Very, very hard to settle - help!

[dorisbonkers]

My 13 month old baby is breastfed to sleep and we co-sleep. Was originally in an amby, then co-sleeping the rest of the night, but from about 8 months has been exclusively in my bed.

She's always been a tricky sleeper but for the last month it's been increasingly difficult to put her to bed.

I've made my peace with broken sleep. I can cope with that and co-sleeping helps. She typically wakes 2-3 times a night.

I've done a bath/story/breastfeed to sleep sequence since 6 months. I've tinkered with times -- trying to get her to bed anything from 6.30pm to 9pm. I've tinkered with naps - from 2 a day, to one long one, but it can be very hard to get her to sleep when she doesn't want to sleep. Also, she will only sleep on me on a cushion often with a nipple in her mouth so you can imagine I can't get an awful lot done. I used to be able to get anything done when she'd gone to bed, but now bedtime is taking a few hours and I'm losing the plot!

She's tired enough but flails about on the bed and now she's big now and tugs and pulls on my tit which drives me up the wall. So sometimes I've picked her up and breastfed her on the sofa and transferred her to the bed (as I have done tonight)

I don't ever have TV on (only a bit of Radio 3 or 4 on) with her around, I keep the lights dim in the evening and generally am conscious to have 'wind down' time. I try my hardest to get the daytime naps she needs (typically 2 naps, one short, one a bit longer in a sling maybe). I have been consistent with a bedtime sequence.

She's been walking for a while now, talking like a demon so unsure whether it's developmental (it probably is sigh). I have racked my brains to figure out what isn't right with this situation.

I'm planning to go back to part time work in a month and my husband is going to look after her. So while this big change happens I'm reluctant to go all out and make a massive change like get her in her own room and do gradual retreat. I'd planned on riding this out so she has me settling her while we all readjust to me going back to work.

Any ideas of things I could change or tweak to get settling easier? My husband suggest leaving her up until she knackers herself out but it feels wrong to get her to bed at 10pm. And I hate to say it, but I do need some evening time.

It's also getting me frustrated and angry and last night I got so tearful I had to leave her in the room while she cried for a minute -- I felt bad but I was just so angry.

Thanks. I realise every child is different but I do get jealous when friends' kids go in a cot for a long daytime nap/take half an hour to go to bed, while I've been pinned to a sofa dying to urinate, or spent 2 hours feeding an alligator to sleep.

Hi there. Last night was horrendous. Feeding on and off (and vigorously, so lots of kicking and kneading and scratching and rolling bits of my skin in her fingers) all night.

I couldn't cope with a day at work after a night like that (well, maybe if it was a one off but it's always either bad, or utterly horrendous!

I think I need to break the feed to sleep association and involve DH in the settling process (he's up for it). If that means some tears while either one of us is in the room, then I think I can live with that.

How do I go about it? Take her to bed, feed her and then get DH to go in and cuddle her for hours?

What do I do when she wakes next?

We have a tiny flat and only one bed, should I sleep on the sofa while we do this or can I get into bed after the initial settling has been done without feeding?

Thanks

Sorry to hear you are having a tough time still.

I used to feed DS2 just before bed and then hand him to DH for a cuddle. DH would then put him in to bed and usually have to deal with all the wake ups in the night too, unless DS really wanted milk from me. DH did have to spend quite a lot of time settling him. It is hard work when you are already sleep deprived.

I don't think you will find it very easy to stop the night feeds if you keep your DD in your bed, but it can be done if you do really want to continue co-sleeping. We started to discourage it only because DS2 is such a terrible fidget!

Our routine took a long time to get established, and DS2 ended up in bed with us half way through the night whatever we did for a long time. I just made sure I removed temptation and tried to sort of keep a bit of distance in bed to stop the DS' night time auto-latch

Maybe it is worth going for a total change and trying her in her own bed now and work your routine changes around that?

doris sending you sympathy! you can try what you said. just know that ur DH will become the sleep prop, instead of you.

hope it works, at least you will get some sleep.

