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

[chocolala]

Bid - I have the whole dog hair every where thing as we have a black lab too. The amount of fur she sheds on the carpet is amazing, I'm surprised she's not bald!

I also have ffs moments on a daily basis, I'm having on now in fact as I'm trying to get Lily to sleep, but as usual she's fighting it!

Anyway, I finally had Lily's tongue tie assessment today from milk matters, it was really interesting. Because its only done with photos and a questionnaire she can never say 100% that there is or isn't a tongue tie, she needs to see the baby in person for that. But she can't tell with Lily whether is a tt or not as Lily cannot lift her tongue up at all, infact her tongue when crying is totally flat, which is unusual and suggests there is a lot of tension in her tongue, mouth, head area. There could also be a tt as well, as suggested from the information I gave her. The tension, she reckons would have been caused by our long labour, Lily being back to back and 3 hours pushing. All this tension that Lily is carrying is what causes her to fight sleep so much as she just can't relax.

So, we're going to get Lily some osteopathy to sort the tension out, then we'll look into the tt again, as hopefully Lily will the be able to lift her tongue so we can see what's going on under there. She also suspects Lily may have an upper lip tie, which i have suspected too, having done a fair bit of research into this.

I feel so relived now, to finally have possible reasons as to why Lily fights sleep so hard, though I wish we had done something sooner, but we didn't know that what we are going through with Lily really isn't normal.

Kosh, a question as your little one had a tt, when you were pregnant did he get hiccups a lot? Apparently hiccups in the womb can be an early sigh of tt.

 

[Lilmiss1]

Hello again ladies Thomas has had 2 naps today! I guess all that crawling is getting to him. He's been in bed for about 1/2 hour now but I've no doubt he will be up soon. How do you stop them going to sleep? I can't obviously but sometimes I wish he'd not sleep during the day so he'd get solid sleep at night.

What do you mean stop going to sleep? Naps?
Sleep breeds sleep so a well napped baby will sleep better at night x

 

[lisa1980]

Right, I just know that I'm going to jinx myself by posting this but I'm a little bit hopeful so might as well run with it...

Today two things have happened that haven't happened before. Firstly, from the time he woke from his first nap I was expecting him to get tired around 3.30pm for his second nap. At just gone 3pm he was playing on the floor with his toys while I was on the sofa. He started to rub his eyes, turned to me and lifted his arms to be picked up so I put him on my lap, popped a dummy in and he literally just closed his eyes and went to sleep!! No fuss! No fight!! No 30mins of BF, rocking, singing extravaganza! I put him in his cot thinking he's bound to wake up any second as it's NEVER been that easy before, but no, he slept for 1.5hrs I can't believe he actually signalled he was tired and then just went to sleep like a reasonable human being

Second thing that's JUST happened - he went to sleep in his cot with NO crying or moaning. I've been trying to get him to do this for a while now with mixed success. Tonight I did the same as usual...bottle/BF, songs and dummy. When he was calm but still awake i thought I'd give it a go, expecting crying and protest as usual, but he laid there chatting whilst i held his hand and then rolled onto his side and went to sleep!! Unbelievable. The child still manages to completely baffle me every day

Now I know he'll probably be awake again any minute and I'm not expecting any improvements in his sleep but I'm ridiculously happy with those two small victories for now. I may even have a wine

Sleepy dust to all. Fingers crossed for a good night for everyone tonight

 

[kosh]

Right, I just know that I'm going to jinx myself by posting this but I'm a little bit hopeful so might as well run with it...

