Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[bananaz]

GAHHHHH I AM SO UPSET. LO and I both woke up with a cold. This means we have to put it on hold, right? I thought the only upside to this was that at least we had the first two nights over with. Now we have to do it all again and if he makes the connection between his crying and our stopping, it will be even worse. This has been a NIGHTMARE.

I don't think you have to stop, especially since you've already been doing it for a couple of days and his dad will be in there with him. Your call though, of course. I hope you two feel better soon!

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Seaweed - I agree with Bananaz, if you already started sleep training you don't have to stop. You know with babies there's always something on the way: teething, sickness, grumpiness hehehe....sending you a big hug and good luck!

Our night was better which I hope is a trend back to where we started. She slept from 7 pm to 4 am when she stirred for 5 mins and went back to sleep till 6 am. I was still pretty tired then so went and fed her and put her back in the crib. She proceeded to sleep till 8 am and so did I. I feel a lot more rested today which is great coz I have a lunch to go to and then have to visit my friend and her newborn in the afternoon.

Hope you ladies are all having a great weekend.

 

[seaweed eater]

Thank you I just don't want to cause further stress and sleep deprivation when he's fighting something. And also, I'm not sure I'm really willing to commit to it knowing that he is feeling unwell.

Maybe we'll just keep trying other comforting techniques as well rather than going straight to nursing. But in a way that somehow doesn't reinforce him for protesting the other techniques, if that's possible.

 

[Sunnie1984]

Hi ladies

I'm really sorry but I've not been able to respond to you lovely lot in the way you deserve, but I'm losing the will to live.

Seren is cutting an upper tooth (her first) and last night and so far tonight has been crying every 30 mins or so.

Paracetamol and ibuprofen aren't helping much, the pain seems to breakthrough after an hour.

Plus she sucks her thumb to self soothe, so she's struggling to get to sleep at all.

DH is away, so I'm rather fed up and depressed, so off to bed. Hardly seems any point though, as she'll be awake in 10 minutes.

 

[seaweed eater]

Sorry to hear that Sunnie sounds brutal. Hang in there!

 

[Shadowy Lady]

OMG Sunnie I'm so sorry Hope this phase is over very soon

 

[bananaz]

Big hugs Sunnie. I hope the rest of your evening got better after your post


I think we had a nap breakthrough here today. LO has been going down fine for her morning nap but she's really been struggling with her afternoon one and for almost the entire past week I've had to go in to calm her down and pat her back before she'd fall asleep.

Today I decided to start winding her down about 20 minutes before naptime - I changed her diaper, pulled the curtains, put on soft music and then I let her pick out 3 or 4 books that we read together. After that I started her normal nap routine (change into PJs, naptime book, etc) and then put her down. She protested for a couple minutes and then fell asleep on her own!

Anyway, for those of you with babies who tend to get worked up and overstimulated during the day and then fight naps, it might be worth trying a longer wind down. I'm not sure why I didn't think to try this sooner

 

[seaweed eater]

Thanks, that is a good idea, Bananaz! Maybe we will try that. We do have a really long wind down before bedtime and he usually fights that a lot less, knock on wood, so maybe it would be good for naps as well.

 

[Radkat]

Had a couple of better nights. Up 4 times Friday night (9, 1, 3 and 5:30) and 3 last night (1, 4:30 and 6). The last one I brought her into bed to sleep a bit longer as she was getting fussy. She slept until 8am which is unusual and great. Trying to get her to self settle for naps too. She is still taking 3 per day. Hoping this keeps up. I also gave her some teething gel the last couple of nights. No idea if that helped too.

 

[VikkiD]

Noelles right. My mom tells me that its great once babies learn to roll on their tummies in their sleep (she raised 3 of them) and says they sleep great once they figure it out. Apparently they eventually crawl into the corner of the crib and wedge their head in there with their bum up in the air, and they are perfectly happy that way. Even though it doesnt look like a comfortable position to us

This is exactly what my lo is doing I got up to him three times to reposition him last night as he let out a cry but maybe I should have left him as he was in bed 7:30 till 7:30

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Bananaz - glad you're figuring out the nap situation. Can't believe Elsie has the patience to sit through 3-4 books. Sofia gets all fidgety after one, lol! Though she has no nap time routine just bedtime routine. For naps I just feed her, put her down with her stuffed toy and walk out.

