Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[Aimee1003]

He slept in until 8 am. Wow!!!!
Noelle- I actually did not feed him at the 9:45 wakeup. I decided not to feed him if it is before midnight. I will feed him for any wakeups after that. I know he us not hungry that soon!! He is all the way up to the 11% in weight. From the 0%. So we are doing well. C had RSV that hung on for weeks. The cough was horrible. After 10 weeks of coughing (no joke) his pedi gave him a 4 day dose of steroids and it cleared it right up!!!

Bananaz- Do u use white noise? That helps us a lot with noises.

 

[jessicatunnel]

Hey ladies! Man, does it feel good to be back! I haven't gone through everyone's updates but will when Lil's goes down for her nap.
We just got back to NC from TX late last night. We were there for about two weeks and traveling loads trying to see everyone we could before we had to go home.
If you can't remember, Lilly was sleeping about 9-4/ 9-5 for a good five or six days straight right before we left. Well, her sleep has gone to crap.
She's had multiple night wakings, I'm talking like every hour. It's been hell pretty much, I'm exhausted, she's exhausted, and we just want our sleep again! Her naps have also only been 2 a day for 30 minutes, OR LESS.
On top of that, she's been sick for like three weeks now, and she cut her first tooth a few days ago, and I see a bulge next to that one so think another might be coming through soon.

We resorted to bedsharing for about two days and she slept brilliantly but I just get so uncomfortable when we bedshare.
Last night was the first night back in her bed and she slept pretty good, only woke up twice.

I'm hoping we can get her back into her routine, and being back in our own home again will help her sleep better again. I was so disappointed to have gone 1000 steps backward after making HUGE progress, but I guess that's to be expected when you have a baby.

Oh, and her hair is long enough for a pony tail now! Not sure how that is relevant to sleeping but I was just so excited.

 

[Noelle610]

Jessica, when I saw your photos on Kitty's thread, I immediately thought Lilly was getting a tooth! It sounds like the illness, teething and traveling are just a trifecta of disruption for sleep. I bet things get back to normal very soon. Going from waking every hour to only two wakeups is a good sign. Coffee and hugs to you!

 

[jessicatunnel]

Why can't it just be ONE thing at a time that affects sleep? Why does it have to be multiple things at once?! I have no idea how to get her cold to go away, we have a dr. appt. on the 8th. I'm hoping they can help us and not just send us on our way telling us to ride it out, I've been riding it out for three weeks!
Poor baby has a runny nose and a horrible cough.

She's still been her happy self, thank goodness, and she's trying to crawl now (throw that on top of all the things ALREADY keeping her awake).

 

[Noelle610]

Why can't it just be ONE thing at a time that affects sleep? Why does it have to be multiple things at once?! I have no idea how to get her cold to go away, we have a dr. appt. on the 8th. I'm hoping they can help us and not just send us on our way telling us to ride it out, I've been riding it out for three weeks!
Poor baby has a runny nose and a horrible cough.

She's still been her happy self, thank goodness, and she's trying to crawl now (throw that on top of all the things ALREADY keeping her awake).

I really sympathize! I guess at least we're getting it all over with at once?

Charlotte is the same now...Sick and trying to crawl. I found her rocking back and forth on all fours during a night waking recently, with eyes closed. Like she was practicing in her sleep! Teething seems to be on a temporary hold.

I hope the doctor can give you something. Do you think Lilly could have an ear infection? When Charlotte was waking hourly a few weeks ago, that was the culprit. It cleared up soooo quickly with antibiotics. She got an injection (she was throwing up, so couldn't do it orally) and went from waking hourly one night to sleeping from 7pm to 3am the night night, having a feed, then down again until 7am.

 

[Larkspur]

Last night we improved to six wake ups... Fortunately the turnaround on each is short - he wakes and either feeds properly (twice), comfort suckles quickly and falls asleep, or can be quickly cuddled back to sleep. The longest turnaround was 15 minutes from pickup to put down, the shortest 8. He will go back down not totally asleep, so he just needs the reassurance of a cuddle. Shhhh-pat just winds him up. Unfortunately I couldn't get back to sleep between the 2am and 3am wake ups, but I feel a bit better than yesterday. I also only have 2 hours of work to do today instead of six, so can have a nap in the afternoon...

Seems like the classic four-month regression, am just hoping it will be over soon! He was quite a good sleeper before this!

 

[Boo44]

Jack also has an ear infection now! Poor baby. He's on antibiotics as of today so hopefully that helps. He's pretty constipated as he's hardly been eating so is really uncomfortable x

 

[Noelle610]

Jack also has an ear infection now! Poor baby. He's on antibiotics as of today so hopefully that helps. He's pretty constipated as he's hardly been eating so is really uncomfortable x

Poor baby, they are the worst!

We have struggled so much with constipation. Have you tried some diluted pear juice? I give 2 ounces of water and 2 ounces of pear juice and it seems to help. Prunes work too. If you need something really strong, I've given LO a little miralax and it works wonders... not sure if you have that in the UK, or something similar!