Today two things have happened that haven't happened before. Firstly, from the time he woke from his first nap I was expecting him to get tired around 3.30pm for his second nap. At just gone 3pm he was playing on the floor with his toys while I was on the sofa. He started to rub his eyes, turned to me and lifted his arms to be picked up so I put him on my lap, popped a dummy in and he literally just closed his eyes and went to sleep!! No fuss! No fight!! No 30mins of BF, rocking, singing extravaganza! I put him in his cot thinking he's bound to wake up any second as it's NEVER been that easy before, but no, he slept for 1.5hrs I can't believe he actually signalled he was tired and then just went to sleep like a reasonable human being

Second thing that's JUST happened - he went to sleep in his cot with NO crying or moaning. I've been trying to get him to do this for a while now with mixed success. Tonight I did the same as usual...bottle/BF, songs and dummy. When he was calm but still awake i thought I'd give it a go, expecting crying and protest as usual, but he laid there chatting whilst i held his hand and then rolled onto his side and went to sleep!! Unbelievable. The child still manages to completely baffle me every day

Now I know he'll probably be awake again any minute and I'm not expecting any improvements in his sleep but I'm ridiculously happy with those two small victories for now. I may even have a wine

Sleepy dust to all. Fingers crossed for a good night for everyone tonight

OMG lisa!!!!!

-------
edit - love the 'sleepy dust'

 

[flippityflop]

Right, I just know that I'm going to jinx myself by posting this but I'm a little bit hopeful so might as well run with it...

Today two things have happened that haven't happened before. Firstly, from the time he woke from his first nap I was expecting him to get tired around 3.30pm for his second nap. At just gone 3pm he was playing on the floor with his toys while I was on the sofa. He started to rub his eyes, turned to me and lifted his arms to be picked up so I put him on my lap, popped a dummy in and he literally just closed his eyes and went to sleep!! No fuss! No fight!! No 30mins of BF, rocking, singing extravaganza! I put him in his cot thinking he's bound to wake up any second as it's NEVER been that easy before, but no, he slept for 1.5hrs I can't believe he actually signalled he was tired and then just went to sleep like a reasonable human being

Second thing that's JUST happened - he went to sleep in his cot with NO crying or moaning. I've been trying to get him to do this for a while now with mixed success. Tonight I did the same as usual...bottle/BF, songs and dummy. When he was calm but still awake i thought I'd give it a go, expecting crying and protest as usual, but he laid there chatting whilst i held his hand and then rolled onto his side and went to sleep!! Unbelievable. The child still manages to completely baffle me every day

Now I know he'll probably be awake again any minute and I'm not expecting any improvements in his sleep but I'm ridiculously happy with those two small victories for now. I may even have a wine

Sleepy dust to all. Fingers crossed for a good night for everyone tonight

AMAZING!! Keeping everything crossed for a good night for you all!

 

[Lilmiss1]

That's great Lisa. I wonder if because he napped well, bedtime just followed.
Well done lo!

 

[kosh]

Right, I just know that I'm going to jinx myself by posting this but I'm a little bit hopeful so might as well run with it...

Today two things have happened that haven't happened before. Firstly, from the time he woke from his first nap I was expecting him to get tired around 3.30pm for his second nap. At just gone 3pm he was playing on the floor with his toys while I was on the sofa. He started to rub his eyes, turned to me and lifted his arms to be picked up so I put him on my lap, popped a dummy in and he literally just closed his eyes and went to sleep!! No fuss! No fight!! No 30mins of BF, rocking, singing extravaganza! I put him in his cot thinking he's bound to wake up any second as it's NEVER been that easy before, but no, he slept for 1.5hrs I can't believe he actually signalled he was tired and then just went to sleep like a reasonable human being

Second thing that's JUST happened - he went to sleep in his cot with NO crying or moaning. I've been trying to get him to do this for a while now with mixed success. Tonight I did the same as usual...bottle/BF, songs and dummy. When he was calm but still awake i thought I'd give it a go, expecting crying and protest as usual, but he laid there chatting whilst i held his hand and then rolled onto his side and went to sleep!! Unbelievable. The child still manages to completely baffle me every day

Now I know he'll probably be awake again any minute and I'm not expecting any improvements in his sleep but I'm ridiculously happy with those two small victories for now. I may even have a wine

Sleepy dust to all. Fingers crossed for a good night for everyone tonight

AMAZING!! Keeping everything crossed for a good night for you all!

thanks flipitty - was thinking about you and cormac today - how are things?

lisa, i still can't believe he lifted his arms and almost asked you to go to sleep!!! having said that, when I was BFing my LO last night he did the usual trick of sucking, pulling off, sucking, pulling off, etc and the third time he just rested his head on my arm and closed his eyes!

