Rant - Feeling so hopeless about sleep!

[daneuse27]

bananz - I nurse mine right before bed, put her down sometimes asleep, and sometimes half awake and she usually sleeps through 10-11 hours, with a short feeding at the end, making it 12 hours total. I think what helps is that I play music that she associates with bedtime, and read a story and do a baby massage before bed. So rather than the nursing specifically reminding her its bedtime, she has these other things too.

 

[bananaz]

Bananaz, thank you thank you thank you!!! The Cerave has worked so well. She didn't wake up once last night from the itching. Her outbreak is fading fast. That stuff is pricey, but very worth it. I really appreciate you suggesting it! Also, to answer your question, I do a feed before bed and I read her a story during it, then she goes down. If I don't she wakes up at 4-5 because she's hungry.

Yay I'm so glad the CeraVe helped! And yes it's quite expensive but it's the only thing I've found that works, and I've tried a LOT of products.

 

[NotNic]

Hello sleep gurus! I hope you don't mind me joining, but just wondered if any of you had babies that like to practice their daytime milestones in their sleep? My son is constantly trying to pull himself to sitting up while being asleep. Before that it was crawling and rolling in his sleep. Thing is he cries while he does it and won't lay back down on his own. If we give him his dummy and lay him back down he will settle immediately. The whole time is eyes are shut and will only wake if he ends up wedged somewhere or he has been crying for awhile. The sitting up one has really messed with his nap times especially. Any tips? I'm up at least 2 every single night since Christmas. Before Christmas he at least gave us one sttn a week.

 

[Noelle610]

Hello sleep gurus! I hope you don't mind me joining, but just wondered if any of you had babies that like to practice their daytime milestones in their sleep? My son is constantly trying to pull himself to sitting up while being asleep. Before that it was crawling and rolling in his sleep. Thing is he cries while he does it and won't lay back down on his own. If we give him his dummy and lay him back down he will settle immediately. The whole time is eyes are shut and will only wake if he ends up wedged somewhere or he has been crying for awhile. The sitting up one has really messed with his nap times especially. Any tips? I'm up at least 2 every single night since Christmas. Before Christmas he at least gave us one sttn a week.

Hi there! Charlotte is exactly the same - milestones really mess with her sleep. No great advice here , except lots of practice during the day. We've just had to ride it out

 

[Sunnie1984]

Hello again everyone,

Anti - Don't worry, 4am is not the time to be thinking of anything, other than getting back to bed! It's also easier for me to say it when I'm not sitting in the middle of it.

Michelle - 12 hours! Whew, that's great! Yup too many things to think about, and probably none of them are what is causing the wake ups.

Noelle - YAY! At least Charlotte is catching up on some sleep! Even you got 7.5 hours, which must go a long way to getting you better rested.

Mrspear - Poor Joni, constipation cannot be nice. I hope she takes enough water on board to get comfortable again. Is Joni bottle fed (i forget), if so I think you can substitute 1 oz water for prune or orange juice, and that way she might take it easier?

I still have no idea what is going on, but I'm just trying to ignore everything for the moment and struggle on the best I can.

Bananaz - Sorry you continue to have bad nights. I think you did a great job considering how difficult it must have been to hear her grumble and cry and try to settle. At least she did settle in the end.

I don't think I have any useful advice, as you already know it, and have tried it all. I just hope that Elsie is working on something that you can't see, like talking etc, and that it is developmental in the end. You are out of the wonder week I take it?

Don't worry, one day she will just resettle in her cot, just keep trying her, eventually she'll get it.

I give Seren a bottle right before bed. I just make sure to burp her a lot before she goes down, so she doesn't fall asleep on the bottle.

I'm guessing here, but a couple of friends of mine found that their baby slept longer when they switched to formula, not really because they fed more etc, but because they stopped snuggling in to breast feed, and so the self settling became easier because they were not looking for the comfort and warmth. Perhaps Elsie is the same? She wants the cuddles she gets from nursing rather than the milk? Not saying you should stop feeding, but just might be an idea.

