success stories needed plz

[beanie5]

my lo is coming up to 6 months old and so far has always been a rubbish sleeper, we switch between 'ok' nights where i get 5 hours broken sleep to the more common horrendous nights (like the last 2) where i spend all night trying to get her to stay asleep, i eventually got about 1.5hrs at 5am this morn as i put her in my bed
im so shattered i just want to cry all the time, had a breakdown at 1.30 this morn when my oh came to see how we were doing
its making me regret ever having her
please tell me someone else has been here and got through it, i dont want to carry on

 

[El1en]

Aw I really feel for you. My little girl is 14m and a horrendous sleeper. Always has been. At 6m she had spells where she woke every hour which was awful. We tried controlled crying which worked really well but then at 8m she got her first cold and was very poorly and things went backwards. We had a busy period with landing sheep on our farm so we couldn't really
try controlled crying again as we were so tired and by the time we were ready to try again she was that much older it broke my heart trying and couldn't do it. These days she wakes at 2ish and then comes into my bed at 5 for a bottle and sleeps until 7. So she has improved but we're still not there yet

It's hard. i really feel for you. Is your lo in your room? Does your hubby take turns?

 

[GF91]

Milania was an absolute horrendous sleeper- pretty much right from the beginning. Getting up twice or 3 times was a luxury- it was normally 5,6,7,8 times- with her often waking at 3/4 every morning. I was doing it on my own as my OH works 6 days a week really long days so although he offered to sort her I didn't want him too. She started to get better once she started nursery at 1 & one day I asked their advice what to do & they recommended not going in to her until she was crying (she wouldn't often wake and groan and thrash about but not actually be awake) then once she started crying go in, not pick her up or speak To her but lay her down, stroke her hair, shhh her, let her know I was there until she settlted & then leave the room & only going in when she cried again. The first couple of nights where hard work- but after 2 nights she was sleeping through! She's currently going through a faze of waking between 4 & 5 but we have just moved house so I think it's to do with that.

You'll get there eventually Hun, don't give up. It's blinking hard- but before you know it she'll be up walking and you'll wonder where the last X amount of time has gone xxx

 

[flexilexi394]

Awwww beanie, sleep depravation is really really bad for you, you need to get some sleep.

Are you differentiating day and night for her? I used to do a lot of Sofia's napping in the daylight with the hoover going, and then after "last" feed at 7am, pyjamas on, dark room, quiet and settled and left. I went back after 5 minutes if she was unsettled, didn't speak to her just tried to settle her back down and she was left sleeping until the next feed, and I used to dream feed through the night.

I don't know if any of that will actually help you, I don't know what you've tried and haven't tried, but I do know that sleep depravation is not good for people and can cause all sorts of problems, try your health visitor for ideas too, and get your partner to help you! You need a rest xxx

 

[beanie5]

ty for the replies

one of the health visitors gave me some info on the 'solihul method' which seems quite a lot like controlled crying, i tried it once the day after but lo wont be comforted by patting/shushing or anything like that and ended up just getting hysterical. i really don't think its for us
lo is in her own room, moved her out about 4/5 weeks ago thinking that maybe she was waking because the crib was too small, i'm sleeping on her floor though as she's still young and wakes so often. she's bf so i do pretty much all the nights, he does get up early in the morning to take her downstairs so i can have a sleep though
GF91 that sounds familiar, i find myself getting a bit resentful when i hear/read people saying "im so shattered my lo wakes 2/3 times a night still" 2/3 times would be amazing ! was your lo able to self settle before you tried the nursery recommendation? my lo seems to just stay awake/get really worked up if i leave her to it so i'm not sure she'd eventually sleep if i tried that
yup we've got noise/light etc in the day and at bedtime take her upstairs, washed, nappy change, feed in her bedroom- was trying to do story as well but she's so shattered all the time she just gets worked up and i end up leaving it out.
health visitor has said hopefully weaning will help, started that now but i'm not convinced

after another awful evening/night i eventually put her in my bed (or nest as its on the floor!) and she slept from 1.45-5.45am which makes me think it's not anything actually keeping her awake physically? i really don't want to co sleep as i'd like to go back to my room and off the floor at some point and i dont think it's doing my relationship any favours but i don't know what else i can do if she refuses to settle
we're supposed to be at swimming class this morning but i've bailed, im' sure isolating myself probably wont be helpful but i can't face seeing anyone

 

[flexilexi394]

Perhaps weening her really will help though if she's nice and full up on food before bedtime it might help her sleep? I really feel for you it must be awful sleeping on the floor will the cot not fit in your bedroom? We have put the cot up in our room as we only have a 2 bed flat so baby will have to share with us until he's sleeping through and big enough to go in a bunk bed!

