Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[bananaz]

See I don't mind the 2 hours, still normal for me... it's the 4am grunting, 430am,5am,530.... the light sleep cycles at the end

Oh god, I remember the 4am grunting and writhing. That was how LO ended up in her own room (well, that and the fact that she needed white noise to sleep and I can't sleep with white noise).

Wooo William went to bed at 9:30 (earliest EVER) and slept until 8am (he did wake to nurse but went right back to sleep). So happy! Finally making more progress. Yay for routines.

That's amazing! go William! Wasn't he going to bed at midnight just a few weeks ago?

We had a sttn Tried to DF at 10pm but not really interested (only took 3oz) and then went through 6.30-6.30. Hallelujah!

It appears that my mum was right although this does mean 4 meals a day! Breakfast at 8, lunch at 11, dinner at 3 and I suppose supper at 6ish.

When he did a run of sttn a couple of months ago he did 9 nights and I relaxed to sttn myself on the 8th night. Then he stopped haha. Last night I was pretty much just dozing from about 3ish, doh! But that was my fault so go Quinn!

Wow, another awesome night. I've been finding the same thing about regular meals, as much as I want to think it's just an old wives' tale. I hope Quinn keeps it up for you

Well Jack's ill AGAIN it really is one thing after the other! We'd just got over his ear infection and he was sleeping and eating (which I actually get more stressy about!) great. Last night he developed this deep chesty smokes cough Woke himself up coughing at 3, 4.30 and 5.30. He got back to sleep each time. I gave him calpol at the last wake up and he slept til 7.10

He's so sad today bless him been sleeping a lot and not interested in his toys

Also we've got about half a bottle of amoxicillin still in the fridge and its within date. It's from his ear infection which he has only been clear of about a week! We are tempted to give him another couple of days.....

Oh, poor guy, why can't he catch a break? I don't know about the antibiotics but I've always been told to take the full course even if you're feeling recovered so I'm sure it wouldn't hurt It's great that he's resettling himself after waking though!

Well DD has gone down for the night, really tired and cranky, so here's crossing my fingers!

I hope she sleeps well for you! We struggled for a bit with the rolling too but eventually I just started putting LO down on her belly and that really helped.



Last night was amazing, despite LO's cold. She went down a little after 7pm and didn't wake until 4:30am - almost 10 hours! I nursed her and she went straight back to sleep until 6:30am. Again, I hate to say this, but I can't help but notice a very direct correlation between nights where she eats significant amounts of solids (namely rice cereal ) and how long that first stretch of sleep lasts.

 

[Noelle610]

Bananaz, so glad you had a good night! I've found the same connection between solids and sleep. I'm sorry to say I don't think it's an old wives tale, either, at least not for us. I mean, it makes sense.... If your baby is waking to feed. Obviously it doesn't necessarily correlate to all sleep issues, but it's reasonable to think that a baby that eats more during the day won't be as hungry at night (excluding small babies with tiny tummies that need to eat round the clock).

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Alright, a lot happened since I posted last night. Let me try and catch up. Sorry if I missed some of you guys. This thread has gotten really active...not sure if that's a good thing though

Lysh - I'm glad your nights are still improving

Leids and Mrsbeano - yey for sttn!!!

Aliss - sorry to hear Philip seems to not be a good sleeper. Surely though he will improve...he's pretty young still

So Sofia did go to sleep after exactly 1.5 hours of fussing. I went in to check with her every 5 mins. Once she did sleep though, she didn't wake up till 11 pm (her recent feeding time)...and then asleep again till 2:20 am, up for feed and down again till 6:30 am when she was up for the day. I'm glad I sucked it up with the sleep suit. She can't be swaddled forever and she seems to be adapting fairly easily.

Irish - Since you asked about night weaning: I started to night wean Sofia last night gradually. I will be adding 30 mins each night to the intervals between her feed. Last night the interval was 3.5 hours and she made it easy by not waking up before then. Tonight we'll increase it to 4 hours. Will keep you guys posted on the process. It's pretty much based on Ferber's book.