Boo - 6:13am is normal over here! It probably is the cough, I hope it goes back to normal soon for you.

cmarie - Glad your LO finally slept! She might be hitting wonder week 26 - we're having problems settling to bed, not getting Seren to sleep but the part afterwards where she wakes up screaming!

Jessicatunnel - We are in the same boat, but Seren just wants a cuddle and back to sleep. No idea why! Sorry you are dealing with it, are you due a wonder week?

Notnic - We do! Seren likes to crash around the cot at night practising her rolling and attempting to crawl!



We are in a weird phase I think. Seren started the waking every couple of hours last night, about 30 minutes after she went to bed. The third time, I put her back down on her tummy (she's been sleeping on her back due to her cold).... and she slept right through to 6am.

I was thrilled, sure I had unlocked the secret! I am a moron!

Tonight she went down on her tummy and has woken once already, turned herself over and then started screaming. Picked her up, cuddled her and put her back down and she's gone back to sleep, but no idea how long for.

I think we in WW26 now, I also wonder if she's trying to crawl in her sleep, she pretty much got up on her hands and knees before her bath tonight, she's never gotten her pelvis off the floor before. So maybe that's it.

I think I'm just going to work on her daytime naps, and try to make sure she's not overtired for bed time. Or do what I did today which was get stuck in traffic and let her nap too long, so that she wasn't ready for bed until 7:15pm, despite her usual bedtime being 6:30pm. So now she's overtired and undertired at the same time!

Aaaahhhh how I wish for the days when she was just a blob, and just slept right through with no frustration crying and teething and milestones etc.

 

[cmarie33]

Bananaz, thank you thank you thank you!!! The Cerave has worked so well. She didn't wake up once last night from the itching. Her outbreak is fading fast. That stuff is pricey, but very worth it. I really appreciate you suggesting it! Also, to answer your question, I do a feed before bed and I read her a story during it, then she goes down. If I don't she wakes up at 4-5 because she's hungry.

Cmarie, have you heard of the Soothe and Glow Seahorse? My LO goes through stages of doing what you described, and it really helped.

I wondered about getting something like that, but then wondered if its have an effect introducing it at 6months rather than birth? x

 

[Noelle610]

Sunnie, Dr. Weissbluth (of "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child") thinks that formula fed babies tend to sleep through faster not because they don't eat as often, but because a baby often wakes and puts himself back to sleep in the time it takes the parent to get the bottle ready. He thinks parents learn early on that their babies can self-soothe if only given the time and this encourages STTN. Who know if it's actually true! The length my daughter slept never varied based on whether she had EBM or formula.

 

[NotNic]

Oh well. I guess there's company in misery!

I combi-fed and my son sttn from 8 weeks until 4mth regression. I think because he was a baby that liked to cluster feed of a morning he was happy to go longer of a night. It was his natural pattern. At that stage he would normally still have a bf before bed and then we'd offer a bottle (normally EBF) as a dream feed. When we swapped to ff bottle I can't say we noticed any difference. I thought the difference was that a tired baby probably would stop drinking from the breast before they were truly full, whereas a bottle fed baby wouldn't have to work so hard, so would be completely full.

 

[Noelle610]

Hi ladies! I haven't been in here for ages, and it seems there are s few new ladies in here. I haven't gone through and read much, just the last page, but I hope everyone's LO's sleep isn't too horrible.

Just a little update on Lilly. She was doing really great for about four weeks. We would put her down at 630 or 7 and she would sleep until 730 or 8 with zero wake ups inbetween. Over the last three or so weeks she wakes up about four times from 630pm-1130pm. I can't figure out why. She's not hungry or cold or hot. We don't even need to do much to settle her. Just stand by her crib and sing twinkle twinkle little star. We literally only get "twinkle twinke little star, how I wonder what you are.." in before she's fast asleep again. We've tried leaving her when she wakes between those times but she goes ballistic. She usually sleeps 11-8 straight through now though.