 

[AngelUK]

My OH has the nightwatch tonight so we shall see if it is just me that Dom doesn't sleep well for. Cause OH said that the night before last Dom did not wake between his 11:30 dreamfeed and his 3:30am feed and again not till his 8am feed! Can you believe it?! So I went into last night hopeful but anxious as usual. Well, the boys were dreamfed at 11:30 again, Dom woke at 1:45 but was easy to settle and then at 2 and 2:15 it was my angelic Sebastian who woke me again! (But we found out today that he has an ear and throat infection which is why he was feeding so badly and probably why he woke, so this is different. Poor lil boy ) Then I fed the boys at 4 and was kept up from 5:50 on till 7 when I decided to take Dom to lie next to me on the nursery bed. We had a snooze for about an hour. Well, he snoozed and I dozed in between getting kicked in the stomach and hit in the boobs and having to reinsert the dummy several times. But it was soo soo sweet having my lil boy next to me like that Though I don't know how anyone can cosleep unless their LO doesn't snore as loud as mine or kick and hit in their sleep lol

 

[kosh]

My OH has the nightwatch tonight so we shall see if it is just me that Dom doesn't sleep well for. Cause OH said that the night before last Dom did not wake between his 11:30 dreamfeed and his 3:30am feed and again not till his 8am feed! Can you believe it?! So I went into last night hopeful but anxious as usual. Well, the boys were dreamfed at 11:30 again, Dom woke at 1:45 but was easy to settle and then at 2 and 2:15 it was my angelic Sebastian who woke me again! (But we found out today that he has an ear and throat infection which is why he was feeding so badly and probably why he woke, so this is different. Poor lil boy ) Then I fed the boys at 4 and was kept up from 5:50 on till 7 when I decided to take Dom to lie next to me on the nursery bed. We had a snooze for about an hour. Well, he snoozed and I dozed in between getting kicked in the stomach and hit in the boobs and having to reinsert the dummy several times. But it was soo soo sweet having my lil boy next to me like that Though I don't know how anyone can cosleep unless their LO doesn't snore as loud as mine or kick and hit in their sleep lol

you know, i thought about your OH's good night...any chance that he might not have heard them waking??

 

[AngelUK]

Yeah you'd think wouldn't you but no, OH is so anxious when he has the nightwatch that he hardly sleeps and more or less has his eyes and ears glued to that monitor. But more than that, there is no way he wouldn't hear Dominic when he cries. Our flat is small and Dom's voice is like a foghorn! lol But it just goes to show that Master Dominic CAN sleep through in between feeds, he just doesn't choose to most of the time.

 

[kosh]

Bid - I have the whole dog hair every where thing as we have a black lab too. The amount of fur she sheds on the carpet is amazing, I'm surprised she's not bald!

I also have ffs moments on a daily basis, I'm having on now in fact as I'm trying to get Lily to sleep, but as usual she's fighting it!

Anyway, I finally had Lily's tongue tie assessment today from milk matters, it was really interesting. Because its only done with photos and a questionnaire she can never say 100% that there is or isn't a tongue tie, she needs to see the baby in person for that. But she can't tell with Lily whether is a tt or not as Lily cannot lift her tongue up at all, infact her tongue when crying is totally flat, which is unusual and suggests there is a lot of tension in her tongue, mouth, head area. There could also be a tt as well, as suggested from the information I gave her. The tension, she reckons would have been caused by our long labour, Lily being back to back and 3 hours pushing. All this tension that Lily is carrying is what causes her to fight sleep so much as she just can't relax.