 

[Boo44]

I concentrated on water as usually I don't actually give him any, just his milk. He's managed to go a bit today so that's an improvement!! Thanks for the tips xx

 

[Noelle610]

I concentrated on water as usually I don't actually give him any, just his milk. He's managed to go a bit today so that's an improvement!! Thanks for the tips xx

Glad he's had some relief! I've started doing water regularly now. I wasn't before, but now we're fully formula feeding and doing solids, so I understand it's more important to keep them "regular"

 

[libbylou]

larkspur ugh the constant wake ups are so exhausting. DH always tells me just to go to bed when the baby does if I'm tired but he totally doesn't understand that waking up constantly really screws you up. Doesn't matter if you were lucky enough to get 6 or 7 total hours of sleep if it was only an hour at a time!

aimee oh I totally remember the engorged boobs. When LO was 6 months we did sleep training and she went from sleeping 45 mins at a time (and needing to be nursed back to sleep every time she woke) to sleeping 2-5 hours at a time...my poor boobs didn't know what to do!

bananaz love when they manage to resettle themselves! a lot of the time I'll hear LO start crying so I'll either hit the silent button on the monitor (mutes it for 2 mins) or get up to go to the bathroom and she's already asleep by the time I go to get her

jessica that's tough to go from good sleep to bottom of the barrel again. Funny how quickly it happens too. Hope you can get Lilly back into a decent sleep schedule

Last night was frustrating
LO went down without a fuss. Then woke up 20 mins later and spent almost an hour screaming while I tried to settle her. The only thing that calmed her was patting her back while she lay on her tummy in her crib, but she wanted me to do it forever and my back is still messed. Finally got her to sleep after 30 mins straight of singing and patting while she lay in her crib
Then she slept 4.5 hours (YAY!!!!) and woke up at 1am...and didn't go back to sleep until almost 3am...again refusing to settle even in our bed. DH and I ended up getting in a huge fight at 2:30am.
Her first nap today was only 30 mins...I went to try to lie down hoping DH would deal with her as he's off today, but he ignored her when she woke up crying so I had to get up and deal with her. I could beat him right now.

I am SO SICK of the middle of the night waking up and refusing to sleep for 2-3 hours.
I have no idea what to do about it and it's never been a problem until the last few weeks.
I'm half tempted to just shut off the monitor and let her sort herself out because nothing I do works...I wouldn't actually ignore her, but in the middle of the night when she's screaming and I'm exhausted it's seriously tempting.
We try everything...rocking, nursing, patting, shushing, singing, taking her to our bed, letting her cry for a couple mins at a time and then resettling her...nothing works!!! It's like we have to go through everything and basically just let her exhaust herself while we try to get her to sleep.

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Libby - srsly? That must be so tough! I have nothing but sympathy for u Do you think she may be suffering from earache or something? or maybe teething?

Nap time success for us! Third nap of the day in the crib. The first one was 2 hours, then we had another one that was 1 hour and now the last one (she's been down for 20 mins).

I know technically I'm cheating coz she's in a Woombie...But at least she's in her crib! I've ordered a Baby Merlin Magic Sleepsuit and will start putting her in that when it arrives so adios Woombie in a week or so.

Anyone tried one of these sleepsuits? One of my friends swears by it...

 

[Noelle610]

Libby, my DH is the same! He doesn't understand how I could be "tired" since I am "in bed" for long-ish periods of time (I generally go to bed an hour or two after baby).

Shadowy Lady, I don't think the Woombie is cheating! I think Bananaz swaddled Elsie for quite some time? Maybe she can comment on the sleep suit or something similar.

 

[bananaz]

I never tried the magic sleepsuit thing but I have heard good things. I hope it works well for you! And I don't think the Woombie is cheating at all. I tried one with Elsie but it was too loose for her, she really needed to be immobilized. Fingers crossed that since Sofia is already used to having some freedom of movement in the Woombie it will be an easier transition for her.

It's looking like it's going to be a long long night for us here at Casa Bananaz LO has been a screamy, temperamental terror for the past week and today it was worse than ever. She got a total of an hour and a half of naptime all day and she woke from her second nap really early so she ended up being awake for almost 5 hours before I finally got her to sleep at 6pm. On top of that she completely refused all of her solid meals - the minute the spoon touched her lips she started screaming.

I don't know if this is the wind-up to wonder week 37 or teething or what, but if she sleeps well after the day she's had then I officially give up on trying to influence her sleep because it's clearly random. (Just kidding, I'm way too much of a control freak to give up even in the face of overwhelming evidence that my efforts are futile...)

 

[bananaz]

libby - That is so tough. I've gone through similar phases with my LO, and it often seemed like it really didn't matter what I did; she just needed to be awake for a certain amount of time before she would go back down again. Sooo frustrating!

