tried it www.fpo.org.uk/.

Other than that i thought that 3 meals, 2 teeth and no more constipation would have helped. and now im being nagged about breakfast by my DH.

Morning ladies.

Galena - so glad that Skye is home, she's clearly a little trooper

IsItMe - how are you now?

1stMrsF - sorry to hear about terrible night, but yay for DT1 only waking twice the previous night - definitely hope I would say.

Dycey - that's fantastic news. Keep us posted? We need graduates to come back and tell us that it will happen!

Welcome wal07 - sounds like you're having a really hard time I've heard that cranial osteopathy can work wonders - haven't tried it on DS though. Is DS your only one? Does your DH help with the night settles? How is DS's napping during the day? What do you do to settle him at night? I know what you mean - I keep thinking if we can just get through this patch of teething, this cold, this weekend away...

So my latest update on The Plan. Last night he woke up from 20.20-20.45 (teeth I think) and then didn't wake again until 04.20 when I settled him with just a hand on his tummy and shhhing. Then he woke up to start the day at 06.20 - so that's a bit of a result I think . We're getting there. Slowly.

Bicnod that is great! That is the kind of night I had before he decided to stop bothering me properly and I decided to see if I needed to get out of bed (I didn't).....

I think if the baby (older ones at any rate) - are not expecting to be picked up or fed then they are WELL on their way to sorting themselves out when they wake up and going back to sleep.

6 nights in bed now - and he is still waking at his old times some nights but settling back to sleep with a shout and a cry but asleep before I get to him..... Hurrah. Hope for you all. Honestly.

Wal07 - lots of sympathy for you.... (Tellus a little more detail. Are you bfeeding? And how does he sleep in the day etc...

hello again. I posted way back at the beginning of this thread thinking that soon I would get the sleeping sorted. I think you go through spells where it all gets too much and then spells where you can manage the night-wakenings. I think I'm falling into the former again (after a long spell of the latter).
My DD is now 10mths, now in her own room, able to self-settle at bedtime but still not settling during the night. She'll do 4/5 hours at first and then every 2 hours after that. I always nurse her back to sleep and generally dont mind but we're going to have to start her sleeping better for at least her own sake.
I read about weaning them off night feeds by going to them an hour before usual wakening and getting them up to feed for a short while (then reducing the time of feed). Tried this last night but she woke up after an hour with a dirty nappy. So DH decided he would stay with her til she fell asleep, which she did but she cried a lot.
So question is, has anyone tried the weaning before wakening approach?

hello ladies.

May i join, my dd is now 15mnths and still wakes 2-3 times a night, once we are in bed, she will also have me running up and down the stairs many times before i go to bed.

It took me until she was 8mnths to get her to sleep more than 2hrs, Now she will sleep but only in my bed or a pushchair!!! (thank goodness we got a proper lay flat one)

I am at a complete loose end, she really needs her sleep as shes running around now but i cant allow her to sleep in my bed anymore as shes such a wriggler me and dp get less sleep than ever!!!

We have taken the past 3mnths just getting her to sleep without us holding her or sitting right next to her, now i can lay her down with her blankie and dummy and run away leave quietly. But when ever she wakes i have to go and give her a hug and she nearly always wants milk again! She stopped breastfeeding at 11mnths so its formular and i worry about her teeth!

SO far this routine if i can call it that is working BUT she ends up in with us 3-4nights a week as shes such a screamer the neighbours complain and our 2yr old ds is disturbed!

Naps are hit and miss, shes taken to just falling asleep on the beanbag in the living room, and if i dare move her she has such a paddy!

We move house in 2weeks and im putting my all into her room, making it a really nice place to be and then i really need a plan or something to follow!!

Hello all - just a quick check in to say that we are all still here in the IsItMe household. DS is still struggling with what I assume is the tail-end of his virus - rivers of snot and still disrupted nights. Needed help to get off to sleep last night, then two wakes and up for the day at 5.30am. So some room for improvement!

Will try to catch up on all the posts a little later after I have watched some rubbish daytime telly .

