Sleep just keeps getting worse :(

[Green Lady]

How is it possible my six month old actually sleeps worse than a newborn??? I'm at the end of my rope and I honestly feel like I'm heading for a nervous breakdown.

The baby goes to bed around 4pm. Then depending on the night she might sleep for a couple hours or want resettling multiple times before I go to bed around 9pm. After that she usually wakes every two hours until about 2am, where she goes to hourly. At about 4-5 am she decides it's time to get up and play and it takes me an hour, sometimes more to get her settled again. If she won't go back down I hand her over to my husband in utter frustration and he keeps her occupied in the living room for an hour, then I try to get her back to sleep.

As if that wasn't bad enough, her naps have entirely dissapeared. She never was the best napper but if I get one 20 minute nap out of her a day I'm lucky. Some days she won't nap at all. I've done everything I can but she just--won't--sleep. It's not an exaggeration to say I spend most of my day trying to get her to nap, and I fail miserably. I can never get a break, day or night.

This is just doing me in. LO is a fussy, overtired mess at the end of the day, but what can I do? She's so distractable that she fights sleep tooth and nail. At night I can't even turn over in bed without disturbing her. It's easier to get her to nod off if we co-sleep but then I'm even more of a prisoner, I just can't move at all.

I've tried schedules, routines, sleep associations, blackout blinds, white noise--nothing works. She won't take a dummy, and since she'll only nurse to sleep I'm the only one who can deal with all this. I cannot on my life get this child to sleep for more than two hours at a time. What am I doing wrong? I put up with this when she was a newborn figuring she'd grow out of it, but she just keeps getting worse. Help!

 

[sj22]

Hi, I might have read this wrong but if you are putting LO to bed at 4pm for the night I would suggest that is too early. They need about 12 hours sleep overnight so if you put her to bed at 4pm it seems reasonable to her that 4am would be ok to get up. Can you gradually shift her bedtime to later?

Also, if you are disturbing each other would you consider putting her in her own room? x

 

[Squirmsmum]

So sorry you're having a hard time

Does she sleep in car/pram? Has she set 4pm as her bedtime? Could you maybe wake her after an hour, play a bit then do bedtime routine a bit later?

 

[shimmy]

So sorry you're having a hard time

Does she sleep in car/pram? Has she set 4pm as her bedtime? Could you maybe wake her after an hour, play a bit then do bedtime routine a bit later?

would suggest the same, defo wake her up after an hour. Does she eat and play a lot during the day? it might still be hard , we still have to get up once but the last few weeks its been 10x min :/ but just keep putting routine into place. Try and get her to have a nap (maybe that 4pm one) and it might help so much with night time. They say babies that are over tired sleep worse x

 

[sj22]

Good idea from Squirmsmum - if she sleeps in the car you can trick her into napping by going for a drive With my LO he naps brilliantly in his pram if we rock him over a door bump!

 

[Little S]

Poor you hun.. is she formula fed or breast fed? Just wondering as my friend suffered the same with her LO until she switched to formula.

 

[Tor]

My LO's sleep has just gotten worse and worse as well and he is 9.5 months now so your not alone!

The only thing i can suggest is moving the bedtime later or if she has to fal asleep then get her up after an hour and keep her up as long as possible before getting her ready for bed, also if she is going to bed at 4pm and you cant change it you cant really expect her to sleep past 4/5am in the morning if you are putting her back to bed after this then that could be messing her naps and things up as her day will be very short iykwim?

