is/was your LO a really bad sleeper? support and advise thread!

[kosh]

and by 'bad sleeper' i mean really bad. don't take it the wrong way, but if your LO wakes 2-3 times per night, this thread is prob not for you (but you can advise of course! ) this is for the hard-core crap sleepers!

I can think of at least another 4 mums in the forum (you know who you are! ) but I am sure there are more, so I thought we could have our own thread and share experiences and rants! I was going to post this last week, but then had a couple of rather good days and thought 'oh, maybe this is over?', yes, sure! lol we're back to 'normal' now...

So a bit about me and my LO:
he's the most beautiful thing in the world he's just over 6months. he's BF.
at about 2 months he established his own routine - bed by 8pm and waking every 3hr to feed, then back to sleep quite easily
then at around 3 1/2 months something happened (sleep regression?) and he started to wake up more often, but he'd still do the initial 3hr stretch, and then maybe, 2x 2hr, and 2x 1.5hr,
then the days got longer (and was light v early) and he'd be wide awake by 4-5am. thankfully, we somehow got over that with dark blinds etc, so he would go back to sleep but he'd started to wake every hour from 5am until 8am...
current situation is he doesn't do the initial 3hr stretch anymore, sometimes he sleeps for 2hr if I am really lucky, but most nights he's up every 45-90min. not only that, but now it takes a while to re-settle him. we also had some days where he wakes at 3-4am and stays awake for 1-2hr.
oh, and of course he has to be nursed/rocked to sleep...
some days I cope, others I cry at night. I am really concerned as I am back to work in 6 weeks and I will not do CC/CIO.

hope we can share tips to make our lives easier!



--------------------
EDIT - forgot to ask, would you mind sharing with me:

1) did you have any stress/complications during your pregnancy/birth? (I remember flippity, you were induced a day before me!)
2) are you FF or BF? I have the impression this problem is more common in BF babies
3) tiredness aside - do you feel overwhelmed, worried, anxious, etc? do you feel you have enough support or you're doing most of the looking after LO on your own?

thanks

 

[Odd Socks]

Lauren's had 3 nights in her life she's slept longer than a 2.5 hour stretch.

On a normal night, I'll feed her to sleep around 7pm, resettle her with boob a handful of times before I give up & go to bed & then she'll sleep 2 hours or so for a feed & spend the rest of the night waking generally every half hour, often with a 2-3 hour awake period in there, just to make it even better!

I dream of a 4 hour stretch of sleep.

xx

 

[yumosh]

I think mine has insomnia! She's 4 months next Wednesday so could be sleep regression? She's got dark circles round eyes but seems rather cheerful! I've given up on sleep really but think I might have developed insomnia! Can't switch off.

Hope it gets better...

 

[AngelUK]

Well you know I am in the same situation with my older twin Dominic though I am not sure if you meant me as one of the 4 mums. He sleeps at the most one stretch of 2 hours and then he is awake every hour/45 minutes and needs to have his dummy reinserted and be rocked back to sleep. And yet he is a cheerful lil thing during the day. My younger twin Sebastian is easy in every respect. I suspect since we never had to rock him to sleep, he knows how to drift off by himself. It's a vicious cycle. As for tips, I have none lol. Except that we are now often successful in fooling Dom by inserting the dummy, shoving a hand under his bottom and jiggling him where he lies. This works quite often but not always, depending on how awake he is.
I am too tired to rant tonight. Maybe tomorrow lol.

 

[flippityflop]

Hey Kosh

Had to come on here didn't I (where you post, I post!) Have to say I did what I never thought I'd do. I did CC. Last Tuesday I was driving back from swimming and I fell asleep at a red light. It had got that bad.

Really don't want this to be a CC debate, had to do what was right for us. started Friday night. He slept 8 hrs, next night 9hrs and since then he sleeps 12 hours. He is a different baby in the day. Takes long naps and smiles all the time. This is just what worked for me and I'm not suggesting you try it but wanted to give you an update.

 

[bookworm0901]

I probably don't count because LO is only 4 days old. But he won't let me put him down whatsoever at night. His days and nights are backwards, so he sleeps a lot during the day and dozes lightly at night. Once he's put down, he is instantly awake and screaming. the lack of sleep is really catching up to me, and this is only the beginning!

 

[chocolala]

I'm one with a terrible sleeper!

