Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[seaweed eater]

I would have loved to have given birth on the 18th...my EDD was the 13th

 

[freddie]

Lol, mine was the 14th so didn't do too bad!

 

[bababas]

I did some reading recently on segmented sleep that was interesting. The idea was that traditionally people would sleep in two blocks, waking for a period in between. The Wikipedia article on it is quite a good summary:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

interesting.

actually i have been napping since a child. i only stopped napping in the afternoon when on my working days. on the weekends i still nap. when ds1 and ds2 nap on weekends i do too.

is anyone in the same boat?

 

[bababas]

Noelle, I do agree with you and I am really interested in the sleep research and optimal sleep patterns. However since having Clara I have definitely relaxed my beliefs to some extent and embraced the individuality of babies a lot more. Thomas was in many ways a text-book baby with regard to sleep - I wouldn't say that he was a great sleeper but he did well with the expert-endorsed schedules and wake-times and his sleep as a whole seemed to follow the general pattern that is described in sleep books.

oh my, it is like my boys. Ívar was a textbook baby according to that icelandic sleeping book. maybe it works coz he is half icelandic. now im thinking if aron needs to follow that schedule, maybe it is the icelandic way and they are half icelandic.

many people have told me the second baby is always more difficult. they have to fight for their own. and are more baby baby. i am thinking by now that this is true. ds1 just sttn since 5 months in his bed. ds2 wants to be in my bed still wakes a lot

 

[gaiagirl]

Bababas if my second is a tougher sleeper I am going to go nuts! Lol. So yahhhhh. Hope that's not true!

 

[bababas]

Bababas, I meant to say, I love Iceland! I can understand how weird it must be for you though trying to get to sleep with the sun up! It must feel a bit like jetlag... but all the time!

in the winter time there is no sun! lol. that is worse.
sumer time i put up black curtains. i am the only one in the neighbourhood with total black curtains in the sumer time. haha.

in the winter time there is no sun until 11am at the worst. and when i go to work i feel like it is 3am! so you go to work it is dark. you go home it is dark, 4pm and dark. but my ds1 always sleeps longer during winter times. during sumer time kids here wake up early, no wonder

have you been to iceland?

 

[bababas]

Still thinking about this...lol.

I definitely do a bit of a raised eyebrow when people say their baby just doesn't 'need' to nap or just won't. So I guess that is one place where I think parents need to step in.

Mine wouldn't just spontaneously nap, he had to be coaxed into it. But he NEEDS it!

Same here!

Me three!

Yes absolutely, me four!

Very interesting discussion. Stephie, that is really interesting about the segmented sleep, I will remember that next time Clara has a MOTN party. Maybe I should start praying with her, LOL.

 

[stephie_corin]

Bababas, I meant to say, I love Iceland! I can understand how weird it must be for you though trying to get to sleep with the sun up! It must feel a bit like jetlag... but all the time!

in the winter time there is no sun! lol. that is worse.
sumer time i put up black curtains. i am the only one in the neighbourhood with total black curtains in the sumer time. haha.

in the winter time there is no sun until 11am at the worst. and when i go to work i feel like it is 3am! so you go to work it is dark. you go home it is dark, 4pm and dark. but my ds1 always sleeps longer during winter times. during sumer time kids here wake up early, no wonder

have you been to iceland?

We went 2 years ago, October time for DH's birthday... Loved it!!! We had fairly 'normal days' that time of year xxx

 

[polaris]

Brilliant night!

Clara did another almost six hour stretch on her own (8 p.m. until 1.45 a.m.) which was amazing. She then had a feed and then took a good while to resettle (not crying, just lying quietly beside me for most of the time - was thinking about the segmented sleep article!), then after about an hour she had another feed and went back off to sleep until 5.45, had literally a two second feed and rolled over and back to sleep again for another hour until 6.45! I think that must be one of our best nights ever!

I feel hopeful again that her sleep is actually going to gradually improve!

 

[bababas]

Brilliant night!

Clara did another almost six hour stretch on her own (8 p.m. until 1.45 a.m.) which was amazing. She then had a feed and then took a good while to resettle (not crying, just lying quietly beside me for most of the time - was thinking about the segmented sleep article!), then after about an hour she had another feed and went back off to sleep until 5.45, had literally a two second feed and rolled over and back to sleep again for another hour until 6.45! I think that must be one of our best nights ever!

I feel hopeful again that her sleep is actually going to gradually improve!

go Clara


i got 2 stretches of 3 hour sleep last night. so i am good

still he woke up one hour after i put him down. while i went to the pool. OH couldnt make him sleep as usual. i wonder if he is just hungry and wants more. he prolly needs to start eating soon or something. he was drinking like a crazy vampire. gonna see the midwife next friday. oh and he has two teeth now which are not that comfy on boobie. you can see the whites but ofcourse need to grow out a bit better. i only see them if i really look in there with fingers.

 

[stephie_corin]

Polaris that is amazing! Really happy for you guys!

 

[gaiagirl]

Yay Polaris! Woot!

I woke F up at 7:30, it's come to that. Evening was so awful. Mostly because I entered a power struggle with him. What a mess.

I am so out of ideas. All I have left is blackout curtains to try.

Maybe he still needs a third nap and later bedtime!? Ugh I don't know. I don't recall that working well. I think that's WHY I decided to switch to 2, right!?