Radkat - glad your nights have improved. May they continue on a positive trend for you.

last night was not so great but it wasn't too bad either. She slept through till 4:30 am and then had a mini MOTN till 5:00 am after which she proceeded to sleep till 7:15am. Luckily I was also only awake that 30 mins so I feel relatively rested.

I think from now on I will just ignore MOTN's when they do happen (which seems to be every other night)....she doesn't even cry really she's just whining in her sleep.

 

[polaris]

Hi everyone. My parents have been staying so I haven't really been on B&B. Our nights are still very up and down. We seem to have a good night and then a bad night. We had one night where she only woke at 10 and 2.30 which was brilliant for her. But the next night she was back to waking every couple of hours and was awake for over an hour at 3 a.m. Naps are brilliant though and she finally seems to be getting into a more predictable daytime routine of two long naps.

 

[Noelle610]

Welcome back Polaris!

Sleep is good here. Charlotte slept until 7:30am today and I had to wake her! No idea why... it was very odd, as she's usually up by 6am. She was in a great mood so I was happy.

 

[seaweed eater]

Noelles right. My mom tells me that its great once babies learn to roll on their tummies in their sleep (she raised 3 of them) and says they sleep great once they figure it out. Apparently they eventually crawl into the corner of the crib and wedge their head in there with their bum up in the air, and they are perfectly happy that way. Even though it doesnt look like a comfortable position to us

Mine just started rolling all the way onto his tummy (I think he wanted to make it before his 7 month birthday ). Last night was the first night he slept on his tummy all night and he did sleep really well...but he also seemed alarmed when he woke up there stuck. Is that common as well? He's pretty strong so I think he'll figure out the other direction soon. I hope...

 

[seaweed eater]

Shadowy, ignoring MOTN sounds good to me, especially if she's not actually waking up

Noelle, glad you had a good night! What a luxurious late morning hope her good mood sticks around!

Polaris, it's great to hear that naps are improving for you I hope the nighttime sleep gets more consistent soon too.

 

[Sunnie1984]

Right, I finally have some time to actually reply properly on this thread!

Hope you are all feeling ok ladies!

VikkiD - Seren slept on her tummy as soon as she could roll from back to front - she couldn't roll front to back. I spent one night constantly turning her over again, but she just refused to sleep on her back, so I gave up I have a movement monitor though, so I wasn't too worried.

Mellyboo - I think teeth usually come in pairs, so if one is out, then the other one is probably following not far behind. Glad you are having much less wake ups during the night.

Radkat - Noelle and eveyone else has covered all the advice I would give and much more besides I hope you are better rested soon.

Shadowy - Sounds like you are truly in the grip of WW37 with the MOTN parties. I agree that you should ignore her unless she is crying for you, Seren often wakes and babbles to herself, and if I go in, I get rewarded with a much longer waking that I would have gotten otherwise

Seaweed - I think it's perfectly fine for your DH to continue to settle your LO even if he has a cold, it's not like you are doing CC or CIO, just teaching him to settle with someone else, it shouldn't get too messed up by a cold.

Notnic - I am clutching to your promise about week 38 meaning better sleep!!! Sounds like you are having a lot of success!

Bananaz - So glad you are having better nights, you definitely should keep feeding Elsie, if it actually helps her sleep Also great job with the naps - I have stolen your idea for night times!

Polaris - Glad naps are sorted if nothing else. Hopefully as the naps continue, night sleep should get more consistent

Noelle - Great to hear Charlotte is sleeping well, and that you even got unexpected quiet time this morning!


Weirdly, thing got a lot better for us last night. She suddenly decided to sleep 11:30-6am, and then carried on with the crying and sleeping every 10 minutes until 7:15am.

I now have no idea if it is teething or WW or what.

When your LO's got their upper front teeth, what did their gums feel like? I swear I can feel the teeth trying to come through, it's like a sharp ridge under neath her gums, but quite high up in her mouth.

I stole Bananaz idea about winding down. Seren has had problems with that recently. So tonight when she had had enough milk, I turned out the light and put her next to me on the chair in her room, and put my hand on her chest.

She lay there peacefully it took about 10 minutes for her to finally close her eyes, but she was very chilled about it all.

