I just cant get it right. At breaking point

[xZoeyx]

So little one is 8months.

Never been a good sleeper, still wakes 1-2 times a night through habit and just won't break the habit. Will NOT settle for anywhere up to an hour, even middle of the night. For example today he went to bed at 7:15pm, woke at 1:30am and had 6oz, then wouldn't sleep till nearly 3am!!!!

But the reason I am posting this is his naps have NEVER been good. Every single morning he fights a nap, yet hes tired no more than an hour and a half after he wakes up, he will spend anywhere up to 2 hours crying before he will go to sleep.

But what I don't understand is his routine has NEVER been any different! I have never let him get into a bad sleep association habit, he has always been placed in his cot for his naps and his bed time. He has always been left too cry it out unless he seems distressed, he has never fallen asleep on the bottle or been rocked to sleep. He is always placed into his cot awake and left until he falls asleep but yet he has a HUGE problem self settling.

I am at the end of my tether, this morning he is screaming intermittently refusing to go to sleep but I am in tears because I am knackered and all I can hear is him whinging. I just don't know what to do anymore :'( I just want a full nights sleep and a baby that sleeps and naps!

If I had always rocked him to sleep, or fed him to sleep, or something else then I could understand why he might kick up a fuss if just laid down awake but its not new and I have never done the above.

It can't be normal for a baby to fight naps like this to the extent that he does surely???

Really at breaking point now, don't know what to do anymore :'(

 

[Rel]

I don't know if it will be any help but have you tried getting him to sleep in a different position? Even though babies should sleep on their backs some really dislike it.

 

[xZoeyx]

He hates sleeping on his back and will always put himself on his front anyway so its not that but thank you

 

[Rel]

Does he ever lie down without crying?

 

[Larkspur]

Honey, it's not you, it's just the way your baby is!

I know you want a baby that sleeps through and takes great naps, we all do. But you have been sold a lie that you can make the baby you have into that baby. That is not to say that your baby's sleep and naps won't improve - they will, but they will do it in their own time.

There is no such thing as bad habits. I nursed and sometimes rocked my first to sleep and he was a bad sleeper and a bad napper, but his naps got better well before he stopped nursing to sleep, and he grew out of nursing to sleep well before his night sleep improved. Those things are not related.

My second has always nursed till drowsy but gone into the cot awake, and her sleep is bad anyway, but she has started taking awesome naps in the last month after refusing to take naps anywhere except on me for the first four months of her life.

None of this is anything to do with me, her sleep is just changing naturally and I'm just going along with it. I find I feel so much less stressed just accepting things the way they are and finding ways to deal with it than trying to fight it because I have an idea in my head that it "should" be some other way.

It may not be what you want to hear but honestly, let go of the ideas "My baby should be doing this" and "I want my baby to do this" in favour of "This is how my baby is so I will work around it by doing this until things change" and you will be SO much happier.

 

[xZoeyx]

Yeah quite often. Sometimes he wont cry till I walk away, other times it is just after I lay him down. It is not reflux as he had that as a baby and has grown out of it, call it Mothers instinct but I just know its attention based. He has always been a ''difficult'' baby, very needy/clingy, cannot entertain himself atall, and his temper is absolutely shocking and has been visible for many months (plenty of other people noticed it, so its not just me!) He is such a feisty little thing!

 

[Rel]

I was going to say to maybe leave him for a short while and then go back to see him before he cries. Then he will maybe get the idea that even if you go you are not far away and you will come back... It's maybe a long shot but could it be worth a try?

 

[xZoeyx]

Have tried that Rel but thank you.

Larkspur I know your right but I find it so hard to change my train of thought. Guess urs something I will have to work on!

 

[felix555]

You're not doing anything wrong. Some babies are just like this. My 19month old still fights naps and i have to rock him for up to half an hour for every single nap. When he was your LO's age he still had to be literally held the entire nap or he would wake up. It was nearer the one year mark he could be put down for naps but still needed rocking.

A good night for us is him waking up twice and its very normal for him to be up one to three hours when he does wake up. I can't believe my luck if it's a 10 minute wake up!

You've done nothing wrong. I have read a million books on baby sleep and my LO has had a bedtime routine since 1 day old it's made no difference.

How many naps does he have a day now? Maybe it's time to drop a nap if he's fighting them this much..

I'm a bit reluctant to say this because I know you struggle and I don't want you to think I'm criticising you ... I'm not but do you think by letting him cry and self settle when he's not been ready to as that's a developmental thing that's different ages for different babies has caused him a bit of anxiety when it's nap time as he knows he will be left to cry? Could you, if you don't want to rock him, just sit next to him and rub his back until he falls asleep?

 

[pinklizzy]

Tristan has been fighting his sleep at nap times over the last couple of weeks, he's usually put into his cot awake and goes off to sleep by himself as this is what he prefers to do but at the moment I am having to keep my hand on his back or stroke his head until he drops off.
We have gone from one to 2-3 wakes up at night and last night was a good night with a wake at 9.30, midnight and then 3am-4.30am.
I have a horrible cold and nasty cough at the moment and he is full of it too which isn't helping, I think his teeth are bothering him (he still doesn't have any) and he is doing lots of practising for crawling and pulling himself up to stand which I think is disrupting his sleep.
I'm dreading going back to work in January and trying very hard to remember that it will pass!