It's all a blur...

Overnight still good. But these damn evenings. So getting me down.

 

[stephie_corin]

Gaia I'm really sorry, evenings are rough here too but I'm home alone so it's probably easier to take. I wonder if it's just a phase. Cully now takes at least an hour before I can transfer him and is up every 45 mins until midnight-ish. It really does take it out of you. I've been wondering about changing our routine too. I'm going to try shorter naps and increase awake times by 10-15 minutes and see if it helps. It's such a minefield!

 

[mellyboo]

Oh man sleep here is just always up and down is it ever consistent or is it to good to be true and some kinda random pre kid day thought i had in my head...

Jordyn the other night woke up 6 times between the hours of 9pm-7am.. I was one tired mama yesterday last night she decided to only wake up once form 9-8am! augh.. i could so deal with that.

Oh works nights so i get no help in the middle of the night its been a long frigging 9 months let me tell you.. his actually thinking about switching to days and getting a pay cut because im back at work the end of sept and there is no way i can wake up 6 times in the night and do my job....

I should add OH helps out huge during the weekend when his home.

I feel energyless when i'm up that many times! i'm starting to panic in my head.

 

[freddie]

Wow Polaris that's amazing!

Gaia and Stephie, I think my LO is the opposite way round to yours... He isn't too bad at settling in the evenings, I rock him to sleep and *most nights manage that without too much difficulty but as the night goes on he gets harder and harder to resettle and the mornings are the worst! He woke up at 4.30 this morning and try as I might I couldn't get him to go back sleep... Well he would fall asleep for a minute or two after LOTS of rocking but then wake up a couple of minutes later. Rinse and repeat. Argh what's that about?!

 

[polaris]

Gaia, I would try a later bedtime (and a cat-nap if necessary) for a short time, it sounds like the current situation is not working well for either of you so you might as well try something different. What time does he usually finally settle down for the night? I would aim for that time as bedtime to avoid the struggle. I think it's not uncommon for them to go backwards and forwards a bit with nap transitions. I went back to three naps and a late bedtime for Clara for a bit after months on two naps and it actually worked quite well and resolved the problems we were having.

Stephie, what's your daily routine at the moment? Our typical wake-times now are 2.5, 4, 4.25. I am aiming for naps at 9.30 and 2.30 and bedtime at 8ish. Our first wake-time is short because I need to have her up by about 10.30 or 11 so that we can go out somewhere with Thomas but actually she has no problem settling for her first nap. I think the longer wake-times later in the day are working well for us (although Clara is a couple of months older than Cully). I'm doing shorter naps too, usually an hour in the morning and 1 to 1.5 hours in the afternoon.

Rachel - I think it is a more "typical" pattern to have deeper sleep earlier in the night (usually the first 4 or 5 hours after bedtime) and then go into a lighter sleep after that, with 4 or 5 a.m. usually being a particularly restless time. This was definitely the pattern that my older boy followed and that's what you generally see in the sleep graphs (e.g. in Ferber's book). Clara has always been the opposite though, she was generally always extremely restless until about midnight, then went into a somewhat deeper sleep for a (slightly) longer stretch, and slept best in the couple of hours before it's time to get up in the morning. (I'm putting it in past tense in the hopes that she is going to make a habit of doing a long stretch in the evenings now!).

Bababas - yay for teeth! The uncomfortable phase for breastfeeding usually passes quite quickly, they generally just need to adjust their latch somewhat so the teeth aren't getting in the way.

Mellyboo - sorry things are so inconsistent. It is tough when you are dealing with it by yourself a lot of the time.

Hang on in there everyone - there is hope! If Clara can sleep for six hours then all of our babies will get there eventually.

 

[seaweed eater]

Gaia, I'm sorry you are still having such a rough time in the evenings I think Polaris gives you good advice.

Bababas, 2 x 3 hour stretches is good! Glad you are feeling well!

Polaris, that's awesome!!!! I hope you have many more nights like that! So promising that you've had two long stretches so close together (in the same week I think? I've lost track of time )

Rachel, I agree with Polaris, my understanding too is that it's normal for babies to have lighter sleep early in the morning. Munchkin is the same way, but he's also had his phases of fighting bedtime so it's not mutually exclusive! I'm sorry about your early morning today, hope things get better

AFM, tired but patient. Could just barely feel tooth #3 this morning (yes Stephie, a top one!!! can you believe it?) so we'll see how that changes things. Still a lot of it left to cut though. The top ones really are bigger!

 

[seaweed eater]

And speaking of babies who don't need naps, mine started his day nearly 9 hours ago and has napped for a total of 40 minutes...

 

[gaiagirl]

Woah SE! That's intense! Teeth are seriously such a pain, they make it so hard to settle. I hope both tops pop through quickly, they are SO big!

Ok so I got our new floor bed set up and we are installing blackout curtains before bed! Haha my last two ditch efforts to get on track!

He woke up at 2:30 but i think I'll try bed at 6:30/7 with these new bedroom tools before going back to 3 naps.

Ill give it a few more days of this and then I will try a third nap again if all else fails...

Having a plan really makes me feel better! Lol. Man, nothing will test a control freak like having a baby.

 

[AmyS]

Will have to catch up on this thread tomorrow. Chloe only had one twenty minute nap this morning, so tonight is looking scary!