Just an idea but my DD goes through phases where she needs different bedtimes. E.g. when she was learning to walk she needed to go to bed at 7-7.30 but now she has cracked it we are back to 8-8.30. She resists sleep more if I've got the bedtime wrong. So although you said you've tried different bedtimes, perhaps it's worth trying again?
Does she sleep in a pushchair? Is she teething?
You are not alone - I know what you mean about feeling jealous about friend's babies sleeping all night / in cot. I just keep reminding myself that all children are different and one day DD will be a fantastic sleeper....
stargirlx

Doris, how's it going??

If you are up for sleep training and want to do gradual withdrawal, then I think I'd start by feeding in the living room then handing her over to DH to take into the bedroom and settle - if she's used to the sling then my guess is that rocking might be the best method to get you started? Once she is used to the rocking, you can start to gradually withdraw the support, i.e. you go from rocking to holding, to hand on her, to lying next to her etc. The idea is that you should move on to the next stage every 3 or 4 days, but we are going much slower than this, partly due to DS suffering with teething/illness and partly due to general lethargy on our parts.

What you do when she wakes up depends on whether you want to go cold turkey on the night feeds. If you do want to take the cold turkey approach, then you simply repeat what you did to settle her in the first place, e.g. DH rocks or whatever, but you don't feed.

If you want to work towards eliminating feeds more gradually then there are two basic approaches - either you feed each time she wakes but reduce the duration of the feed gradually or you feed at set times/windows (e.g 2am, 5am) and not at other wake-ups. I can explain further if it helps?

We've been doing this for a few weeks now and DS's sleep has definitely improved. He was waking every 90 minutes or so during the night for a feed, and now he's waking 2 or 3 times between 6pm and 5am (and is then basically on the boob until wake-up time at 6am). We are still co-sleeping and don't plan on stopping.

It hasn't improved his naps though. He still naps in a sling because it's impossible to put him down. I do think there are lots of kids who are just rubbish nappers - there seem to be quite a lot of self-settling babies who sleep well at night but who still only have 30 minute naps and rely on motion to stay asleep etc.

I'm not sure about whether or not you should stay in the room if you do sleep training. I find it's easier for DH to settle our DS at the non-feeding times so I try to rely on him doing as much of the night as possible and this seems to work OK. So I am currently in a different bed for most of the night whilst DH co-sleeps with DS. I guess it comes down to whether you think your DD will be anxious if you're not there. Maybe it's the sort of thing you'll need to experiment with. My DS is younger, and I think that's easier in a way.

Bit rambling but hth. Post some more to let us know how you're getting on.

Hello all. Well, it's not been that bad the last few nights and what I've done is if she seems tired after dinner we bath her and read her a story and I'll feed her in bed (me half in fully clothed, if you know what I mean) and if she wriggles I let her up to knacker herself out a bit more.

Doing this, and not freaking that I'm ruining all the good work of the bedtime routine, has helped me readjust. I think that's what I needed. A rant and a long think about the alternatives, a long talk with DH and realising that not even the people with babies who self settle at bang on 7pm have it easy. I have a very lovely girl and she's charming to be around. I need to focus on that and remember how lucky I am.

I think I have to face facts that she needs a later bedtime than I deem appropriate. Say 8.30-9.30 rather than 7.30.

When I lived in Singapore and she was a young baby I hadn't even heard of the 7pm bedtime and it's not particularly the norm there. But since being back in the UK just through osmosis I've got it into my head that I have to bend her to an early bedtime. This is when the problems started really. Someone even said that she won't develop properly if she doesn't get unbroken 12 hours.

She still wakes and has a period usually early morning when she is constantly on the boob, but that's always been the case so I don't worry about that. A friend also said it can be common for a toddler to feed very frequently almost like a newborn if you give them free access to the boob

I will hold off on the sleep training until I go back to work or unless I collapse.

She's currently moving to one nap a day I think and it seems quite a transitional time.

When you have a bad patch it can feel bleak and desperate -- like it's always going to be that way.

I'll keep you posted.