Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[seaweed eater]

Ugh Polaris, I'm so sorry. Really really hope the worst is over. I hope you can get a nap in for yourself today somehow.

 

[stephie_corin]

Ahhhh... And just when I thought it was over. It took me three hours to get him down tonight. I finally gave some iboprufen at 9 and now he is asleep. So maybe he is still getting teething pain... He would fall asleep for 5-10 minutes then wake up moaning or crying. I tried nursing, rocking, walking, cuddling on our bed but every time he would wake crying. I feel guilty for medicating him as it looks like both teeth have cut through and it might also be milestone hitting that's causing the wakings. Anyway. Time to eat my cold dinner and crawl into bed and hope for a sleep miracle! Good luck everyone x

 

[mellyboo]

Update on Jords .. She's been actually doing super well only waking up twice a night which is weird because her routine is a hot mess right now we had her out Till 10 30 and I gave her a late nap since she would Be up late and she did amazing and slept amazing ever since then she wants 3 naps one cat nap in the afternoon usually I wouldn't like her going for naps after 4pm ... And I've been shutting her night light off she's been Doing 7 hour stretches and waking up at 830 for the day...

 

[Noelle610]

3 hours Steph?! That's awful. Maybe he'll sleep a nice long stretch for you. Enjoy dinner and sleep tight.

Melly, that's great! Whatever works, right?

 

[Radkat]

Hi Sunshine! I'm no expert but could you cut shorter the am nap so she's getting slightly less day sleep and put her to bed earlier - like 630 - she might sleep a bit longer at night or it might help the night waking? Maybe make the second nap a bit earlier? Then she might be getting closer to 11-12 hours at night, which I think they are meant to have at your LOs age.

SE, sorry he was fighting bed time even with the pain relief! Thanks so much for the advice. He does fight naps and he shows tired signs really early (maybe 1.5 hour after waking) so I think the catnaps aren't cutting it any more. Tomorrow I might try extending naps and aiming for two naps. I just need him to sleep longer than 530am!

I've been trying the gentle removal method but he really fights it. He has such a strong suck to sleep association. PU/PD is hard too as he weighs almost 12kg and it kills my back! I'll persevere though. If anyone has any other gentle self settling techniques I would love to hear them.

Stephie - My LO settles pretty well with shush and pat. Well, sometimes as least... PU/PD doesn't really work for her bc she gets too asleep while picked up and then wakes back up when put down. Shush and pat seems to help her settle where she is.

 

[Radkat]

Polaris - Sounds like an awful night. I hope you can get a nap today.

Melly - Congrats. Sounds like things are going well.

I have been following the thread, but haven't done an update recently, so here goes. LO is doing better at bedtime. Goes down with minimal crying at this point. In fact, last night was about 2 minutes of moaning/fussing and that was it. Until... She was up for about 30 minutes around 10:30. Standing up in the cosleeper. Then again from 1 until I fed her at 1:45. Then she was up again at 3:45. OH walked her, I did lots of shush and pat but she wouldn't resettle until I fed her at 5am. During that time, she would sleep for maybe 5 minutes, then up again crying, standing up and patting mama from her cosleeper. She slept for about 20 minutes after being fed, tried more shush and pat, then gave up and brought her into bed with us until I got her up at 7:30. The last few nights have been similar, but not quite this bad.

We've been trying to stick to the nap routine of 2 hours from WU, then 2:15, 2:30 then 3 hours until bed. I do have a question about this. Depending on how long she naps, which can be 30 minute at each nap or 45-1:30-45, her bedtime varies a lot. Like 6:15 one night to 7:30 the next because of the schedule. Is this OK? It seems weird to have such a different bedtime each day.

Any thoughts about the increase in night wakings and her schedule? FYI - LO is 7 mo and is eating 2 solid meals a day. As always, thanks for all of your help and suggestions.

