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

[lisa1980]

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?

Could it be teething? My LO has been waking lots in the evening after going down fairly easily at the start lately and I'm thinking that teething has a part in it as he just can't seem to get comfortable. Painkillers do help a bit but not as much as I'd hoped.

Could there be a bit of separation anxiety starting up causing it?

I think if it's pain or SA then CC probably won't work so well. I wish I could suggest something to help but nothing I'm trying seems to be working!

 

[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?

Could it be teething? My LO has been waking lots in the evening after going down fairly easily at the start lately and I'm thinking that teething has a part in it as he just can't seem to get comfortable. Painkillers do help a bit but not as much as I'd hoped.

Could there be a bit of separation anxiety starting up causing it?

I think if it's pain or SA then CC probably won't work so well. I wish I could suggest something to help but nothing I'm trying seems to be working!

Could be. I gave her some nurofen about half an hour before she finally dropped off (10 mins ago) so maybe that is it. I'll try giving her some before bed tomorrow and see if that makes any difference.

 

[kosh]

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?

Could it be teething? My LO has been waking lots in the evening after going down fairly easily at the start lately and I'm thinking that teething has a part in it as he just can't seem to get comfortable. Painkillers do help a bit but not as much as I'd hoped.

Could there be a bit of separation anxiety starting up causing it?

I think if it's pain or SA then CC probably won't work so well. I wish I could suggest something to help but nothing I'm trying seems to be working!

Could be. I gave her some nurofen about half an hour before she finally dropped off (10 mins ago) so maybe that is it. I'll try giving her some before bed tomorrow and see if that makes any difference.

yes, I might be wrong but for your description it sounded as if she was in pain?

 

[kosh]

hope we all have a good/better night tonight

 

[kosh]

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.

just to send you

 

[AngelUK]

Thank you Kosh to you too. Just fed the boys and am off to bed. So far Dom has not slept an hour's stretch after his bedtime bottle at 7:30 so I am pretty resigned for tonight. Sigh. Night night ladies. Hope you all get some sleep tonight. to all

 

[Hanskiz]

yes, I might be wrong but for your description it sounded as if she was in pain?

I I hope that is it, at least then I can help her!!

 

[AngelUK]

Good morning ladies, how did your nights go?
Ours was better. We fed the boys at 11 and then Dom cried at 1 but was easy to settle. Then at 3:45 Seb cried and lo and behold Dom was still sleeping. So I wanted to feed Seb first but since Dom was stirring soon after and Seb still takes over 15 minutes to feed, so switched and fed Dom in his cot before he woke properly! Very uncomfy but I think I am on to something here with the not waking Dominic completely by taking him out of the cot. After that Dom woke at 5:30 and I had to pick him up and rock him a bit. And then of course the bets were off as they always have been and I was up every 20 minutes with dummy reinsertion. But you will say they gave me that longed for 3 hour stretch, right? Yes, but OH didn't! It was hot here and he slept on top of the duvet on his tummy and kept raising his leg and letting it fall with a thud. It kept waking me all the time!

 

[oox_tasha_xoo]

Glad your night was a little better AngelUK
If im completely honest my night was immense, my mum had my daughter for me last night because she can see how exhausted i am (my mum only lives 2 doors down from me)
I slept from 9.30pm til 9am this morning, amazing!!!
My poor mother on the otherhand had a hell of a night as per usual she was awake 1am til 4am (of course with the hourly wakings before this), she had a bottle, went back to sleep and woke at 6am...
My mum struggles sleeping as it is so it didn't bother her though!
My daughter has a terrible cold today so i know im in for a bad night, but after my good night sleep last night im not too bothered!
x

 

[MrsHedgehog]

Another bad night for us. Up every hour or less until morning when we finally got a 2 hour stretch. LO is really grumpy today too and after such little sleep my patience is wearing thin. My LO is having a hard time pooping at the moment. She goes every 3-5 days and is in quite a bit of discomfort beforehand. She's not constipated, it's like she just doesn't like the sensation so holds it in. I think that's why she's grumpy today, she needs to poop. Maybe that's what upsets her sleeping too.

