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

[Little_bump]

Oh thank you! some people who say that sleep doesn't always equal sleep! if i hear that again ill scream haha!

LO is waking every ten minutes from 10-12 then every hour! I swear he was easier as a newborn ha

Oh and naps he only ever has 2, one in the morning with me because i neeeeed it! and the afternoon ends up taking about 2 hours to get him to sleep for 30 mins

 

[MrsHedgehog]

I'm another one with an inconsistent LO. I've tried writing down her sleep times to see if I can spot a pattern but there just isn't one. Every day is completely different. Last night she went to bed at 12.30am and slept soundly until 6am, was awake for about 90mins then slept again until midday. The day before she went to bed at 12:30am, woke every hour and was up for the day at 10am. The day before that she was in bed by 11pm, woke every hour and was up for the day at 11:30am. Some days she naps for up to 3 hours, other days she'll nap for only 45mins. It doesn't seem to make any difference to her night time sleep. So many people say that sleep=sleep but I'm actually starting to think that it's not true for my LO. The good nights we've had recently are when we've been out and quite busy so LO is really really tired by bedtime. It seems like a lot of fresh air before bed time helps too. Just when I think I've worked something out though she changes things up again and we're back to the drawing board. People keep asking me what times she naps at , when she eats, what her bedtime is and they look kind of horrified when I kind of shrug my shoulders and say "your guess is as good as mine!"

 

[kosh]

needless to say mine is another one where sleep doesn't seem to breed sleep! I always try to get him to nap, but that's just because otherwise he'll be cranky all day, but I don't think it has an effect on his night time sleep.

People keep asking me what times she naps at , when she eats, what her bedtime is and they look kind of horrified when I kind of shrug my shoulders and say "your guess is as good as mine!"

this happened to me too. I had friends visiting and they asked me when was a good time to arrive (in regards to naps and feeds) I said anytime will be just as likely!

 

[kosh]

i thought i'd had a bad night but some of you had it worse...angel,claire

we're having today what i decided to call 'newborn days' where i can't put him down for a second and i spend hours and hours feeding him and trying to get him to sleep. his third teeth is coming through, so i'm sure that's the culprit.

having said that,something weird happened today - after spending over an hour trying to nurse/rock him to sleep he suddenly cuddled against me and started sucking his thumb and actually fell asleep!!

 

[kosh]

Angel and ClaireyB I'm sorry you had such a bad night. It sucks to feel so tired all the time. I'd definitely try to sneak in a nap if at all possible today.

Firefly - happy belated birthday!! And yay for a better night

Our night was average. He woke a fair few times but only fed twice and was pretty easy to settle each time so I don't know if that's an improvement or if I'm just always looking for a silver lining

Re the awake time, at 4 months my LO could go for 1.5-2hrs before needing a nap. His naps were always 30mins on the button (you could set a watch by him) but at some point around 6 months I think he just randomly started having longer naps which led to him dropping one and having a morning and afternoon nap lasting around 1-1.5hrs each, which is SO much better as now I can actually get stuff done. I did NOTHING to get him to do this - he just did it himself randomly.

I also personally don't find that sleep begets sleep for my LO. Some days he has amazing naps and his nights are screwy and vice versa. It all seems totally random (if there was a pattern I'd have cracked it by now as I've been analysing EVERYTHING he does since he was born trying to predict him!)

Re waking before bed - i find that now he can do around 3-4hours awake time before a nap so now I will wake him if he sleeps past 4.30pm to try to preserve bedtime (almost never happens though).

this is EXACTLY my LO.
his naps were 45min first but then at 4month shortened to 30min on the dot. I did everything to extend them - cycle blenders, wake to sleep (were we together in a thread about this by any chance?) and nothing worked. then about two weeks ago at around 6 1/2 months,totally out of the blue he started having longer naps between 1-2 hours!