She's 10 1/2 months now. Always been a bugger getting her to sleep, she's always fought it really hard. When she realises she's going to sleep, she'll start kicking and crying or rubbing her eyes when she feels them closing, she'll do what she can to stay awake.

At about 2 months she slept through, but she had a sleep regression at 3 and 4 months. At 6 months, after having learnt to settle herself to sleep, she gave that up after doing it 4 times and started waking 6 + times a night. Until that point we'd been part time co-sleepers, from then on it was full time, otherwise I'd get barely any sleep. Sometimes in the early hours she'll wake every 30 mins or so.

At the moment I have no life other than getting lily to sleep - which can take hours - or being with her while she sleeps, as I can't leave her or she'll wake up. All that makes it very difficult to get things done, even the basics like washing up and dinner.

The last few days her sleep patterns have changed, she's gone longer, I've had one 4 hour stretch and a 5 hour stretch, but she's been fighting sleep harder than usual, took me 3 hours to get to sleep one day last week. I have no idea if this is going to last or not, we'll see.

I'm currently in the process of trying to fInd a cause for her sleep resistance, I figure there must be a reason as babies aren't supposed to fight sleep so hard. Our first point of call is seeing if she has tongue tie, which could be the cause of her fussiness.

Anyone here read the analytical armadillo blog on Duracell bunny babies? Very interesting read.

 

[aliss]

I'm not in your club anymore (1-2x a night at 18 months and sttn at 23 months) but I was in your club for 18 months!

I think *acceptance* was the only way to really deal with it. CC/CIO was not for me either. We made a morning 'routine' as a family to look forward too and made sure that OH + I had a little "us" time, even if only 10 minutes, per day when he finally started napping in the day at 4 months.

I'm guessing 6-20x a night for my LO in the first 6 months and a good 3-10x a night from then until 12 months.

If it happens again with #2 I will do the same thing, just SURVIVE, make a morning routine (ours was coffee + a cartoon, decaf for me regular for OH), and pray for the best. Nothing I tried ever worked anyways, and that end of the tunnel did eventually come.

 

[aliss]

I probably don't count because LO is only 4 days old. But he won't let me put him down whatsoever at night. His days and nights are backwards, so he sleeps a lot during the day and dozes lightly at night. Once he's put down, he is instantly awake and screaming. the lack of sleep is really catching up to me, and this is only the beginning!

Oh big hugs 4 days is the hardest period I can remember. I remember it exactly, his colic began at 9pm that night! It was a sunny Friday, lol. Very vivid, years later.

It will take time but until then, a tight swaddle to restrain the moro reflex and IMO bedsharing will do you a lot of good.

 

[lisa1980]

I think I may be one of the notorious 'no sleep' posters

My LO is 8.5 months. He's BF and from birth fed 3-hourly round the clock which I was really pleased with. At some point it became 2-hourly, then he started waking hourly at best. We've had some periods when it improved and the much fabled 'Night Of 6 Hours Sleep' but in general it keeps getting worse.

He used to sleep for a solid block of 3-4 hours in the evening and wake regularly but feed quickly and back to sleep. Recently he's been stirring all evening and having some night wakings where NOTHING ges him back to sleep in less than 1.5 hours. At that point we started regularly cosleeping as i couldn't take being vertical all night any more. He sleeps a little better in our bed but still not great tbh. I feel like I expected his sleep to be bad when he was tiny, even at 6 months I knew he'd probably still be waking once or twice and was fine with it, but i didn't expect it to get WORSE as he got older. I'm scared about how much worse it can still get!!

I'm trying some gentle sleep training involving trying to get him to fall asleep in the cot at bedtime but it's a bit hit and miss at the moment and taking AGES each night. I'm persevering as i don't know what else to do and have hope that it'll work eventually.

I go back to work in a couple of months and have no idea how I'm going to cope. I don't know why he wakes or why he fights sleep so much. He naps pretty well in the day, it's just nighttime when it all goes pear-shaped.

As an aside, and I don't want to start a debate AT ALL, but Flippityflop, I'm so happy CC worked for you and it really gives me hope that if we try it at some point it may not be as awful as everyone says. I'm not anti-CC at all but am just too tired/scared if i'm honest and I'm worried I'll bail too early and it'll be wasted crying....if things continue to get worse though I won't rule it out, for LO's sake more than mine as he's SO tired and frustrated.