We've had some random nights recently... In hospital we had a couple of nights of little sleep, and one of 7-2 then 2:30-7:30!! Since being home we've had one grim night - where she was awake most of the night, but last night she woke at 11:30, 4-5 and then 7. Hopefully she'll get back to normal soon. Today she refused to nap during the day, so was foul this evening. Hopefully she'll sleep well now.

Yes he is bf. I started out with good intentions and hope. I put him down still awake and did not feed him to sleep. But once he got colic we spent the evenings holding him and he never went back to going to sleep by himself. He has never slept through. The longest he has slept for is about 4 hrs when he was very small. Slowly he has moved into our bed and now needs to be fed to sleep or taken out in his buggy. Im so tired now that i just do anything to get him back to sleep. I can sleep with him on me sitting up all night if its the only way he will sleep. He wont let anyone else put him to sleep as well and will cry if my DH attempts it. He has taken to doing all the cooking and cleaning while i spend the evening running to and from the bedroom till i give up and go to sleep as well.

Ive found that if i can get him to sleep for at least 2 hrs and settle back to sleep quickly at night then i can just about cope however it just takes one bad night and im exhausted and it takes ages to catch up.

He does not sleep much in the day either although this last week he did have 2 days when he did a 2 hr sleep during the day (although he did feed briefly in the middle of both naps).

He is such a happy alert baby when he is awake that its hard to think that there is something wrong.

im still contemplating cc but i really dont like the idea and ive heard about problems with babies dealing with birth trauma and needing extra reassurance.

ive gone on and on now.

Hi jurassic - I've never tried wake to sleep but I have heard of it. How is it going? Have you tried again? With DS, once I was sure he didn't need the night feeds I just stopped giving them and offered water and cuddles instead. It was really hard the first few nights and DH and I spent hours rocking him, singing to him etc, but it was the first step towards better nights I think, cutting out the milk. Once he got used to not having the milk he still woke up but was quicker to settle back to sleep.

Dycey - thanks you are giving me lots of hope

JandtheB - sounds like you've made some fantastic progress with your DD over the past few months. Getting her to go off to sleep without you being in the room is fantastic Hopefully moving house will give you the opportunity to start a new routine with her and break old habits. What are you going to do to make her room lovely to be in? Nice neighbours by the way - bet you'll be sorry to leave them behind!

ItIsMe - how are the snot rivers? We have a trickle of snot which is likely to become a river in the next day or so

Galena - O only napped for an hour yesterday (he needs at least 2 during the day) so we had overtired crying at bedtime. Joy! How was last night? Is little Skye all better now?

wal - you poor thing is DS your only one? I know what you mean about one bad night setting you back on the exhaustion front - it's as if there is no reserve tank. If you don't want to try CC then can I recommend this book? We have been following a plan concocted using the No Cry Sleep Solution for the past 18 days and DS is definitely improving. It's not a quick fix so you have to take some short term pain for long term gain, but it seems to be working for us.

So, my update. Today is day 19 of the plan and last night... Oscar slept through again!! He went down at 18.35 (he'd skipped a nap so was super tired) and needed to be settled from 19.10-19.30, but then he slept right through until 06.20!!! Sadly DH and I didn't. DH woke up to vomit at 00.30 (don't know why - hoping it was something he ate rather than a bug) and then I couldn't get back to sleep until 02.30 Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr! What a wasted opportunity for sleep

Oh for heaven's sake! It never rains but it pours! I think Skye might possibly have chicken pox! I think I may have had shingles a few weeks ago (didn't go to doc as I persuaded myself it wasn't) and now she's gradually coming out in spots - it began with 1 on Tuesday, then 2, then 4, now 6... Good news is she doesn't seem itchy. Bad news is she woke last night at 8:30, 9:40, 12:10, 3:50-5:45, 6:20 and 6:33. ARGH - what a delightful birthday pressie for me!

Bicnod, yay for Oscar sleeping through again - what a star, even if you couldn't capitalise on it!

Morning all!