 

[lisa1980]

i thought i'd had a bad night but some of you had it worse...angel,claire

we're having today what i decided to call 'newborn days' where i can't put him down for a second and i spend hours and hours feeding him and trying to get him to sleep. his third teeth is coming through, so i'm sure that's the culprit.

having said that,something weird happened today - after spending over an hour trying to nurse/rock him to sleep he suddenly cuddled against me and started sucking his thumb and actually fell asleep!! :thumbup:

Yay to this! That's kind of similar to what my LO did the other day - decided he was tired all of a sudden and just went to sleep. Now if only he'd decide this at the same time as I'm trying to get him to sleep...then we'd be getting somewhere

 

[flippityflop]

Angel and ClaireyB I'm sorry you had such a bad night. It sucks to feel so tired all the time. I'd definitely try to sneak in a nap if at all possible today.

Firefly - happy belated birthday!! And yay for a better night

Our night was average. He woke a fair few times but only fed twice and was pretty easy to settle each time so I don't know if that's an improvement or if I'm just always looking for a silver lining

Re the awake time, at 4 months my LO could go for 1.5-2hrs before needing a nap. His naps were always 30mins on the button (you could set a watch by him) but at some point around 6 months I think he just randomly started having longer naps which led to him dropping one and having a morning and afternoon nap lasting around 1-1.5hrs each, which is SO much better as now I can actually get stuff done. I did NOTHING to get him to do this - he just did it himself randomly.

I also personally don't find that sleep begets sleep for my LO. Some days he has amazing naps and his nights are screwy and vice versa. It all seems totally random (if there was a pattern I'd have cracked it by now as I've been analysing EVERYTHING he does since he was born trying to predict him!)

Re waking before bed - i find that now he can do around 3-4hours awake time before a nap so now I will wake him if he sleeps past 4.30pm to try to preserve bedtime (almost never happens though).

this is EXACTLY my LO.
his naps were 45min first but then at 4month shortened to 30min on the dot. I did everything to extend them - cycle blenders, wake to sleep (were we together in a thread about this by any chance?) and nothing worked. then about two weeks ago at around 6 1/2 months,totally out of the blue he started having longer naps between 1-2 hours!

So did Cormac! I really thought that would improve his night time sleep as "sleep begets sleep" blah blah blah. It didn't!

 

[kosh]

i thought i'd had a bad night but some of you had it worse...angel,claire

we're having today what i decided to call 'newborn days' where i can't put him down for a second and i spend hours and hours feeding him and trying to get him to sleep. his third teeth is coming through, so i'm sure that's the culprit.

having said that,something weird happened today - after spending over an hour trying to nurse/rock him to sleep he suddenly cuddled against me and started sucking his thumb and actually fell asleep!! :thumbup:

Yay to this! That's kind of similar to what my LO did the other day - decided he was tired all of a sudden and just went to sleep. Now if only he'd decide this at the same time as I'm trying to get him to sleep...then we'd be getting somewhere

he's done this 3 times today!!

 

[chocolala]

Bad night looming here. She keeps waking every 20 mins or so!

 

[lisa1980]

Bad night for us too.

I'm blaming DH as he accidentally woke him from his afternoon nap after only 20mins (by being his usual loud self) and he wouldn't go back to sleep so ended up ridiculously overtired by bedtime and then kept waking up every 30mins until I went to bed

I think it's partly his teeth too (but I am an expert at coming up with 'reasons' (excuses) for all his sleep foibles).

He's just gone down for his nap like a dream so here's hoping that today is better. DH is on leave now so we're going to have a proper discussion about LO's sleep and what, if anything, to do to try and improve it before we all lose our marbles and before i have to go back to work.

I consider myself an eternal optimist but after last night I am starting to struggle to keep it up...something has to change really

Hope you all had better nights

 

[kosh]

lisa, chocolala, sorry to hear you had a bad night

ours was surprisingly good he still woke 100s of times but at least 1/2 of them he managed to go back to sleep on his own
it seems we have a proper thumb-sucker now!