 

[kosh]

Another bad night for us. Up every hour or less until morning when we finally got a 2 hour stretch. LO is really grumpy today too and after such little sleep my patience is wearing thin. My LO is having a hard time pooping at the moment. She goes every 3-5 days and is in quite a bit of discomfort beforehand. She's not constipated, it's like she just doesn't like the sensation so holds it in. I think that's why she's grumpy today, she needs to poop. Maybe that's what upsets her sleeping too.

mine needs to poop too. it hasn't been as long as yours, prob just 2 days,but i think he's uncomfortable too.

tasha - 9pm-9am??? i'm soooo jealous!!!
angel - glad your night was not that bad

how about the others? chocolala? bid?

ours was mixed. he went to bed at 7:30pm, woke up at 9:30, 11, 1, 2:30 and stayed awake till 4am but then slept till 7am!
had a 1.5hr nap at 10:30am and now is sleeping again (2pm), i'll make sure we go out in the afternoon otherwise i'll feel that is another day 'gone' due to sleeping issues.
do you feel the same? i'm still in my pyjamas. do you manage to have some sort of normal life during the day? what am i doing wrong?

i was talking (by email) to friend and every time i mention something about how bad LO's sleep is and how stuck i feel, she tries to convince me that all babies are like that, that that's the way they sleep. makes me feel i'm exagerating or that i was naive re. how babies behave.
when i say that i don't know when/how i'll be able to travel to visit (she lives in Spain) or that i don't think i can really do it just now, she says 'of course you can', as if the worry is just in my head. or when i say that i'm worried re.how i'll cope once i go back to work, her reply is 'like everyone else does'

what do you think ladies?
maybe the best person to ask might be you flippity, because you've seen both sides?

 

[lisa1980]

Kosh, I haven't seen both sides at all but it also drives me mad when people act like it's not a big deal that you get no sleep or that all babies are like that, as if my expectations are crazy.

My dad really annoys me with this. I was a terrible sleeper as a baby and he always goes on about how much worse I was than my LO is and how much harder it was for them than me. Firstly, I don't believe I was that much worse, and secondly, HE was never the one waking up to BF me in the night and he was away a lot for work anyway so he got plenty of nights of normal sleep. I'm sure it must have been much worse for my mum than it is for me (although she never says this), but for him to claim that he really understands is rubbish IMO. He thinks he's being supportive though

If I hear 'you knew babies don't sleep before you had one, you knew what you were letting yourself in for' one more time I'll scream.

Yes I knew I'd have sleepless nights. I also knew that labour would be painful, but that didn't stop me complaining about it at the time. As if you can really know what to expect beforehand anyway

 

[chocolala]

We had on ok night, though lily woke earlier than I'd of liked, so she didn't really have enough sleep. There was a time it so long ago, that if I got her to sleep after 9pm she'd sleep on and off with feeding until roughly 9am. Not any more, she'll only sleep on and off for 10 hours, at most now, which isn't enough as she's tired and eye rubbing 15 mins later. I'm not able to get her back to sleep though.

Kosh, i can't comment about how you'll cope once you go back to work, but I know I find it very difficult to articulate how hard it is having a baby like lily, when I do talk about it it just sounds like I'm talking about a normal baby. But also I don't think anyone else can possibly understand what it's like unless they live it them selves. I tend to worry that people (family) think lily is how she is because of how we parent lily and that we don't want to "train" her, so therefore it's all of our own doing, they dont seem to get that she is how she is.

 

[firefly15]

A hideous night for us with loads of wakings and LO decided to be bitey too so the boobs are not happy. Not great timing to pull a terrible night from the bag as we had to drive from Northumberland to Hampshire today I'm almost hoping that the biting means there are teeth on the way as he seems to have been teething on and off for about 6 weeks with nothing coming through and just maybe if more teeth emerge we might get a break?

Kosh I really don't know about the work thing. I know the whole idea fills me with dread and I completely echo what chocolala says - I can't find proper words to describe this either. Especially today, I honestly barely have the brain power to write proper sentences I'm so tired. x

 

[AngelUK]

I tend to worry that people (family) think lily is how she is because of how we parent lily and that we don't want to "train" her, so therefore it's all of our own doing, they dont seem to get that she is how she is.