 

[socitycourty]

my LO had a bad night. she spent most of the early evening screaming for no reason, tried everything and then realized it might be her teeth so gave her some motrin.

slept in our bed, tossed and turned all night. up for the day at 5 am.

oh and we also discovered a mouse problem in our kitchen ............. FML!

 

[Noelle610]

Shadowy Lady, it sounds like Sofia did great without the swaddle, despite having a hard time falling asleep! I'm glad it's working out for you. In a week she won't even miss it.

Socity... a rough night, an early wake up AND a mouse? Yuck!

 

[Boo44]

Shadowy - how do you lengthen the gap between feedings if she wakes earlier? Just comfort her until the 4hrs? X

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Shadowy - how do you lengthen the gap between feedings if she wakes earlier? Just comfort her until the 4hrs? X

Exactly! I go in every 1, 3 and then 5 mins until she falls asleep. I usually kiss her forehead, touch her chest and tell her to go to sleep then leave. She usually cries harder as soon as I leave for like a minute but then falls asleep.

I picked the 4 hour interval based on her usual intervals between feeds though. If she was feeding every 2 hours I'd start with that. The key is to be consistent and just slowly add to the interval every night.

Hope it helped

 

[Irish Eyes]

Shadowy I guess I kind of went cold turkey on him for night weaning! He had gotten to taking 3/4 feeds every night and was hardly eating during the day. So on the first day I offered him a feed every 2 hours during the day. At night whenever he woke I would just comfort him, even to the point where I was letting him sleep on me and laying him down upset him more. I gave him a full feed at 1am and then again didn't allow him anything but comforted him a lot with cuddles. I did the next feed at 7am (he wakes at 6am). It worked amazingly well and his daytime feeds went back to normal! Although he does still wake in the night, it's no longer due to hunger and he's just on one feed per night.

 

[Boo44]

Thanks shadowy! I was interested as to how it worked!

Well Jack has just gone to bed after drinking a grand total of 0 oz of his bedtime bottle he is so sad and refused it completely. Not feeling very positive about tonight!

 

[AngelUK]

Boo Sebastian pretty much always refuses his bed time bottle. So we wait till he has fallen asleep and then dreamfeed him it. Is this something that might work for Jack too?

 

[Boo44]

Boo Sebastian pretty much always refuses his bed time bottle. So we wait till he has fallen asleep and then dreamfeed him it. Is this something that might work for Jack too?

Thanks for the idea angel! We'd thought of that too for tonight. But tbh I think he feels too poorly for it so we'll just go by his lead tonight. I've got a bottle of water on hand for him as his cough is really bad xx

 

[AngelUK]

Poor little thing! I hope he feels better soon!

 

[anti]

Argh! Ashlynn only took one nap today but it was really long, 2 1/2 hours, which is long for her!! Then she went to bed at 7:30pm, woke 40 mins later for 15 mins, then woke 40 mins later again and has now been awake over an hour and will not go back to sleep!!!! Hoping when she does go back to sleep its gonna be a good night. She was up at 4am this morning for 1 1/2 hours. Her day time naps are all over the place and not consistent at all (even though I've tried!!) and that messes up her night time sleep. It's been getting worse for about a week now! Really starting to dread nap times and bed times. Wish I could enjoy this all a bit more. really puts me off having another kid!!!

 

[lysh]

There was a lot to catch up on! I am sorry I cannot respond more personally this evening....I am starting to not feel well again and now I am just agitated. We had a snow day today which was nice, so I got to enjoy the day with my girl. We even took a few naps together. But then tonight, putting her down, was hell. She cried for 10 minutes after putting her down, so I went in and tried nursing her one more time. When I put her down again she screamed. This went on for 20 minutes. She finally fell asleep, but this is not boding well for the rest of the evening. So now my anxieties are up and I cannot concentrate on much.

Could I have set her back by taking naps with her??? This is not unusual though. Nap times have always been a struggle with her and I tend to mix it up between putting her in her crib, holding her, or napping with her (depending on her mood). I have not pushed her to stay in her crib during nap times lately. I think it is working mom guilt!!! But night time has not been an issue for a long time....typically we do bath then I nurse her in the rocking chair and put her to bed without an problem. ugh

Well, I hope you ladies are hanging in!