I reckon if she starts on food you might be alright you know xx

 

[GF91]

I found myself getting super resentful- especially when OH would complain that he was tired or my sister would tell me how much of a fantastic sleeper my nephew was/is!! She would sometimes settle herself- but she's been more self settling since we done what the nursery recommended! I'm feeling it today though- she's been up since 4.30 & won't go down for a nap. She's knackered but just screaming at me & there's no way of settling her. OH & I had an argument at 5 this morning- so he pissed off to work 2 hours early!! Very supportive!
Isolating yourself won't help- you're right! But sometimes you need to do what's right for you both. We're still in our PJ's. Milanias meant to be going to nursery this afternoon but I'm not going to send her! 1.) she'll prob conk out this afternoon so I don't particularly want to pay for her to just sleep & 2.) I can't be bothered to stop drive or see anyone.
It does get easier I promise. I'm sure there's a leap around 6months. Milania went really clingy during those xxx

 

[Colleen1988]

Do you have a set routine ie routine for day time naps and bedtime routine? I used guides as to how much baby should be sleeping in the day so from 6 months my LO would have a nap in the morning at 9.30 for about 1.5 hours then Id wake him and let him nap again for an hour in the afternoon for as long as he wants but Id always wake him before 4pm! He's had the same bedtime routine since he was 6 week old, bath, bottle and bed! maybe Google bedtime routines and nap routines see if that can help you xxx

 

[Rose83]

Hi, firstly there is absolutely nothing worse than sleep deprivation, it breaks you very quickly and you find yourself thinking things you would never think when you are 'sane' (eg wishing you hadn't had them) so don't feel guilty. You really could do with having someone help you out. I had a friend whose baby had such terrible colic she and her partner were getting no sleep and as he had his own very physical business he just couldn't function like that - she ended up having to move in with her mum so that her partner could sleep at home and she could get some sleep while her mum helped. Ultimately you do whatever you can to get through it but most importantly to get enough sleep to function.

I know what it feels like to have people say 'helpful' things like 'you made/will make a rod for your own back by doing x' so ignore those people. If you choose to do something that you've read/we suggest here/just feels right for you, because it suits you now to get through this then no one has a right to judge you. It must be frustrating to read people saying 'have you tried this/that' or similar 'they need a routine' type thing but I'll just tell you what worked for my daughter - she is 18'months and my son is 3 months. Neither of them were/are as bad as you are describing but my daughter definitely went through some difficult patches. So here goes:

Right from birth she seemed a good sleeper but a lot of the time it was because she was asleep on my chest then later beside me in bed some of the time. From birth she would go in her cot if I got her asleep and could transfer (insert 'you should have put her in awake' type family comments here) but she would wake for feeds around 4 and I would struggle to get her back in her cot after that and end up with her beside me in bed a lot of the time. As an aside my son is the exact same and he goes in cot awake so that was clearly bulls*** from my family! As she got older we were having more and more trouble getting her to sleep - we were cuddling her for up to 2 hours to get her asleep and then transfer her to cot.

From about two months her routine was 6pm bath, moisturise with Johnsons bedtime lotion, hair dry, 5oz bottle of breast milk (long story but she ended up exclusively express fed due to problems) then we would cuddle to sleep. Until she was about 8 months this cuddling was only a couple of minutes at most and then it started getting longer and longer and she would fight sleep. She also had a dummy. At 10/11pm I would dream feed her another 5oz bottle breast milk.

By the time my son was almost due my partner said we needed to try something else. So basically he added in a story while she lay in her cot drinking her bottle. Then when finished ger bottle he turned her into her front, gave her dummy and sat in her room til she fell asleep. If she tried to get up he would leave the room. It took her two nights to work out she needed to just stay lying down. By two weeks he could walk out the room with her still awake and she will stay lying down and go to sleep. Two months On and we have just got her off her dummy as well at night.

In terms of in the middle of the night we did go through some stages where she would wake at 3 or 4am and refuse to go back to sleep, she would be giggling and getting up wide awake. I couldn't function on the amount of sleep I was getting so what would happen was that her bedroom was really our spare room and it had a double bed in it. So for a good few months from 4am onwards I would go in her room and have her cuddled beside me while I tried to sleep, she would be wrapped up so she couldn't move her arms and thrash around and would at least stay quiet mostly even if not asleep and that meant I would inevitably fall asleep exhausted and she eventually would because she was safe and couldn't do anything else. My partner hated it though, he hated me not being in bed with him but mainly hated the fact that he worried about the safety of us co-sleeping. He would wake up and have to come check on us so he could get back to sleep and it caused arguments but I said it was either that way or he could get up at 4am and stay up!