How long are you waiting before going in? Do you have a video monitor? I've found being able to watch my LO has been super helpful for night wakings because I can see when she's trying to resettle herself vs. when she's getting wound up and upset. Now I've made a rule of waiting for 10 minutes before going in at night but usually by minute 5 I can see on the monitor that she's already trying to go back to sleep on her own, even if she still sounds fussy. I think that before I was actually keeping her awake longer by going in there to soothe her.

Anyway, I obviously have no idea if that's what's going on with your LO or not, but given how many methods you've already tried I don't think it would be awful to give her a little extra time and see if she settles herself

 

[libbylou]

shadowy - I used a Halo Swaddlesack and then transitioned LO to an "arms up" swaddler (Love to Dream swaddler) which gave her a bit more freedom with her arms and then after a few weeks just put her in a regular sleepsack. By that time she had lost her startle reflex and the arms up swaddler helped the transition. I don't think it's cheating to use the woombie if she still needs it, some babes need it a lot longer than others

Noelle - sometimes I go to bed at 8pm and don't "wake up" until 8am...yet somehow only manage to get like 6 hours of broken sleep in there between my anxiety induced insomnia and my sleepless babe. DH is like but you were in bed for 12 hours, how come you're so tired?

bananaz - hope you have a decent night. I know how frickin hard it is to have a crappy night when you've had a crappy day too

"Just kidding, I'm way too much of a control freak to give up even in the face of overwhelming evidence that my efforts are futile"

Agree, 100%. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother, but I just can't stop myself!

I don't think LO is teething, haven't seen any of her usual signs.
Not an ear infection or anything the dr could find
I usually wait around 5-10 mins before going in. We don't have a video monitor but she tends to have a very distinct cry after the initial couple mins of crying and I can tell if she's winding down or escalating.
Tonight if she does it again I might just try to bring her straight into bed instead of trying to get her back in her crib to see if that helps instead of trying to settle her into her crib first and then bringing her to bed when that fails

 

[socitycourty]

so I'm 7 months in and it still feels like torture. i feel bad i don't enjoy the time as much as i "should" because i'm so damn tired.

my health is suffering, my IBS and anxiety have flared up very badly, it's awful.

i may have to resort to CC or CIO because i'm losing it

 

[libbylou]

You've done amazingly well to last as long as you have!
We did sleep training at 6 months because LO and I were both exhausted and miserable.
You don't have to do CIO or CC. You can find a method that makes you feel as comfortable as possible if you're going to sleep train.
Have you looked into the No Cry Sleep Solution? Sadly didn't work for us, but every baby is different

I'm sure you've seen my posts about what we did, but in case not...we had a bedtime routine (which we had been doing since 3 months).
Normally I would nurse or rock her to sleep, but with the sleep training I would put her down awake and sit in a chair next to her crib, offering comfort based on her level of upset, until she fell asleep on her own. Yep, she cried. But I was there with her comforting her so she wasn't alone and within a few days we saw drastic improvement.
Obviously her sleep still sucks or I wouldn't be in this thread, but its WAY better than it was. At least now it doesn't take 1-2 hours of us both crying to get her to sleep and she doesn't wake up every 45 mins anymore, she does nap decently in general (in her crib) and she does settle herself sometimes instead of needing me every single time

Big big hugs, do your research and if you decide to sleep train, find something that works for you and makes you comfortable.

 

[jessicatunnel]

Well ladies, we had an AWESOMELY, AMAZING night.

I had a little trouble getting her down to sleep, she just wouldn't stay asleep, so she didn't end up going to bed until 8pm.
THEN.

................

She slept 8pm to 7am!!!!!
I gave her a bottle at 7, and she went back down and woke up for the day at 9am.

I'm so happy, I never thought this day would come!
I'm sure it won't be like that tonight, but hey after all the traveling and restless sleep, I needed those solid 11 hours of sleep. I feel so renewed and energized this morning.

 

[bananaz]

socitycourty - Big hugs to you, I think it's safe to say that everyone on this thread can sympathize! Like libbylou said, if traditional CC or CIO make you uncomfortable there are a lot of ways you can modify it to fit your family and have it still be effective. In addition to the No Cry Sleep Solution book, I would definitely recommend reading Ferber's "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problems" book. Even if you don't use his gradual waiting method, he has a lot of really interesting insights on sleep that I found useful.

Jessica - Holy cow, that's amazing! An 11-hour stretch! Here's hoping it's the first of many.


So after a horrible day in which Elsie ate no solids, had half the naptime she should've, and went to bed terribly overtired having been awake for 5 freaking hours she woke up... once. After almost 10 hours of sleep. Making it one of her best nights ever

On the one hand it's awesome and I'm so glad she slept well but on the other hand WTF? Does anything that happens during the day actually matter or is it really totally random? I'm going to go ahead and rationalize this by saying that all the screaming she did yesterday made her extra tired, because I need to keep pretending there is some kind of logic here.