 

[Leeze]

sounds really tough. I know with my LO she wasn't settling at night before because she was overtired from not napping enough in day. I got Tracy Hogg's book on top tips for improving sleep and lots of this really helped. One thing I hadn't realised was that my LO would settle herself and fall asleep after about 10 mins if I put her down for a nap (as long as she wasn't crying) - and if she was crying then as long as she'd been fed enough, changed and winded then "shush pat" helped to settle her. good luck xx

 

[Leeze]

oh, and also - looking out for "sleepy cues" from LO and trying to settle her for a nap at those times - ie when yawning, ruubbing eyes etc x

 

[Green Lady]

Thanks, everyone. 4pm is quite early but it's the bedtime she set for herself some months ago. I was thinking she might be going to bed so early just because she doesn't nap, like the last nap and bedtime are running together. My husband keeps saying we should keep her up, so maybe I will try getting her out of bed after she's had a rest. She used to sleep until 6am anyway but maybe she's just needing less sleep overall now. Sad to say I'm usually happy to put her down early as it just gives me a rest!

She will sleep in the pram but not unless we've been out for quite a while, and we don't have a car unfortunately! I really want to get her to sleep in her cot if I can. We don't have a spare room for her (one bed flat) so we're going to be bunking together for some time!

We do breastfeed. Initially I thought this might be a factor, but she's reached the age now where she should be able to go longer than 2 hours overnight between feeds. When she was about 2 months old she started sleeping longer stretches, but then she just backpedalled and we were stuck this way! It can really be hard. The poor little thing, she's just exhausted and so is her mummy!

I will look at the Tracy Hogg book too, thanks!

 

[SazzleR]

I would definitely second what has already been suggested - let her nap at 4pm but get her up after about an hour, play with her, do a bath/bedtime routine & put her down for the night around 7. Then hopefully her wake up time will gradually shift forwards too.

Does she have solids yet? If not, things might improve when she starts as she should be able to go a bit longer between feeds.

Have you tried a dream/late feed? If you start putting her down around 7, you could try one around 10-11 to fill her up before her hourly waking starts. Maybe try expressed milk in a bottle so you know she is taking a full feed & not just comfort sucking? But I know not everyone feels comfortable using bottles so just an idea.

Also, are you sure she is warm enough? I only ask cos my LO used to be an even worse sleeper than he currently is (& it's not good now at all really!) but I think he was cold as I got some higher tog sleeping bags & things did improve slightly. Slightly!

I hoped at 6 months that he'd be STTN by 9 months. He's still not! So if you find an answer, let me know!!! lol

 

[Green Lady]

I'm going to start getting her up tonight and see how that goes. Last night wasn't too bad, she slept fairly well for her. I'm also going to persevere with our schedule.

We've been weaning for a few weeks now but I haven't noticed much of a change from that. But she still isn't eating a whole lot, either. I'd love to give her a bottle but she's never taken one! I want to start giving her some formula in a cup, hopefully to get her weaned off BF or at least go to combi-feeding. Being the only one who can feed the baby is a bit awkward for us.

Hope your LO learns the magic secret soon!

 

[lynys]

I found personally that as my LO has gotten older, she's waking more. It started with sleeping through from 8 weeks (7-7) to waking at 2 am for a feed at about 6 1/2 months. Now, she wakes five or six times from her bedtime (which she has adjusted to anytime between 7:30 and 9) until around midnight. Then, she sleeps great.

Last night, she only woke twice, and actually slept from 10:30 until nearly 7 this morn, no interruptions.

I wish I could help, but we are having a bit of difficulty too. My husband suggests letting her sleep with us, but he doesn't understand that one, I don't sleep well with her curled right next to me, and two, it's a bad habit imo.

Hope you figure something out.

 

[Green Lady]

Hope your lucky streak continues, lynys! I think I'd keel over if Caroline decided to only wake up twice. I agree, co-sleeping helps the baby get to sleep but it doesn't do much for mine! The only advantage is I don't have to get out of bed to settle her, lol.

Tried this morning for an hour to get her to nap, and despite obviously being tired she still refused. She plays this game where she fusses and moans in her cot, but if I pick her up to settle her she only wants to play. Set her down again and repeat! It gets frustrating. She can settle herself off to sleep but she needs to be in the right mood. I got her to nap for half an hour in the pushchair but she hasn't napped since. I figure there must be something developmental going on, she's never this hard to get to nap.