I know it gets boring to read but I really do believe a strict routine is key, also don't remove them from the bedroom once you've got them in there (doesn't sound like you are) but if they think they can get back downstairs awake they'll keep trying so best to just stay in the bedroom. Don't expect to make a major change all in one go, you need to start small and work your way up to what you really want to happen. Things to try if you don't already:
Strict routine
Johnsons bedtime relaxing stuff (does seem really good)
Ewan the dream sheep
Dummy (unless you are super against them - my son has one and is properly breast fed and doesn't interfere with feeding)
Wrapping/swaddling - either with a large muslin blanket in summer and a blanket or try a 'peanut' pod thingy (Amazon sell for about £12 - looks like a straight jacket but a friend swore by it)
Maybe try expressing and feeding a bottle of breast milk at bedtime to make sure they have a really big feed in them?
Gradually working up to the point of leaving them awake in cot to self soothe.

In all honesty I think 6 months is too young to self soothe so don't expect that. If it's possible teething is causing trouble then calprofen before bed should give 8 hours of cover and take away any pain that might be waking her.
Know that it will all get better, find someone to help you get some sleep as you desperately need it. Finally as a breast feeder myself I hated the idea of using formula as well and doing combi feeding but you could try giving a dream feed of formula at 10pm and seeing if this keeps her asleep as her tummy will be fuller. My daughter had to go on to formula at 8 months because I was pregnant with my son and my milk just dried up. The way i introduced it was to start with the dream feed bottle so she didn't notice it wasn't my milk and she genuinely never did xx

 

[can]

Hi just wanted to say I sympathise with you. I'm a mum to three boys. My youngest being 11 months. All three have been bad sleepers. Basically I can't offer advice as I brought all 3 in the bed with me over the years. My 2 year old sleeps in one bed with daddy and my 11 month old sleeps in bed with me ( my now 10 year old has mastered sleeping in his own bed now!!!! Lol) it's very hard and sleep deprivation pits a black cloud over everything. Hope you find the answer and hope she suddenly gets better at sleeping.

 

[BunnyN]

Could she be teething? When DS is teething he has nights that he won't sleep without being held. I have taken to sleeping on the floor with him on those nights.

Neither of mine were great sleepers. Honestly I don't have any solutions to offer you because if they exist I never found them! All I can say is that it won't last forever. DD now mostly sleeps through the night since 2.5 . Thankfully DS is not quite as hard work as she was.

Hugs

 

[Babygirl2016]

I haven't posted before but really wanted to let you know you are not alone and your feelings are completely understandably for someone getting little sleep. My son was just like your little one and everyone gave me their advice and comments (grandparents especially!). Best thing I did was stop giving myself a hard time and stop worrying about what my son should or shouldn't be doing. I kept him in my bed and he slept well and I slept well and it kept me from going insane. He struggled more than some children with separation and was clingy to me. But he is now 5 and sleeps in his own bed and started school with no separation anxiety. My daughter is only a few weeks old but is already a completely different temperament and happy to sleep on her own. I remain adamant that it was nothing to do with my parenting - I'm parenting them both the same, routines, etc - but my son needed to be close to me. You have to do what feels right for you but lack of sleep definitely made me crazy! All the best x

 

[beanie5]

ty all

we have no proper nap routine as she's always fought it so its been really difficult to instil, generally needs a nap around the same time each day but quite often struggle to get her to actually do it. that ends up leading to being over tired at bedtime so although we do have a routine of sorts (wash, nappy change, feed, cuddle, bed) its not very relaxed

the cot could probably fit in the bedroom but then i feel guilty that oh will end up being up all night too when he's got work, the floor not too bad atm as im on a giant pregnancy pillow & duvet to make it soft

think we're most likely going through the 6 month growth spurt, and leap according to my app, she's got even clingier the last few days and wont sleep in her cot at all, however the last 2 nights as she's slept with me we've only had a wake up around 12/1 and 5, so i think i can rule out actual discomfort- had been prescribed gaviscon before but ive never been convinced she had reflux and i think this is cementing my opinion- she clearly can sleep well she just doesnt want to on her own

could be teething although she's had some teething symptoms for about 3 months now with no sign of any coming through
we've started weaning now although i doubt shes getting full yet since its only small volumes so far
hoping that if i keep trying to get her in her cot at some point she'll stay however whilst she's flat out refusing i'm trying not to feel too guilty for bringing her in with me as at least that way we're both getting some sleep and my mood's better

so glad to see that some of you have also ended up sleeping with them and been able to get them into their own beds eventually, hoping we get there at some point too

 

[tinselcat]

My baby was a rubbish sleeper, particularly from about 5.5 months - 10.5 months.

Eventually he was waking up 6 or 7 times in the night. I don't want to use the word "training" as it conjures up the wrong images in peoples' mind, but from that age onwards I was able to use techniques to help him get to sleep & stay asleep (a lot of singing & stroking him while he was in his cotbed) and it has worked a charm.