 

[oox_tasha_xoo]

I think its about time i joined this thread
My daughter is getting worse every night that passes...
She used to be an immense sleeper until we had that stupidly hot heat wave in the UK and shes been awful ever since.
Last night she woke me the usual hourly until half 1 in the morning she decided to stay awake til 4 in the morning She slept a whole HOUR before she woke again wanting my hand for comfort!
Then 6am she wanted feeding... and fell asleep in my bed... waking me up an hour later pinching my nose
I don't understand what her obsession is with my hand, it has to be MY hand, she will scream if OH goes to settle her... Many a nights i find myself asleep with my cheek smushed against the cot bars and my arm with pins and needles dead from leaning over
I really miss my sleep....

Hang in there mumma's we can all get through this! x

 

[kosh]

I think its about time i joined this thread
My daughter is getting worse every night that passes...
She used to be an immense sleeper until we had that stupidly hot heat wave in the UK and shes been awful ever since.
Last night she woke me the usual hourly until half 1 in the morning she decided to stay awake til 4 in the morning She slept a whole HOUR before she woke again wanting my hand for comfort!
Then 6am she wanted feeding... and fell asleep in my bed... waking me up an hour later pinching my nose
I don't understand what her obsession is with my hand, it has to be MY hand, she will scream if OH goes to settle her... Many a nights i find myself asleep with my cheek smushed against the cot bars and my arm with pins and needles dead from leaning over
I really miss my sleep....

Hang in there mumma's we can all get through this! x

sorry you had such a bad night

 

[firefly15]

Another rubbish night here too - back to waking every 1.5 to 2 hours all night I don't understand why! The night before he only woke 3 times which is amazing for him, so why is every night so wildly different?? Aaaaaarrrgggghhhhh. I did manage to settle him once without boob in the middle of the night and then he went back to sleep himself at around 6, so there are a couple of positives to hold on to...

 

[AngelUK]

I am on nightduty this night and I am hoping it will go as well as for my OH last night. Oh reported that after their dreamfeed at midnight both boys slept without waking till 3. And then it was Sebastian who woke him probably cause he was in pain/uncomfy poor little thing! He then fed Seb and only then fed Dom who was still sleeping! Both boys then slept till 7:30 without waking in between! I am soo praying that this will be the same for me tonight. Even though I get to sleep every other night, I am constantly tired and near to tears in the evening at the prospect of doing battle with Dom for 3 hours after his bedtime and then being up every hour from midnight on. OH has an interview for a new job on Monday and while I fervently hope he gets it, I am seriously scared of having to cope with the nights on my own.

 

[lisa1980]

Angel I've no idea how you cope with no sleep and twins You're superwoman.

I hope tonight is a good night for you

 

[AngelUK]

Thank you lisa but I cannot claim any superwoman status as I do get to sleep every other night. Plus one of my twins is super easy on the whole and sleeps like an angel

 

[Hanskiz]

Hello! I'm new here and am having a really hard time right now.... My LO has been an on/off terrible sleeper since the 4 month sleep regression. I have done CC to get her to self settle (which she can now do). I've got her down to 1 feed a night for a week or so at a time.....

Right now I have a new problem. The other night she woke up 40 mins after going to sleep (this is normal but usually puts herself back to sleep)... Screamed and screamed and screamed. Last night it took an hour of screaming before she went to sleep. Tonight.... Went to sleep at 7 woke up 40 mins later, still up 2 hours later!!! She rolls onto her tummy and screams but then when you turn her over she goes ballistic!!! I don't know how to help her or whether I should leave her to figure it out for herself. I'm at my wits end!!!

Any ideas?

 

[AngelUK]

Sorry to hear you are having a hard time. I suppose a belly wrap like this would make her go crazy too?

 

[Hanskiz]

Sorry to hear you are having a hard time. I suppose a belly wrap like this would make her go crazy too?

I've seen those before and wondered.....