Bicnod sounds like Oscar and The Plan are doing really well. Fingers crossed that your DH is better today, the O manages the same tonight and you can all capitalise on the sleep for the weekend.

Galena poor you and Skye! I got shingles at the very start of my pg with A, and luckily it wasn't too bad for me. Hope Skye sails through the chicken pox - she sounds like she is a real trooper, so have everything crossed for you both.

Better go and get on with lunch while A is napping. The sun is shining here at the mo - makes such a difference to my mood!

Oh, and we have had a couple of relatively better nights - he's managed a five and a half hour stretch both nights that I was able to make use of, so after a month of being disturbed every couple of hours, that is a huge improvement. Snot rivers not too bad, still there but fairly slow flowing (TMI!). Am really hoping that we can get away without having to do CC again when he finally gets well...

Oh, and did somebody mention cake?

Galena - poor Skye, poor you how is she now? How was sleep last night?

IsItMe - 5 1/2 hours - fantastic! How was last night?

Cake - yes - let's arrange a meet up for any of us who are somewhere close to SW London. Most of my mummy friends have babies who sleep well so it would be nice to meet some people in RL who are in the same position as me!

I'm in Raynes Park so Kingston and Wimbledon are my two nearest main towns... any good for anyone?

ARGH! I want sleep!

She's probably not being as bad as some babies/children with chicken pox (as in, I got a few hours in 1hr stints last night and the night before) but it's beginning to wear me down. She's very grumpy during the day - screaming at random moments and then being peaceful the next. She's also needing a LOT more daytime sleep at the moment. Unfortunately, it's just taken me 2hrs to get her to go to sleep this evening, and I'm not holding out for a good night.

Last night we took her temp at 2:30 to discover it was 39.9 so we were stripping her off, dosing with Calpol and phoning the out of hours doctor, who basically said to keep an eye on her temp and see what happened. Luckily it came down quite quickly (in fact, at one point it was 35 . Temp was fine today until 5pm. She'd been asleep on hubby's lap for an hour and a half, and he just decided to check her temp - 39.5 again. Bah! It's down again now, but this is getting silly.

Anyone know how long chicken poxy children stay feeling miserable for? Is it all the time, or do they start cheering up when the spots stop appearing? She's now getting copious coverage, bless her, and I can imagine it's horrid - they're even over her scalp. Just as well she hasn't got much hair! I just want her to be her normal self again, what with the bronchiolitis, the hospital stay and now the pox, I've had enough!

Sorry, I've rambled, that's what sleep deprivation does to you. I wish I could join you for cake, but Cheltenham seems a bit too far to travel from

Poor Skye-baby and Galena! That sounds horrendous for you all.

I was looking at NHS Choices to see if I could find the answer to your question (but couldn't). It does have a useful tip about putting socks on their hands at night to stop them scratching and getting scarring later...link is here.

Very best of luck Galena.

Bicnod - I'm close to Wimbledon too, but the Wandsworth side.

Thanks IsItMe, I've read that page too - in fact, I think I've read most of the internet on Chicken Pox and nothing tells me...

Luckily she doesn't seem to be scratching at all, just grumping! Last night wasn't too bad... went down at 8:15, woke at 8:45, 10:15 (self settled), 11:30, 3 and then 7:15.

Could be worse.

That does sound a bit better Galena - hope it means she's feeling less rubbish. Having read the symptoms, I can imagine her feeling really poorly. I realised why DS wouldn't let me put him down when he had the D&V bug once I'd had it myself...

Hi all.

I haven't been on for a while as all has remained (for the most part) peaceful at night here. Poor old boy has had the snuffles again but seems to have managed ok. I didn't give a dream feed last night as he looked so peaceful asleep, he slept until 6:00. Now in two minds as to whether to continue with them or not. Bloomin cats still being a nightmare.

Have skim read post. Welcome all newbies. wal07, I hope things start to improve or that you formulate some kind of plan.

Galena-pants, pants, pants. You really are getting everything out of the way in one fell swoop.

Bicnod and IsItMe It sounds like we all circle Wimbledon from different directions. I am Tooting side!