Anyway, it really helps to hear others are in the same boat

 

[flippityflop]

As an aside, and I don't want to start a debate AT ALL, but Flippityflop, I'm so happy CC worked for you and it really gives me hope that if we try it at some point it may not be as awful as everyone says. I'm not anti-CC at all but am just too tired/scared if i'm honest and I'm worried I'll bail too early and it'll be wasted crying....if things continue to get worse though I won't rule it out, for LO's sake more than mine as he's SO tired and frustrated.

Anyway, it really helps to hear others are in the same boat

That's exactly how I felt - scared, tired and worried he'd cry for ever. People IRL have said to me "Don't you wish you'd done it sooner?" And I say no, I wasn't ready and I honestly don't think it would have worked before then. He'd got so exhausted he was barely taking 10oz a day (I switched to FF as I couldn't handle the stress of not knowing how much he'd eaten in his 1 minute BF every 6 hours). Since he started sleeping he takes 20-25oz a day and will BF for 15 mins every morning. I'm relieved its worked, sad I had to get to that point but we are both 1000 times happier. I can also very clearly understand why people won't do it.

 

[lisa1980]

FF, it's funny you mention it as IRL lots of mums at the baby group have done it and they can't believe that I haven't. There doesn't seem to be quite as much controversy over it IRL as there is on here (as with many things!).

I'm persevering with my 'settle him in the cot at all costs even if it takes hours' routine at the moment as I'm still hopeful that the consistency will pay off in the end. It's really frustrating as he seems to be getting worse, but he's very bright and VERY stubborn (no idea where he got that from ) so I was expecting that it'd take a bit longer for him to 'comply'. I'm going to give it a couple of weeks and then reassess.

Sheesh! I never expected to STILL be moaning on about his sleep at this point. Who knew that i should have really treasured the nights of waking 3-hourly

 

[flippityflop]

Part of the reason I was scared was because LO is really stubborn and I thought it wouldn't work, but it turns out he is pretty clever and worked it out quickly.

Good luck with the settling him in his cot route, it involves much less wine than CC (which may not be a good thing!)

I do sometimes sigh at posts where LO's are waking every 3-4 hrs and think "if only!"

 

[AngelUK]

...
I do sometimes sigh at posts where LO's are waking every 3-4 hrs and think "if only!"

LOL yep! But it is my punishment cause when Dominic used to sleep that one 4 hour stretch a night I was wishing it could be a lil longer. Serves me right that I now have to count my self lucky when he does 1h 1/2!

 

[MrsHedgehog]

I think I may be one of the 4?

When LO was a newborn she slept beautifully with only 2 or 3 wakings. I though I was blessed with a 'good baby' We co-slept from birth as it just felt so natural and was much easier for BF during the night. At around 4 months the sleep regression hit and LO started waking up much more and it got gradually worse until at around 6months she was waking every 45mins. After a couple of months she got better again and started to go for a couple of hours and even have a few stretches of 5-6hours on the odd night. I thought we were at the end of the tunnel. Then it started to get really hot and she started to fight sleep until 1 or 2am. She was still sleeping in 2-3hour stretches but wouldn't go to bed before midnight and was sleeping until midday. We gradually managed to get her to bed earlier and earlier by waking her up earlier in the mornings and we had one or two nights where she slept relatively normally. I decided to start putting her in her cot for the first part of the night which didn't really work and now for the past couple of weeks she is back to waking every 45mins or less.

I just can't make any sense out of my LOs sleeping habits. Nothing I do seems to make any difference and I can't figure out why she is waking so much. She naps well during the day in her cot it's just the night time that is a problem. She goes to sleep fairly easily if I nurse her but won't sleep any other way.

I laugh when I see posts of people saying "help, my 8 week old is still waking 3 times a night" (no offence to these people as I understand any amount of sleep deprivation is difficult especially in the early days)

Maybe we'll together be able to come up with an answer to our sleep problems. I sure hope so!

 

[kosh]

Lauren's had 3 nights in her life she's slept longer than a 2.5 hour stretch.

On a normal night, I'll feed her to sleep around 7pm, resettle her with boob a handful of times before I give up & go to bed & then she'll sleep 2 hours or so for a feed & spend the rest of the night waking generally every half hour, often with a 2-3 hour awake period in there, just to make it even better!

I dream of a 4 hour stretch of sleep.

xx

omg odd socks
how do you cope?!

