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

Oooooooo - where and when shall we meet? How about afternoon tea and cake at the Jitterbugs cafe? Maybe at 2.30pm? Can't wait

How is A now?

O has slept through the last 2 nights - I am truly gobsmacked. I'm still not sleeping through though, but hopefully that will come.

Don't know what the clock change will bring though

Oooh, well done Oscar!

Skye's had a temperature the past few days and so the sleeping's gone fairly variable again. Last night she managed to go down at 7, up for feeds at 8, 12, 4 and then woke at 6:15, however, with a dummy replacement slept until 8:15!!

Not sure about the clock change here either though.

I'm jealous of you all meeting up - we'll be there in spirit!

Hi All. I fear O has stolen R's sleep! We have been away for a few days and he has been awful. We returned yesterday and usually he settles back quite quickly, but noooo he was worse than he was as a newborn. Completely lost count of the number of wakings. The worse thing is that he was completely pooped and grizzly all day today. He was falling asleep eating his tea.

Jitterbugs at 2:30 suits us. I will look forward to it. Galena I will down a double espresso for you.

Hi everyone, newbie here I didn't realise this thread existed, or I could have been on it for the last year! My ds is 19months and still wakes up 2 or 3 times a night for feeds. This is wonderful compared to six months ago, where it was 4 or 5 times, and fantastic compared to a year ago, where it was every hour and a half, and only in the bed with me holding an arm or a foot .

I'd love to join the thread just to absorb some of your wisdom and experience and hope that I'll learn some new tricks. Haven't actually tried any tricks before...

BB, sorry to hear R's sleep has been rubbish. We're going away to my parents' for a few days on Wednesday night, so hoping her sleep doesn't go too pear-shaped. Last night we managed one wake, which was great!

Welcome Ooosa, sorry you're joining us, but hopefully it'll be the miracle cure and DS will start sleeping through beautifully!

Skye's temperature is still a bit up and down, but she's been very good tempered with it today, and been smiling at the world and his wife (usually she's a tight little madam with her smiles). But hopefully she'll be on the mend soon...

Thanks Galena. Just nice to know I'm in good company!

Waves a sleepy hello.

A is still having long night-time wakes and despite all our attempts at different combinations of shhing/rocking, feeding and calpol, we are not really any the wiser as to what is causing it, or what he needs us to do. Last two nights he has ended up in with us - after 1-2hours of the above - and finally fallen asleep while I've been feeding him lying down.

Sadly, I can no longer seem to sleep like this myself. And then when he finally gets back into his cot, I'm having Bicnod's problem.

Let's see what tonight holds!

Meant to say welcome ooosabeauta. Sorry you need to join us, and am at your stamina. Where would like to get to with your DS's wakings?

IsItMe, sorry you're no closer to solving A's wakes. It's rubbish when they're ill and wake more often, but it's much more rubbish if they wake and you don't know what to do to help.

Skye's still not well. She's now coughing nicely. However, that said, she woke last night at 10:15 (for an hour) and 4:30 (feed) and is still in bed now at 8 - although coughing occasionally, quiet in between. (One thing about this hour clock change, we put her to bed at 'normal' time by the clock, but she's waking later. It's ACE! Long may it last!)

Hello, i've been sent this way by Bicnod. My gorgeous DD2 is now over 7mo and is currently waking every 2 hours or so, can only be settled by feeding. I'm not expecting her to sleep through, DD1 didn't till she was well over 1 but more than an hour and a half sleep at a time would be bliss!
she slept through (10-6) from about 10 weeks but we went away at 20 wks and it all went wrong then. this was followed by illness, another holiday and then a cold so not much 'normality'!

will go back to the beginning of the thread and read, may be some time!

Welcome olivo - sorry you have to join us. Every 2 hours or so sounds hard, especially since it was better to start with. Good luck with reading the whole thread. I don't think I've managed that!

Bicnod and BB - rightly or wrongly, I've got fixed in my head that Jitterbugs is where DS picked up the bug that started his run of illness since early January , which has completely devastated his (and our!) sleep.