I think she's been too wired before bed now she's properly crawling, so it's definitely made it easier to get her into bed.

Now she is waking every hour, crying out for a couple of seconds and then going to bed. Which is an improvement on two nights ago. I'm hoping she'll fall properly asleep at 11:30 again, so at least I can get an undisturbed stretch.

I can't turn the monitor off because she's too far away from our room, and even with my door open she can't be heard.

So my conclusion is.... babies are weird, and I have no idea when she is teething or just having a bad day.

Why can they not come with a manual!

 

[Noelle610]

Ugh sunnie those brief wakings are killer! Even with my monitor off I can hear them.

 

[Twister]

Hey everyone, first post in this thread! I'm a bit lost and I don't know what to do. Just wondered if anyone else's LO has done this.

Getting LO to sleep has become a major battle recently, one that I am losing. She went from nursing to sleep and staying asleep when put down, to self soothing(literally just started doing it one day about 2 weeks ago), to now screaming and crying hysterically as soon as she's placed on her tummy in her cot.

Oh is currently upstairs trying to settle her because I can't handle it anymore She does this for naps, at bedtime, and in the middle of the night. It's become impossible to get her to sleep. The only way she goes to sleep is from sheer exhaustion from all the crying. It's not just a little moan either, it's an actual, screaming "mummy im upset" cry.

Nothing I do works, if I pick her up she's usually fine, sometimes still cries because she's gotten so worked up. If we bring her downstairs she's happy as larry again. I try patting, stroking her head, rubbing her back. It makes no difference. She won't entertain her dummy, I find myself holding it in her mouth until she realises its there but most of the time she's too busy screaming. She absolutely refuses to sleep, I've even tried leaving her to cry, but i can only handle about a minute of it and it doesn't seem to make much difference. It takes well over an hour to get her to sleep now. My patience is being tested. And I'm ashamed to admit that I have shouted a couple of times out of pure frustration

Oh has given up. I'm now sitting on our bed with LO wondering what to do next. She's calm but doesn't look like sleeping any time soon, even though she's so tired.

Please help, I feel like we've tried everything

 

[seaweed eater]

Sunnie, I'm really glad to hear things got better for you!

I'm sorry Twister, I'm not sure maybe it will resonate for other ladies on this thread. My only thought is maybe LO is undertired? You said she is very tired when she starts crying. How do you know? Are you putting her down based on her cues or the clock, or some combination? My LO's napping pattern started shifting at about your LO's age to where he started wanting longer awake times. He still can't always nap for long enough to keep him from being cranky, but I've learned it doesn't do him any good if I try to put him down earlier. If you bring her downstairs and she's happy, how long does it take before she seems sleepy again?

Thanks everyone for the advice. We decided not to keep going with DH for now the way we were doing. It wasn't quite CC (though we were leaving him for a couple minutes when it seemed like what DH was doing wasn't calming him), but it was still making him really really upset, and he was losing at least an hour of sleep per night and obviously not napping great. We decided that DH will try, or I will try using non-nursing techniques, for up to 5 minutes of crying, and then if it doesn't seem to be working I'll nurse. I know we may be reinforcing him to cry for 5 minutes, but I don't really have too much of a problem with that when he cried for over an hour before, and a couple times it has actually worked. He did sleep really well last night, possibly by accident due to being on his tummy. I'm thinking tonight or tomorrow will be the really horrible cold night and then maybe we can think about getting back to work.

 

[Twister]

See I thought it was under tiredness (i posted a thread about it a few days ago) but it doesn't explain why she does it at bedtime when its most obvious she's tired. I try and follow her queues but also keep an eye on the clock, mainly because her queues can be easy to miss if I'm trying to do housework as well as entertaining her.

When she's tired the main signs are eye rubbing and general grumpiness (I usually try and make sure she's not bored/hungry etc when she starts getting grumpy), also when I pick her up she will bury her head into my chest. She generally gets tired every 2 hours or so.

Finally got her to sleep at 9pm, ended up nursing her to sleep.

When we bought her downstairs earlier tonight, she was all smiles but within minutes was rubbing her eyes, burying her head and getting grumpy. Bring her back upstairs, cuddle, kiss, feed if she's hungry, put her in her cot ready to sooth her and she starts crying again. It's so confusing. Do you think I should try keeping her awake longer?