 

[socitycourty]

There was a lot to catch up on! I am sorry I cannot respond more personally this evening....I am starting to not feel well again and now I am just agitated. We had a snow day today which was nice, so I got to enjoy the day with my girl. We even took a few naps together. But then tonight, putting her down, was hell. She cried for 10 minutes after putting her down, so I went in and tried nursing her one more time. When I put her down again she screamed. This went on for 20 minutes. She finally fell asleep, but this is not boding well for the rest of the evening. So now my anxieties are up and I cannot concentrate on much.

Could I have set her back by taking naps with her??? This is not unusual though. Nap times have always been a struggle with her and I tend to mix it up between putting her in her crib, holding her, or napping with her (depending on her mood). I have not pushed her to stay in her crib during nap times lately. I think it is working mom guilt!!! But night time has not been an issue for a long time....typically we do bath then I nurse her in the rocking chair and put her to bed without an problem. ugh

Well, I hope you ladies are hanging in!

i hope your night gets better. I always dread the evenings and I also have anxiety/panic attacks and I always start to feel anxious when she's fussy, because then I start getting anxious about having anxiety! i hope you feel better and have an ok night

 

[Noelle610]

I'm sorry for the ladies having bad nights. Lysh, my Charlotte is so tough with sleep. I have to be brutally consistent or she won't sleep well, so perhaps your LO is the same? We go through a rough patch every time there's teething, illness, etc and I start relaxing on good habits. It sucks, but it's just the way it is for us.

Last night was awesome! Charlotte STTN from 6:45pm to 7:15am. She woke super happy and sweet. I have a cold and slept good, too. She had perfect naps yesterday (8:45-10 and 1:30-3) and ate a lot of protein, so of course now I will obsess about recreating this day. LOL, why can't I just enjoy a good thing?!

 

[Shadowy Lady]

Lysh - sorry to hear about your bad night I know naps were hard for us too. But now they're getting better. Still sometimes I like to nap with her in our bed.

Last night wasn't too bad at least for Sofia. She went down at 7 pm w/o fuss. You'd think she wasn't swaddled up until 2 nights ago! Plan was to not feed her before 11 (4hours). Well she woke up at 11 pm so I fed her right away. Then I had to wait for 3 am for her next feed. But she didn't wake till 4 am! So far I haven't done any cc she just wakes up on time or later. Unfortunately she wanted to be up for the day at 6 am....played with her for a bit and then she went down for a nap at 7:30 am....she's still sleeping t 8:30.

I however had a rough night....I had dry cough all night long and prob got 3-4 hours of broken sleep :/ I have soooo much to do today too...first day of Salsa Baby today then I gotta drive to my parents 45 mins away and it's been snowing since last night

 

[aliss]

Wow Noelle, that's amazing for 7 months!!! We didn't get that until 20ish months minimum, glad to see she's finally doing something different than Alex There's always blips along the way but it certainly seems to be improving.

Philippe was an absolute nightmare all day, spent 80% of the day crying and refusing to sleep it's awful, a tooth is poking out. Oh great, now he's up! Byyyyyyyyye

 

[Noelle610]

Wow Noelle, that's amazing for 7 months!!! We didn't get that until 20ish months minimum, glad to see she's finally doing something different than Alex There's always blips along the way but it certainly seems to be improving.

Philippe was an absolute nightmare all day, spent 80% of the day crying and refusing to sleep it's awful, a tooth is poking out. Oh great, now he's up! Byyyyyyyyye

Haha... Well it won't last! If there's anything I've learned about Charlotte, she is constantly changing. She'll probably be up 10 times tonight, so I'm just enjoying it

Oh no, poor Philippe! He sure is teething early. Have you tried an amber teething necklace? I haven't yet, but my hippy friend who is always right swears by it, so I think I'm going to get one. Charlotte really struggles with teething and has loooong night wakings where she is inconsolable.

 

[Noelle610]

Shadowy Lady, I'm so happy to hear about your progress with the swaddle! I knew Sofia would learn quickly. She seems pretty reasonable