 

[polaris]

I think we are over the worst. Clara managed to have two good naps today - I let her sleep as long as she wanted and both were 2.5 hours long. I even managed to have a little snooze on the couch myself while DS watched Dumbo. Clara was in so much better form this evening. She wouldn't go to sleep at bedtime though despite seeming tired, so I ended up getting her up for a bit and she went to sleep reasonably easily at 9.30 (fed her to sleep). She seems much less itchy today although she is still absolutely covered in spots and still scratching quite a bit.

I also just noticed that Clara is 38 weeks so I guess we were also going through WW37 in the middle of everything! I only noticed because both myself and OH commented this evening on how grown up she is all of a sudden and that she is doing loads of new things - so I suddenly wondered were we in a wonder week and checked her age in weeks. One of the new things is standing up in the cot which has been less than helpful to be honest!

 

[diggory77]

So today's progress.

Woke at 7.30am

Nap-9.10-9.45
Nap-11.15-11.45
Nap-12.30-1.45
Nap-2.30-5

Bed-6.30 (took 2 hours to fall asleep so 8.30)

She's been a grumpy bugger all day and obviously trying to get her to sleep on the night was hard. But she took her naps well, as long as I'm holding her!

I'm hoping she sleeps ok tonight
Xxx

 

[seaweed eater]

Melly, glad it's going well! Whatever works

Stephie, I can shh/pat when LO is on his side. But only if he's very close to being asleep, otherwise he hates it. Ideal scenario is I put him down (and he's not crying), wait for him to turn to one side, roll him to that side, pat pat, shh, leave.

Polaris, glad things are getting better I say keep doing what you need to do to get through it!

Diggory, great that you could get her down for naps after 1.5 hours each time Is it typical for her to take such a long nap in the afternoon though? That detail sticks out to me.

Also, if she's waking at 7:30, she may not need to go to sleep by 6:30. Things may shift earlier as she gets older, but 7:30 or 8 is probably a fine bedtime IMO.

 

[aliss]

Are my 6 monthers still here or did you all just decide to jump off a bridge? I wouldn't blame you.

We've had some very minor progress, no staying awake for 1-2 hours for 2 nights in a row and I feell like a real person again, but still lots of disturbing wakeups. That's okay, baby steps fine with me.

 

[diggory77]

Ahhh Steph, I hope you get a good night sleep. 3 hours to settle is a killer!

Thanks SE, no her afternoon nap is usually 30 mins, but I'm not sure if her earlier naps were cut short because I was out and about? She was crying when she woke up after her earlier naps and was grumpy and irritable until her next nap, when normally she's smiley and happy when she wakes. After that long afternoon nap she was happy though before getting grumy after about 45 minutes. When I took her in our room at 6.30 for bed, she had her feed and immediately started to fall asleep. The thing that took the longest was trying to put her down in her cot after she'd fallen asleep- she kept waking up. She would lie there quite peacefully in her cot so I left her for 30 minutes to see if she'd settle down. I could here her chatting away and kicking her legs about in her cot and rolling over. As soon as she was in my arms though she fell asleep! Little monkey! She's very clingy right now and won't self settle. I'm not sure I should work on this at the moment though as I'm changing her naps and I think she may still be going through the sleep regression. Might be too much?

Guaranteed if I put her down in her cot for her naps once she's asleep she wakes within five minutes- she definitely knows when I'm gone!

Last night she woke for a feed at 10.30pm and 4.30am, so much better than previously! She's currently asleep and has yet to wake up xx

 

[Aimee4311]

Night 5 of not nursing to sleep was a success, so far! She's been resisting falling asleep for about 10 minutes, but that's fine by me.

I've noticed a decrease in the number of times she wakes up just because she wants to be latched on. For a while she pretty much wanted to be latched constantly. But it's been decreasing and last night I think she only nursed 3 maybe 4 times. 2 of those times she was latched just comfort sucking for a long time, but that's because I fell straight back to sleep!

My next step is decreasing the amount of time she's latched for each of these sessions in hopes of phasing most of the wake ups out!

Hope everyone had a good night!