I know it's not ideal in terms of the little ones being able to run around, but I wondered if you guys would mind meeting at M&S cafe instead?

BB sorry for rubbish sleep

Welcome Oooosa - fingers crossed you don't have to stay for so long! Am also impressed with your stamina.

Galena - yay for later wakings are you putting her to bed an hour earlier (as in, she's sleeping for an hour longer in total IYSWIM?)

Olivo - I hope the thread helps and that you don't have to stay here for long.

IsItMe - no worries about Jitterbugs - if you think that's where your LO picked up a bug I don't blame you at all for not wanting to go back. Since O has been crawling, however, I don't think he'll tolerate sitting in a cafe for long so I wouldn't get to have a massive piece of cake nice long chat. How about the soft play cafe at the David Lloyd Leisure Centre in Raynes Park instead? That's nice and clean and the baby section has got more toys in it/more space for rolling around than at Jitterbugs. Would that work? Or are there any other soft play places/play cafes in Wimbledon that I don't know about?

Hello, another newbie here...do you mind if I join?

Very sorry but I'm way too tired to read the whole thread - have been snoozily lurking on and off though.

DS is 6 months today and is quite simply rubbish...very cute though luckily . A normal night is up every 2/3 hours then up for an hour or so around 4am (usually has a poop around then ) then up for the day at about 6.30. Like a lot of the others he was brill for the first few mths and I stupidly thought we were sorted. He was then in hospital with bronchiolitis at 12 wks and hasn't slept well since

The worst thing is DD1 (4 the day DS was born) isn't a good sleeper and is still regularly up in the night...what if DS is going to be the same? I can't cope with another 4 years of broken nights!! Luckily DD2 is a dream - so I guess 1 out of 3 ain't bad...misquoting Meatloaf, I must be tired!

Welcome wibbldibs. You sound over-qualified for this thread, given your experience with DD1 - that can't be easy!

Sorry if this is a daft question, but is there a specifc reason why DD1 isn't sleeping better? I was just wondering if it might be easier to try to improve your nights that way in the short term...I'm guessing you've probably already tried the sticker reward charts, etc though.

Are you feeding your DS in the night still? (I've only just almost stoppped feeding 13.5mo DS at night, in case that sound judgy )

Thanks for making me welcome everyone. Have to admit that I haven't actually got great stamina - I used to dream of hiring a night nanny because it was just me up most of the night every night, but these days, since ds moving out of the bed, it is my husband doing all the getting up I'm pregnant at the moment and didn't have a lot of luck with pregnancies last year, possibly owing slightly to the lack of sleep, so dh and I agreed that I should be getting full nights of sleep for a few months. How did I wangle that?!

However, for everyone's sanity I would love it if ds could sleep through the night. He just seems to be a boy who doesn't need a great deal of sleep. He's been like it from the very start. Is the only baby in my antenatal friends group who will happily go through the day without a nap (although I do try to get him to, after hearing that 'sleep begets sleep', and he just seems to need less than most. Apparently my brother was the same, not sleeping through until he was 3 1/2, which doesn't fill me with hope!

He is much better than he used to be. Probably the reason I never found this thread before is because he wouldn't go to sleep until at least midnight, often half one/two am until he was six months. Those days were hard, so I'm grateful for the situation now

Bicnod That's fair enough - it's probably best to stick with Jitterbugs in that case. I'll try to bribe A to stay in a highchair by feeding him something very slowly. Then wrap him in bubblewrap before letting him out to play .

How will we recognise each other btw? Will we be lurking shiftily?

Whoops, just realised I inflated DS's age by a month earlier - he's still 12.5ishmo.

IsIt are you sure? I don't want to force you to go somewhere you're not happy taking A. Is there anywhere else you go regularly with A that you'd be happier with?

LOL at lurking shiftily Erm. I'll wear my turquoise and black stripy hoody. If it's too hot to wear it (haha) I'll drape it over the buggy (which is a khaki bugaboo bee). There are some Oscar pics on my profile, so you might recognise him. Basically he's huge and his hair looks like a toupe. I have short, spiky-ish hair. And I look blardy knackered.