 

[xZoeyx]

Thanks Felix, yes think I will have to accept it's just "who" he is!

I have tried being with him but it works him up even more!

 

[xZoeyx]

Pinklizzy I can completely relate to you there. Jacob is teething and his teeth are cutting at the moment so I know that doesn't help but then his behaviour is not out of the "norm" for him!

I was tired this morning and he was screaming so this thread was a desperate attempt at some comfort I think!

 

[felix555]

It's really hard, I also have days where I think why me! Why was I given a baby that doesn't sleep. My LO sounds very similar to yours ... as I've told you already they share a birthday maybe that has something to do with it!

 

[pinklizzy]

Tristan's birthday is the day after Zoey's little one so maybe there is something in that theory!!

 

[felix555]

We need an end of March stubborn non sleeping babies support thread

 

[NoodleSnack]

I know you don't want to hear this, but his sleep pattern, from what you described, is not unusual for babies. You've tried not using the sleep crutches, it doesn't appear to be working well for you, so why not try using them and see how that goes?

More than a year ago, I wrote here that I'm not going to breastfeed my son past 1 year, he's almost two and I'm still breastfeeding him to sleep. I would love to stop bf but I hate the idea of him not sleeping more, and me tearing my hair out over it, so I'm going to go with the path of least resistence. Plans change and we've got to do what works in the moment.

There are periods when my son wouldn't settle after bf, and I've used the swing, rock him, walk him round the house, in the buggy, in the carrier, whatever works that day. Because like you, I find it very frustrating when I know that he's tired and needs to sleep but wouldn't. It's one of the few things that makes me lose my patience with my son and I hate that, so to me, using the sleep crutches is a better alternative than leaving him to cry in the hope that he'll learn to sleep without my help when it would leave us both miserable.

 

[Linnypops]

When you say you've always left him to self settle unless he really cries - does that mean you go and get him then? Unfortunately in terms of controlled crying or cio - that is problematic - and will lead to continued prolonged crying. It needs to be really consistent. I'm not advocating cio or cc, but that's what i understand about it. You either go in and timed intervals and not before or you leave and don't return unless they are sick. It leads to prolonged crying if you aren't consistent.

But actualy what stands out to me about your post is the short wake times. I know all babies are different but 1.5 hours for an 8 month old sounds severely low for a wake time. My dd is 5 months and sleep trained using shh pat (baby whisperer technique) - 99% of the time she goes down sleepy but awake, i leave, and she falls asleep chatting - however if i ever put her down before she's ready to sleep it will lead to crying. If that happens i adjust her wake times and add 5 mins on until she goes to sleep with no problems again. Honestly, a baby will just cry if they're not tired enough to sleep - no matter whether they're sleep trained or not....what cues are you getting that he's ready for sleep at 1.5 hours?

As regards the long night wakings, as others have said the teething thing sounds possible. Is he happy when he wakes at night? 'They' say that's a sign of undertiredness or - too much time in bed. Does he wake up late in the morning after his long night wakings? If so, i'd be getting him up at 7am sharp each day and limiting total night sleep to 12 hours. If he's still waking i'd cut it back a bit more each night, so put him to bed a bit later and get him up a bit earier and see if this stops the long night wakings.

 

[Midnight_Fairy]

I dont think the nights sound THAT bad for his age? Jade was doing that quite often till about 18mths x

 

[MindUtopia]

I haven't read the other posts, but is there someone else who can help you with night settling. Do you have a partner around? They really can do it just as well as we can and cope just the same the next day on less sleep. We've always shared the night time settling and up until our daughter night weaned at 9 months, my husband was also up helping with every feed, even if he didn't really have to be. It helped tremendously. That said, do whatever works. Don't stress about all this 'sleep association' garbage. My daughter was fed or rocked to sleep until she was about a year. Then she just went to sleep on her own. No big deal. It's not a bad thing and they grow out of it when they don't need it anymore, but it did make it a lot easier to get her to sleep and we got a lot more sleep as a result. The wake-ups are the hard thing, it's the being awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night that's rough. So if you can feed or rock or whatever to get him to sleep, do it. That said, my daughter is nearly 2 now and still wakes at night. I don't know anyone with a toddler her age who doesn't, so it will be something that probably keeps happening for a while. The key is that she goes right back to sleep and we still get a full night's sleep even if we have to wake up for 5 minutes and since we trade off, no one is going weeks without a full night of sleep.

 

[JessesGirl29]

I consider it a great night when my nine month old wakes up twice. So many Moms are all 'blah blah he slept through the night since he left the womb' but I don't think that's the common thing at all.
I found I had to mentally re-adjust myself to expect the night wakings and just be pleasantly surprised if there were only a few.

My son started crawling and the daytime napping is amazing, before he would only cat nap during the day. Now that he's burning energy so much he almost demands to be put down morning and afternoon and sleeps an hour. NEVER thought that would happen.

Also we JUST discovered that loud white noise helps him nap longer AND it's gotten him to sleep through the night twice. It's totally worth it to keep investigating sleep solutions. I wish I had of thought of it before.....I picked up a hair dryer in a moment of desperation and blammo.....he laid his head down and closed his eyes. Doesn't work every time but boy does it help!