 

[seaweed eater]

Argh! MAJOR bedtime issues. I should count my blessings that sleep is not that bad, but I feel like our wonderful bedtime routine has totally disappeared. It has no meaning anymore. I know it's largely developmental (cognitive, gross motor) + teething...I guess I just wait it out?

 

[Aimee4311]

Sorry it's a tough night, Seaweed!

 

[stephie_corin]

Argh! MAJOR bedtime issues. I should count my blessings that sleep is not that bad, but I feel like our wonderful bedtime routine has totally disappeared. It has no meaning anymore. I know it's largely developmental (cognitive, gross motor) + teething...I guess I just wait it out?

SE I know exactly what you mean. Bedtime used to be the easier part of my day. But every day Cully is coming up with new tricks and I'm sure munchkin is too. I'm sure this development is impacting sleep. I would wait it out in this instance, at least for a week or two. I imagine teething pain is quite bad (last night when C wouldn't sleep I kept telling myself 'teeth are ERUPTING from his mouth' and tried to be patient). Hugs to you I hope he goes down soon x

 

[stephie_corin]

Melly, so glad sleep is going well for you!

Radcat, I'm sorry the night wakings are increasing. C has been going through something similar and it's a combination of teething and hitting some big milestones for us. I've also decided to switch to two naps. My reasons for this are that he is getting tired signs about 1.5 hours after his cat naps and I think his total awake time is too much. He will often exceed 10 hours awake time with three naps and I think it should be closer to 9.5 to avoid over tiredness. So I am going to work on extending his naps and go for the following awake times 2.5 hours (nap) 3-3.2.5 hours (nap) 3.5 hours (bed). As long as he is getting at least an hours nap he will be ok with the extended wake times. I'm going to aim for 1.5 hours for his second nap. I'm not sure if you think your LO is ready for two naps but it might be time?

Polaris, I'm so glad she is starting to feel better! And these wonder weeks are crazy! C is learning to crawl and sit up from lying down and he does mini crunches all night when I'm trying to get him back to sleep!

Diggory, I think the last nap is too long. I would normally say never wake a sleeping baby but I would get her up by 4pm at the latest to preserve bed time. After such a long sleep she will struggle to go down well at night.

Aliss, I'm still here! And yes, about to jump off a bridge

Aimee I'm so impressed with your progress. Are you using any particular method to decrease her latch time? I need to implement whatever you are doing!

We had a bad night but he was in my bed all night so I feel a bit more rested. I think he is still teething and working on crawling and generally being more mobile. I'm going to give it a week and then start getting tough on myself to break some of these sleep associations. I want to see how he settles into two naps before I shake things up too much.

 

[Aimee4311]

I've got no method in mind to decrease her latch time, but I strongly suspect that her wake ups are more from habit than hunger. So I'm just going to try to keep the time she's latched short and as soon as the suction changes from active eating to passive/comfort sucking, I'll detach her.

Sorry it was a bad night, but I'm glad you're feeling a but more rested!

 

[stephie_corin]

Noelle/Polaris/SE/any of the other experts, I forgot to ask in my essay of a post whether the new routine sounds ok?

I'm aiming for 2.5 hours (nap) 3-3.25 (nap) 3.5 bed. We did 2.5 hours this morning and he has already been asleep for an hour which is massive progress (without me rocking him!) as he normally takes 30 minutes now. Xxx

 

[Boo44]

Hi girls I need some help with Jack!

I think he's overtired

He is crawling everywhere all day long so must be so much more tired than he was a couple of weeks ago! The last couple of days he's only had 45 min nap in am and 1 hour in pm. Then because of different things he's had a couple of late nights (well, like 20 mins late nothing major)

But we've started with a couple of fighting bed times. And now we are getting early wakings too. I just leave him until 7 on a morning, but this morning he's been awake since 6.15

How can I break the cycle - longer naps? Any help appreciated thanks xxx

 

[Noelle610]

Stephanie, that looks perfect! You're really becoming an expert yourself. Just goes to show that you're not doing anything wrong, you've just got a crap sleeper

Boo, can you outline yesterday for me? Like when he woke and when naps were and then bedtime?