I think mine has insomnia! She's 4 months next Wednesday so could be sleep regression? She's got dark circles round eyes but seems rather cheerful! I've given up on sleep really but think I might have developed insomnia! Can't switch off.

Hope it gets better...

with us it def started at the 4 month sleep regression and carried on since then!

I probably don't count because LO is only 4 days old. But he won't let me put him down whatsoever at night. His days and nights are backwards, so he sleeps a lot during the day and dozes lightly at night. Once he's put down, he is instantly awake and screaming. the lack of sleep is really catching up to me, and this is only the beginning!

no you don't count
it will get better and hope you never join us!

 

[kosh]

Hey Kosh

Had to come on here didn't I (where you post, I post!) Have to say I did what I never thought I'd do. I did CC. Last Tuesday I was driving back from swimming and I fell asleep at a red light. It had got that bad.

Really don't want this to be a CC debate, had to do what was right for us. started Friday night. He slept 8 hrs, next night 9hrs and since then he sleeps 12 hours. He is a different baby in the day. Takes long naps and smiles all the time. This is just what worked for me and I'm not suggesting you try it but wanted to give you an update.

hey flippity of course you were one those I was thinking about!
I'm sorry you had to do CC but really glad it worked for you and it wasn't that bad.

 

[kosh]

chocolala!

I'm one with a terrible sleeper!

She's 10 1/2 months now. Always been a bugger getting her to sleep, she's always fought it really hard. When she realises she's going to sleep, she'll start kicking and crying or rubbing her eyes when she feels them closing, she'll do what she can to stay awake.

At about 2 months she slept through, but she had a sleep regression at 3 and 4 months. At 6 months, after having learnt to settle herself to sleep, she gave that up after doing it 4 times and started waking 6 + times a night. Until that point we'd been part time co-sleepers, from then on it was full time, otherwise I'd get barely any sleep. Sometimes in the early hours she'll wake every 30 mins or so.

At the moment I have no life other than getting lily to sleep - which can take hours - or being with her while she sleeps, as I can't leave her or she'll wake up. All that makes it very difficult to get things done, even the basics like washing up and dinner.

The last few days her sleep patterns have changed, she's gone longer, I've had one 4 hour stretch and a 5 hour stretch, but she's been fighting sleep harder than usual, took me 3 hours to get to sleep one day last week. I have no idea if this is going to last or not, we'll see.

I'm currently in the process of trying to fInd a cause for her sleep resistance, I figure there must be a reason as babies aren't supposed to fight sleep so hard. Our first point of call is seeing if she has tongue tie, which could be the cause of her fussiness.

Anyone here read the analytical armadillo blog on Duracell bunny babies? Very interesting read.

I am too trying to understand what's going on. Mine is not too bad to go to sleep (although it can take up to 1hr if I time it wrongly) for him the problem is to stay asleep.
I actually had a couple of questions I wanted to ask members of the club but totally forgot to post them in my original post

would you mind sharing with me:

1) did you have any stress/complications during your pregnancy/birth? (I remember flippity, you were induced a day before me!)
2) are you FF or BF? I have the impression this problem is more common in BF babies
3) tiredness aside - do you feel overwhelmed, worried, anxious, etc? do you feel you have enough support or you're doing most of the looking after LO on your own?

thanks!


Interesting what you say about tongue tie - my LO was TT and had it snipped at 4 weeks. he also has high palate.

 

[kosh]

I'm not in your club anymore (1-2x a night at 18 months and sttn at 23 months) but I was in your club for 18 months!

I think *acceptance* was the only way to really deal with it. CC/CIO was not for me either. We made a morning 'routine' as a family to look forward too and made sure that OH + I had a little "us" time, even if only 10 minutes, per day when he finally started napping in the day at 4 months.

I'm guessing 6-20x a night for my LO in the first 6 months and a good 3-10x a night from then until 12 months.

If it happens again with #2 I will do the same thing, just SURVIVE, make a morning routine (ours was coffee + a cartoon, decaf for me regular for OH), and pray for the best. Nothing I tried ever worked anyways, and that end of the tunnel did eventually come.

I knew you'd reply!
but i was hoping you'd give us some tips. oh well.
yes, acceptance is my way of dealing with it atm, but don't know how I'll cope when I go back to work. really worried

 

[kosh]

have other posts to reply, but LOis ill and crying, will come back later - sorry!