That! I have a friend whose first little boy slept through from the very beginning! (I suggested that this might not be a good thing but obviously she disagreed and to be fair the boy is a perfectly normal bright 3 year old now) He second who is about a year old now started out with waking once per night and then stopped that 2 months in. This she said she achieved by giving him tea instead of milk in the night.
First of all I would never do such a thing cause I am convinced it is bad for such small babies even if she does get 12 hours out of them each and always had But she actually told me that her boys are like this cause she is a more relaxed mummy and that this breeds relaxed babies (suggesting that I am not relaxed you understand) and that if I was not willing to follow her advice on the tea then it is entirely my fault that my boy wakes so often.

 

[Gemmamuk]

My ds seemed to get a LOT better the last few nights, until last nights.

The last few weeks he was crying to go to bed and rubbing his eyes from 6, so id give him dinner and put him in the bath and he would be asleep for about 7pm. He would wake after 20 mins from then till about 10 or 11, then wake most hours before waking for the day about 7 or 8.

The last few nights he only woke about 3 times from 7 and would sleep from about 8 until midnight!! Then at 3 or 4, and most hours from there, but kept going back off and sleeping till 9-9.30 - massive improvement!!

Last night however he woke at 9.30 (I think OH woke him going to the loo! Grrr) and I couldn't get him back off until 11 and he woke fairly frequently, 3.30, 4.30 and every half hour till 8! I think it's the combination of his dad waking him and the hot weather grrrrr

 

[flippityflop]

Kosh in answer to your question I don't think all babies are like ours. I have an NCT group and Cormac was the only LO doing what all ours did. I mean one girl was able to go to the gym every evening and another managed to go and rehearse every other night to appear in the Olympic opening ceremony! Can any of you imagine doing that with your LO's doing what they do every night.

I don't think anyone in this thread is exaggerating how difficult our babies are and I'm sorry but not all babies are like ours and for someone to say 'this is how all babies are', truly can't understand just how bad it is. Yes we all expected sleepless nights, we're not naive but this isn't just the standard sleepless nights that the majority of babies have. How many are in this thread? 6 or 7? How many in baby club altogether? We are a small %. There are loads more posting about 3-4 hourly waking which moat of the time is completely normal for babies of that age.

I have friends who could see how much of a struggle I have had. They have kids and didn't have that problem. I have one friend who should join this thread and she has 2 bad sleepers. She said the standard response of "he/she will grow out of it" usually comes from people who never got to the point we all got to. Its very easy to say that but unless you have experienced TRUE sleep deprivation like we have I don't think anyone will ever understand.

Kosh I couldn't imagine travelling to Spain with LO before, I think you are exactly right, your friend really doesn't understand.

Noone on this thread is over reacting. Noone on this thread should think they are naive and this is what all babies are like.

Not sure if that helped or answered your question!

 

[chocolala]

Angel - I can't believe your friend said that about her being more relaxed so therefore ..... How rude and total bollox!

 

[lisa1980]

Angel - I'm also gobsmacked at your friend. If ONLY it were that simple. She just got lucky and she should be grateful really. Whenever people say things like 'they pick up on your tension, that's why they wake up so much' I want to punch them (tension-reliever ). OF COURSE I'm tense - I get NO sleep, EVER. How I'm supposed to just relax about it, I really don't know.

My personal favourites are:

'Have you tried formula? That's makes them STTN'

(Erm, yes I have tried it, made no difference. If the answer was that formula = STTN I swear the BF rates would be even worse then they currently are)

'He'll grow out of it in his own time'

(He may well do. I will probably be a gibbering wreck who's incapable of looking after him by that point but thanks)

'He must not be tired enough/overtired'

(He MUST be tired unless he's secretly taking amphetamines. He may be overtired but HE WON'T GO TO SLEEP so I don't know what I can do about that)

'You'll look back at all this and laugh'

(I most certainly will not. But thanks for negating my problem).

Any particular gems to share ladies?

 

[flippityflop]

- Some babies just don't need that much sleep. Maybe, but mine does!