Ooosa - congrats on your pregnancy when are you due?

Welcome Wibbly - sorry you have to join us. Have you tried anything with DS yet?

Yes, that's fine. I am a cruel (sleep-deprived) mummy who rarely lets A go anywhere other than Gymboree .

Ooh, and have some sleep-deprived parent black humour to share. Apparently the Soviets found it wasn't worth bothering with expensive and complicated torture techniques. They discovered that giving people a permanent cold and then waking them up every two hours did the trick. Sound familiar?

Thanks for the welcome fellow sufferers

IsItMeOr DD1 has always been like this, she's way better than she was and is now only up maybe once or twice a wk - mostly cold/nightmare/needs a cuddle/dropped her doll - and she's easy to settle now (DH deals mostly). She's not needed feeding in the night since about 6mths though. Still feeding DS in the night...last night it was 4 times - but he went back to sleep straight after. So much better than when I have him up for an hour or so each time.

Bicnod no, not tried anything yet - I'm moving his cot into his room tonight to see if that helps (it's just nextdoor). And I'm stepping up weaning - just mixing baby rice in with his veg etc to try and get some more carbs into him - he's a big lad and likes snacking!

Ooosa congrats on the pregnancy. I have 17 mths between the girls so I got pregnant before we realised DD1 wasn't a good sleeper iyswim. The silver lining is that DD2 is and was a good sleeper so fingers crossed yours will be the same

hello again. i thought of some of you last night, made me feel not alone, when my two little darlings deigned to keep me awake till 4.30 a.m . i'm actually gobsmacked at the human body's ability to produce coherent speech and vague coordination after only 2 1/2 hours sleep (and that was on the carpet by DDs cot !)
so, my attem,pts to drop some of the night feeds failed at precisely 12.30 a.m and DD1's sticker chart is a definitive waste of time

Oh my gawd olivo, that is stamina! Yes, dropping night feeds is something I haven't managed to do. Ds used to drink six bottles of six ounces in the night, and it was the only thing to get him back to sleep. Weird thing was he didn't ever get podgy, just taller and taller and taller. Weird because I'm short (and quite podgy at the moment)! I'm impressed that you're still up and writing coherently too. That grey, lurking nauseous 'no sleep' feeling used to make me an utter speechless wreck!

I'm just coming up to 15 weeks now Bicnod (due 23rd Sept.). We haven't told anyone apart from my parents (and the whole of mumsnet), so I'm wearing lots of baggy clothes and I can tell people are thinking I've fallen dramatically off my diet I'd have loved to have a small gap like yours wibbly. Am hoping and praying for a good sleeper. What are the chances?!

Wishing you all better sleep tonight

ooosa, congratulations on your pg.

Hi guys, i'm new on this site and was drawn to it by 7 months of sleep deprivation and the hope that there might be others out there who don't smugly say "oh she/he's been sleeping through since for ever"!!!
So happy to read this thread and even though i know there are no magic answers just hearing that i'm not the only one awake at 2, 3 ,4 5, 6 am is great! (struggling a bit with all the acronyms, dd, ds, dh, think i'm starting to suss it though) It also helps hearing that other parents feel the same sense that they have done something wrong to create nocturnal offspring; cause i feel like that all the time even though its silly.
I have turned a corner in the last week and got to the point where i can longer cope with the constant waking and we have decided that once we have been in to see she is ok physically and there is no genuine reason for the howling to leave her to cry. First night i cracked after an hour when both she and i were sobbing and i cuddled her back to sleep. The next night i stood my ground and she finally sobbed her self to sleep (got to be the saddest sound in the world) after 1 and fifteen. Last night 7 minutes of howling only, lots of waking but much less of the ear splitting, emotionally draining and guilt provoking screaming! I know we haven't cracked it and it is an on going, ever changing process but hopefully she might at least learn to settle her self! fingers, toes and all things crossed that tonight is a good nite!