We hit 18 months old today and he has been going through the night, it is such a relief. Teething and illness affect this but otherwise, it's an amazing feeling.

I hear of people who have 4 year olds who still wake up in the night and am wondering why they haven't done anything about it?!

Good luck xx

 

[BunnyN]

I wouldn't rule out discomfort. I think a baby who is suffering from pain or discomfort wants more comforting to sleep. Being close to you comforts them. When mine have a fever for example they will only sleep if close to me or OH.


Our 2nd is a much better sleeper than DD. He loves routine and actually wants to sleep. At his age DD she fought sleep and routine for all she was worth. I do believe it has way more to do with her than our parenting. She has always been a bit hyperactive and finds it really hard to switch off. She also suffered from cows milk allergy as a baby and had trouble putting on weight which I think added to her beeing needy. Some methods work really well for some LOs but I don't think they will work for all. People always had helpful suggestions as to how to make her sleep better. I was a first time mum and kind of thought it was my fault at first but after a while it began to dawn on me that the way she was wasnt 'normal'. People who actually spend any amount of time with her notice it too. Our second has a very different personality and is super easy going. I have read a lot of posts since from mums who have had both good and bad sleepers and it wasnt because of what they did. If you only had a good or average sleeper it would be easy to think other parențs are doing it wrong. Looking back I honestly laugh at the thought of trying to put DD to sleep by putting her in the cot and patterning her back etc...no way that was happening! I'm not saying it's not worth trying things, some find methods that work wonders for them, but you could drive yourself crazy trying everything. At the end of the day just do what works for you and don't blame yourself for having a bad sleeper.

 

[ruby2015]

Poor you is she warm enough? My LO slept in a sleeping bag until a few weeks ago then it got too hot so I stopped putting him in it. Suddenly he stopped sleeping so well and I wondered if he needed to be in some sort of sleeping bag regardless of the temperature- got a thin 0.5 tog one and he's sleeping well again. Just a thought- anything's worth trying- I really feel for you!!

 

[BunnyN]

That is a good though about being warm enough. DS gets cold really easily and wakes frequently if he isnt dressed like an Eskimo for bed. He kicks the blankets off wo I have to keep him warm with extra clothes. It would explain why LO sleeps better next to you because it would b3 nice and warm.

 

[Kholl]

Oh my god I can't tell you how much I relate to this. My first was a horrendous sleeper. Just horrendous. She finally started sleeping through when I night weaned her at 2. And now at 4.5 she STILL comes into our bed every single night at some point.

Everyone said you don't get two bad sleepers in a row, so I was hopeful when I had my second. AND HE WAS WORSE. I absolutely could not believe it. He will be 2 in September and I have finally succeeded in night weaning him and he sleeps until about 2am in his room then comes into our bed...

I just assume this one won't sleep either. Feel like a crazy person already, I can not believe how the last 5 years of horrendous sleep have changed me. I am a different person I swear.

The ONLY thing I'll say is do what works and don't overthink it. If cosleeping means you get more sleep, do it. No question. Sleep deprivation will hurt your relationship WAY more than cosleeping ever could (trust me on this one).

I hope it gets better for you very very soon!

 

[Kholl]

I hear of people who have 4 year olds who still wake up in the night and am wondering why they haven't done anything about it?!

This is a tricky one, because yes it's true that many people just kind of live with it, but often children are simply wakeful people. I've tried everything I'm comfortable trying (I would never let my baby cry unattended-- so everything short of that), and my 4.5-yr-old wakes in the night every night. But then again I wake up to pee or just toss and turn for a bit every night, even when not pregnant- so she obviously gets it from me! Sometimes there simply isn't anything that can be done, and at a certain age they don't want to come snuggle with mom anymore. Or so I've heard...

 

[beanie5]

oh no Kholl there goes my theory of "i'm due a sleeper next time round" :O i hope your third bucks the trend !

thanks for the advice all, i've tried to stop stressing about what i 'should' or 'shouldn't' be doing and just go with what works, we had a couple of nights where she slept with me all night and only woke twice, then on the third night she's now not waking the second i put her in her cot! still doesn't sleep great but we've managed to get a couple of hours at a time in her cot before i bring her in with me- usually in the hope that she'll do a longer stretch but it doesn't seem to be working!

but in all i'm getting more sleep so coping a bit better on it. did have a rough start to last night again as she's got a cough which woke her up after 10 mins sleep- considering it'd taken me 1.5 hours to get her to sleep i wasn't best pleased! however OH managed to get her to sleep in the cot from awake! took 45 mins but it's something she's never done before and she stayed asleep for 3 hours!! and i slept in my bed!!! for 3 hours anyway before i went back to the floor lol! definitely need to chill out about it and just do whatever works, sleep deprived mummy is not someone that i like or want my baby girl around