So, we're going to get Lily some osteopathy to sort the tension out, then we'll look into the tt again, as hopefully Lily will the be able to lift her tongue so we can see what's going on under there. She also suspects Lily may have an upper lip tie, which i have suspected too, having done a fair bit of research into this.

I feel so relived now, to finally have possible reasons as to why Lily fights sleep so hard, though I wish we had done something sooner, but we didn't know that what we are going through with Lily really isn't normal.

Kosh, a question as your little one had a tt, when you were pregnant did he get hiccups a lot? Apparently hiccups in the womb can be an early sigh of tt.

wow, I didn't know this - yes he did!!

i remember reading the 'milk matters' pages re. TT. I couldn't believe how my LO hadn't been diagnosed at the hospital as he was a text-book case!
you didn't have problems BFing? that was our main issue, he could not latch correctly and it was soooo painful! have they said if she is TT then? we too took LO to a cranial osteopath and it helped so much with his latch it was amazing. she also did some work to help him sleep better but the improvement was not consistent unfortunately. hope it works for you.
oh - i read and replied to your thread re. painful latch and teeth - i know that it shouldn't affect it but it did affect us! and now taht i know about your case, i'm tempted to say that maybe LO with TT and/or high palate find it more difficult to adjust? there was another girl in that thread that had the same problem. actually i'm wondering were she is as she is one of my 'initial 4'

 

[kosh]

Hey all, I hope Im ok to post here but Im at the end of my tether. LO is 11 weeks tomorrow and is ff. We had gotte into a nice routine where he would go down at 10, and then wake at 3 for a feed then be up around 6 to start the day. Then we had 2 nights where he slept throughand I though great!! And thats when it went wrong. Now hes awake ever hour and a half to 2 hours. Not to feed but just to cuddle. Within 2 minutes of me picking him up hes asleep again and will go down but not long after is up again. Ive tried leaving him to cry but after an hour Im thinking hes not self soothing!! Ive tried swaddling, moving him up to his cot in ou, r room coz I think he has outgrown his crib, Ive tried cutting down naps and letting him sleep when he wants, weve got a bedtime routine... Im lost for a next move!!!

Hun he is too young for that. I don't think at that age he can self soothe if he hasn't done it naturally anyway (some rare babies do but they are rare). And self soothing is not really possible if he is swaddled anyway; as far as I understand it at least (though I swear by swaddling myself!). The reason he wakes up and cries is that his sleep pattern is changing and becoming more like an adult. But this also means that when he half wakes up after a sleep cycle (they usually are about 45mins) he is aware that he is no longer on mummy being rocked and that makes him wake up further and cry. I read that that is as if we went to sleep on a soft comfy fluffy pillow and then half wake realising the pillow is gone. We'd wake further too to find the pillow again, wouldn't we?
We are struggling with this same problem with our older twin. Basically we made the mistake when he was small to rock him all the way to sleep so that now he finds it hard to fall asleep without being rocked. This also means that when he comes out of his sleep cycle he misses the warmth of mummy and the rocking and he cries to have it back. So what I am saying is that you should try to put your LO down soothed and drowsy but awake. It might take a while but he will eventually fall asleep by himself. Good luck hun. xxx

so, do you think this is the problem? you didn't rock Seb as well?
I really don't know what to think about this. I too sometimes think mine got used to being rocked and it's just a (bad) habit, but other times I'm not too sure...I don't know, reminds me when LO was tiny he could not sleep in his crib, and HAD to sleep on me. I talked to the nursery nurse when he was around 8 weeks and she said 'he'd got used to it and was crying because he wanted his way'. I remember that same night he went to sleep in his crib, no problem at all, just like that, nothing had changed...
maybe he only then felt ready for it?

 

[flippityflop]

Right, I just know that I'm going to jinx myself by posting this but I'm a little bit hopeful so might as well run with it...