Anyone have an idea of how to stop the wake ups between 630-1130?

Somehow I missed a few posts!

Usually those early evening wakings are from being overtired. How are Lilly's naps and how long is she awake between the last nap and bedtime?

Have you introduced anything new to her diet? I'm also thinking indigestion maybe.

So glad you're still getting a nice long stretch!

 

[Noelle610]

bananaz - we do solids supper at 4:30 then a bedtime bottle at 6. she goes to bed at 6:30 also being 100% awake and is asleep by 7 and sleeps through until 6:30am.

HTH

Yay!!

 

[NotNic]

After complaining about Finlay not sttn, last night he did! 8pm-6.15am!! Mummy was in such a good mood about it we were up, had a play with daddy, washed, dressed and downstairs with a bottle by 7.15am! Poor thing is not used to such a focused early start. By 8.30am he was doing the spaced out eyes and he's now had just over an hours nap and still going, which is the most we've had in one go this week. He turns 38 weeks today. Do you think he's being a textbook wonder week baby?

 

[daneuse27]

Did my girl just wake herself up crawling?

She doesn't crawl really when awake, but tries to. She manages to move forward and backward but it isn't really crawling its hard to explain. She woke up last night, and when I went to the crib, she was in the crawling position and further up the crib than where I'd placed her. I lay her back down and gave her a paci and she was sleeping within seconds!

Weird.

 

[NotNic]

Probably! My son does this sooo much. X

 

[Noelle610]

I post on another forum and I just got into with a woman SLEEP TRAINING HER 2 MONTH OLD. As you ladies know, I'm not much for internet drama nor am I against sleep training (at all!), but come. On.

 

[anti]

My health visitor seems to think that if I give ashlynn water at night she will stop waking and sttn. I'm not so convinced. Don't know what to do... So looking forward to a full night sleep in a few years time.

 

[AngelUK]

LOL anti but also aww. Actually I think nightweaning might help. We started with Dominic in November. Dropped the 4am feed by replacing it with water. It took a good month if not more for him not to wake for it any more but when he did we got lovely 4 to 5 hour stretches from him before he woke for the day.
He still got his midnight bottle till about 10 days ago when he dropped that by himself! Mind you, he is teething again and for the first time he seems be affected by it. So last night he woke for the first time in 10 days. I gave him half a carton and half water. So in all it was 200ml but 100 water and 100 milk. I always have the bottles with the water and the cartons ready when OH and I go to sleep and he and I agreed that should Dominic cry he would get that and we would gradually reduce the milk and up the water ratio. Still I am hoping his waking last night was a fluke and due to teething and not that he no longer wants to sttn. Good luck

 

[L-C]

I gave my DS water and he stopped and three nights later slept through and has done ever since!

 

[anti]

Maybe I should try the water bit. Only thing that worries me is she never finished her bedtime bottle, so when she wakes I feel like I need to give her milk coz she only drinks like 3oz of her bedtime bottle. Maybe if I gave water during the night she might start finishing her bedtime bottle before bed.

 

[AngelUK]

Sebastian is like that too and rarely finishes his bed time bottle either. So we wait till he is really deeply asleep, (ca 10 to 15 mins) and give it to him as a dreamfeed. He always goes back to sleep without really waking. Mind you, he never was a difficult sleeper. xxx

 

[anti]

Thanks angel. Might try that tonight as its the weekend an my OH will be here and might be able to help me out, not that he has before!! She fought her nap so bad yesterday I had to take her out in the buggy to sleep and I'm getting tired of all this! People seem to think all babies this age should be sleeping through, but with the amount of us on here just proves a lot of babies aren't doing that! To be fair, after she had 5oz last night at half 11 she slept till 5am.