XP: Please help. My child does not sleep.

amber_tynan

I feel like every time I'm on here all I want is help with B's sleeping issues. 

Here's my dilemma: My child does not sleep.  I am really, really becoming affected by this.  I'm feeling like a bad mom.  I'm feeling like I need some time away from him, I'm feeling a little frustrated and resentful towards him.  Please no flaming, I'm really needing some space to vent here. 

I'm not looking forward to the next day because I know that naps are only 1/2 an hour long.  I dread nights because until I finally cave at 9 or so and bring him into our bed (where he still wakes every hour) I'm spending 3 hours trying to get him to sleep for the night in his crib.  He wakes every single time he's put down except for the first 45 minutes or so that he goes down. 

This kid is tired.  I am tired.  DH is tired.  He just can not sleep for a decent amount of time.  I just found myself wanting to be a complete and utter b!tch to a FB friend who complained that her DD gets up twice a night and she usually sleeps for 11 hours. We tried a mild form of crying, and we're trying NCSS.  We're on day 7 and it's really not helping.

I love B and will do anything for him, but I don't think I'm being the best mom I can be right now and it isn't fair to him.  It isn't fair for me to feel frustrated with him.  It's not fair to DH for me to always be so tired that I'm constantly a b!tch and just need him to take B away from me for a little while.  I'm on antidepressants, so I know what to look for regarding that, we all just need sleep. 

evhamm

What's your nighttime routine? Tried other relaxing things? Tried a white noise machine? a fan? soother? swing? toy like a glow worm? baby massage? bath time? How's the feeding going? I guess I have more questions before I dare offer any advice. We struggle too every few days and I certainly understand the not sleeping. PPD is worse with sleep deprivation and you need to catch up on sleep (all of you) to get better. Follow-up and I'll try to give you some advice if I can.

amber_tynan

For some reason I wasn't totally putting together the way I'm feeling with PPD.  You are right!  I'm getting my anxiety back and feeling really down.  Thanks for pointing that out!

We have a naptime and bedtime routine.  We use a white noise machine.  We introduced a lovey.  Our naptime routine consists of going into his room and nursing, then I turn on the white noise machine and say time for night night, give him bunny, and bounce/rock until he's drowsy.  Then I put him in the crib while saying goodnight Brody I love you, and pat until he's asleep.  Night is very similar except we start by pulling the shades and closing the curtains then get a diaper and pj's, nurse, white noise, bunny, bounce, put in crib and pat. 

We don't do a long drawn out bedtime with a bath because he goes from being tired to needing to be asleep within a half hour.  He eats regularly and is growing and gaining consistently. 

evhamm

It's good you're putting Brody down drowsy and not having to put him down asleep. Sam still won't go to sleep on his own and I have to rock him till he's dead asleep then put him down.

But I have learned that responding right away doesn't always help. I know you're trying to help him sleep in his own bed and not in yours, so try to be strong and don't cave in if you don't want that to become the habit. It generally takes 3 days to get back to sleeping better if you really work at it. If you're going in at night, are you just patting him on the bum again till he falls asleep again? would putting a vibrating toy on his crib help maybe, because that will simulate being patted to sleep?

If you've got some time, look up silentnights.org. What I've learned this week from that website is that if all the sleep cues are not present the child will fight sleep tooth and nail. 

Sally J

Cooper has always been a rough sleeper.  Here are some of the things that really made a difference:

-Dress him warmer for bedtime and turn up the heat a little.  He was temperature sensitive and would wake up if he was cold.

-Use black out shades for nap and bedtime.

-Add white noise, a crib soother, a lovey, and a blanket that had my smell on it (I slept with the blanket for several nights).

-Have a strict 1 hour bedtime routine.  If your DS needs to sleep within 30 min of tired signs, start the routine 30 min before the tired signs.  We include some quiet play time as part of our routine for both naps and bedtime.  We go upstairs for this play time, so it's part of the routine, although not part of the actual part of putting him to sleep.

-Offer nursing/bottle every hour during the day for wake times and allow cluster feeding in the evening to increase calories during the day.

-Do an earlier bedtime.  Our routine starts at 6 and kids are in bed by 7, sometimes earlier.  They don't get up before 6:30 in the morning.

-If Cooper woke after only 45 min or less of a nap, we spent 20 min trying to put him back to sleep.  If after 20 min he didn't go back down, we would allow 1-2 hours of wake time before trying another nap.

-Be careful of the wake time you have before trying a nap.  At 5 months Cooper couldn't go longer than 1.5-2 hrs without needing to go back to sleep, especially in the morning.

-Will he nap in the swing?  Don't worry about bad habits...they grow out of the need for those things eventually.  We used a swing for Cooper's naps until he was 7 months old.

-If cosleeping works, do it.  Go into survival mode and go to bed early, take naps, forget housework.

-No need to worry about drowsy but awake, unless it's working for you.  Eventually he'll do that on his own, even if you don't practice it now.