Today two things have happened that haven't happened before. Firstly, from the time he woke from his first nap I was expecting him to get tired around 3.30pm for his second nap. At just gone 3pm he was playing on the floor with his toys while I was on the sofa. He started to rub his eyes, turned to me and lifted his arms to be picked up so I put him on my lap, popped a dummy in and he literally just closed his eyes and went to sleep!! No fuss! No fight!! No 30mins of BF, rocking, singing extravaganza! I put him in his cot thinking he's bound to wake up any second as it's NEVER been that easy before, but no, he slept for 1.5hrs I can't believe he actually signalled he was tired and then just went to sleep like a reasonable human being

Second thing that's JUST happened - he went to sleep in his cot with NO crying or moaning. I've been trying to get him to do this for a while now with mixed success. Tonight I did the same as usual...bottle/BF, songs and dummy. When he was calm but still awake i thought I'd give it a go, expecting crying and protest as usual, but he laid there chatting whilst i held his hand and then rolled onto his side and went to sleep!! Unbelievable. The child still manages to completely baffle me every day

Now I know he'll probably be awake again any minute and I'm not expecting any improvements in his sleep but I'm ridiculously happy with those two small victories for now. I may even have a wine

Sleepy dust to all. Fingers crossed for a good night for everyone tonight

AMAZING!! Keeping everything crossed for a good night for you all!

thanks flipitty - was thinking about you and cormac today - how are things?

lisa, i still can't believe he lifted his arms and almost asked you to go to sleep!!! having said that, when I was BFing my LO last night he did the usual trick of sucking, pulling off, sucking, pulling off, etc and the third time he just rested his head on my arm and closed his eyes!

We're doing great. He now has at least 3 hours of naps a day and goes to sleep at 7 and rarely wakes before 6.30am. If he does wake in the night then he just gurgles for a bit and goes back to sleep. He is such a happy little pickle now, everyone has commented on the change in him. His tired signs are so pronounced and obvious now whereas before he rubbed his eyes all day long. He is drinking up to 25oz a day now compared to 5/10oz before. I feel happy for the first time in months. Have you had any improvement? I think about you lots! (in a completely non stalker way I should clarify!)

 

[kosh]

We're doing great. He now has at least 3 hours of naps a day and goes to sleep at 7 and rarely wakes before 6.30am. If he does wake in the night then he just gurgles for a bit and goes back to sleep. He is such a happy little pickle now, everyone has commented on the change in him. His tired signs are so pronounced and obvious now whereas before he rubbed his eyes all day long. He is drinking up to 25oz a day now compared to 5/10oz before. I feel happy for the first time in months. Have you had any improvement? I think about you lots! (in a completely non stalker way I should clarify!)

we've actually had some improvement (touch wood) - his naps are much longer now, today she had 2x 1.5hrs! (he used to be a 30min cat-napper). i still don't understand how this happened, i'd tried everything, 'cycle blenders', 'wake to sleep', he just one day decided to sleep longer
at night he's still a pain, although he's been having a few 2-2.5hr stretches at least (followed by hourly wakes, of course!). but he's still quite happy during the day, so for the moment i'll go with the flow.
really glad you two are doing great!

 

[kosh]

My OH has the nightwatch tonight so we shall see if it is just me that Dom doesn't sleep well for. Cause OH said that the night before last Dom did not wake between his 11:30 dreamfeed and his 3:30am feed and again not till his 8am feed! Can you believe it?! So I went into last night hopeful but anxious as usual. Well, the boys were dreamfed at 11:30 again, Dom woke at 1:45 but was easy to settle and then at 2 and 2:15 it was my angelic Sebastian who woke me again! (But we found out today that he has an ear and throat infection which is why he was feeding so badly and probably why he woke, so this is different. Poor lil boy ) Then I fed the boys at 4 and was kept up from 5:50 on till 7 when I decided to take Dom to lie next to me on the nursery bed. We had a snooze for about an hour. Well, he snoozed and I dozed in between getting kicked in the stomach and hit in the boobs and having to reinsert the dummy several times. But it was soo soo sweet having my lil boy next to me like that Though I don't know how anyone can cosleep unless their LO doesn't snore as loud as mine or kick and hit in their sleep lol

so this was the problem! did you go to the doc?

you know that i keep dreaming about your twins...when i wake in the middle of the night to feed gael, i many times *think* which one of my twins has woken

 

[AngelUK]

so, do you think this is the problem? you didn't rock Seb as well?
I really don't know what to think about this. I too sometimes think mine got used to being rocked and it's just a (bad) habit, but other times I'm not too sure...I don't know, reminds me when LO was tiny he could not sleep in his crib, and HAD to sleep on me. I talked to the nursery nurse when he was around 8 weeks and she said 'he'd got used to it and was crying because he wanted his way'. I remember that same night he went to sleep in his crib, no problem at all, just like that, nothing had changed...
maybe he only then felt ready for it?

Yeah I am quite sure it is. And no we never had to rock Seb like that cause he never had any problems falling asleep. See, it is a vicious cycle in a way cause Dom was a bad sleeper to start with, so we rocked him to sleep, creating a worse sleeper in the process. But then what else could we have done? Seb was always happy with a cuddle and a kiss and then to fall asleep by himself (well we hovered near by obviously still busy with Dom) in the cot. But I am sure it is also a question of character. For example, Sebastian does like to have his dummy in his mouth and he does occasionally wake for it in the early morning hours or when he is trying to nap on longer but it has never been such a must have as with Dom. Seb never wakes in the middle of the night cause the dummy is not there anymore, Dom does it all the time. Sigh.

 

[sequeena]

For the first time ever Thomas (sort of) slept through last night. He fell asleep at 10pm and woke briefly 3 times. I had to wake him up at 12pm today! He had his mmr jab today though so I don't expect him to sleep through for a while.

 

[AngelUK]

so this was the problem! did you go to the doc?

Yeah we got an emergency appointment when I told them he has been off his feed for the last week. He got some syrup to take three times a day and he hates the taste. I am so horrible but I was laughing a lil at the face he pulled when we syringed that stuff into his mouth. Poor lil boy!

you know that i keep dreaming about your twins...when i wake in the middle of the night to feed gael, i many times *think* which one of my twins has woken

LOL you poor thing! But at least that isn't so bad, cause when I am sleep deprived I keep thinking I see massive black spiders from the corner of my eyes! I hate spiders!

 

[kosh]

so, do you think this is the problem? you didn't rock Seb as well?
I really don't know what to think about this. I too sometimes think mine got used to being rocked and it's just a (bad) habit, but other times I'm not too sure...I don't know, reminds me when LO was tiny he could not sleep in his crib, and HAD to sleep on me. I talked to the nursery nurse when he was around 8 weeks and she said 'he'd got used to it and was crying because he wanted his way'. I remember that same night he went to sleep in his crib, no problem at all, just like that, nothing had changed...
maybe he only then felt ready for it?

Yeah I am quite sure it is. And no we never had to rock Seb like that cause he never had any problems falling asleep. See, it is a vicious cycle in a way cause Dom was a bad sleeper to start with, so we rocked him to sleep, creating a worse sleeper in the process. But then what else could we have done? Seb was always happy with a cuddle and a kiss and then to fall asleep by himself (well we hovered near by obviously still busy with Dom) in the cot. But I am sure it is also a question of character. For example, Sebastian does like to have his dummy in his mouth and he does occasionally wake for it in the early morning hours or when he is trying to nap on longer but it has never been such a must have as with Dom. Seb never wakes in the middle of the night cause the dummy is not there anymore, Dom does it all the time. Sigh.

exactly, that's my point. i don't think you (we) created a bad sleeper, he already had problems sleeping and we tried to help them.

 

[AngelUK]

For the first time ever Thomas (sort of) slept through last night. He fell asleep at 10pm and woke briefly 3 times. I had to wake him up at 12pm today! He had his mmr jab today though so I don't expect him to sleep through for a while.

Wow that is a long sleep! I hope you got some sleep too in the meantime?