My High Needs Baby is Completely Exhausting Me

Dawley82 · February 2011

My daughter has never been a great sleeper ever since the infamous "four-month sleep regression." We got things back on track using the NCSS. She still had 2-3 night wakings per night, but we at least had a great bedtime routine down where we could put her down in her crib drowsy, but awake and she would chat to herself until she fell asleep. We would cosleep after her first night waking. Fast forward to the past 2 weeks. She immediately gets hyperactive as soon as she starts noticing her sleep cues (bath, dimly lit room, soft music, sitting in rocking chair with me). I can get her asleep or almost asleep and put her down in her crib and she immediately wakes up and rolls over on her tummy and starts freaking out. We start over and either the same thing happens or she is too awake and hyperactive at that point that it's impossible to get her calm again. Some nights it takes about 2 hours to get her down. Other nights (bad ones like last night) she is awake until we go to bed. Last night we had her in bed with us from the start. My DH and I each had to gently hold down an arm and leg to get her to stop flailing around. This caused her to start flailing the rest of her body and she started "talking" really loud to keep herself awake. It was awful. She finally wore herself out around 10:30 and she was up at 6:30 this morning. Definitely not enough sleep. And I already predict that naps are going to be bad as usual today. I am a new stay-at-home mom (last week was my first week home with her) and I'm not sure if she's just reacting to a change in her daily routine, if she's just going through another sleep regression, or if I am just failing miserably as a parent. My DH thinks we need to make her CIO, but we got so desperate one night that we tried it and she puked after crying for seriously not even 5 minutes. I felt awful and I could never put her through something like that again. I am mentally and physically exhausted though and I know it's affecting my interactions with her. I am feeling resentful and not enjoying her like I should and I feel terrible about that. I just read the Dr. Sears Fussy Baby Book and cried because I felt like he wrote it about her. But his book says you just have to go with the flow. There is such a fine line though between letting her get away with things and being an empathetic parent, ya know? I am just at a complete loss. Any advice??

Annie984 · February 2011

I don't have advice, but I want to sympathize. My LO has always been a very needy sleeper, and it's starting to get hard. He does the same hyperactive thing when he knows it's time for sleep. It's soooo frustrating to have him nearly alseep and then have him giggling, pulling up, and swinging his arms and legs all around. He has also taken to waking up for an hour or so in the middle of the night... I keep my eyes closed, don't engage, and just keep laying him back down, but he just won't go back to sleep. He was up from 3-4 this morning and up at 5:55 for the day. Augh! CIO is not an option for us, so I'm going to keep plugging along with the NCSS (we have had some success) and remember that when he's 14 I'm going to be trying to think of ways to get his butt out of bed.

(sorry for the lack of formatting - phone)

Lotte134 · February 2011

There is definitely a 9 month sleep regression so she could be hitting that. My loose rule of thumb when DS fights bedtime is to just deal the best I can (stick to the routine, trade off with DH, etc...) for 7-10 days. If he's still fighting after that time then I start looking at his routine to see if maybe something needs to change, but generally the disturbances go away in less than a week without any changes. It's like he needs to test us now and then and make sure we're still serious about bedtime.

terri_doula2010 · February 2011

I'm also more commiserating than offering advice. I really wish I could offer BOTH of us advice!

We have a very high needs baby who is pretty much the same age as yours and just like you sleep has been a nightmare since 4 month regression. None of us are sleeping enough and between no sleep and trying to keep up with him all day long I'm miserable to the point that I have an appointment in an hour to get an antidepressant prescription (I have a therapist already, and she thinks it is time).

A week and a half ago we tried doing CIO...we managed to stick to it for 4 nights, but by the end we were all seriously on the brink of going crazy. My LO was panicky and clingy all day and just couldn't handle ANYTHING, DH was so emotionally exhausted from being the one to go in and comfort every few minutes and then LEAVE that he would pass out where ever he was as soon as our LO fell asleep, and I'm just not going to go into how badly I did with it.

So anyway, I guess my only advice is that CIO isn't for everyone. Don't feel bad for trying it, because we get to that point of desperation sometimes, but also don't listen to the people (and doctors!!) that say it is the only way.

We are finally getting back to managing as well as we did before CIO. We "fixed" it by being very very permissive about naps and bedtime for several days. He slept on me or in the car during that time for all naps and bedtime.

Oh! I do have some advice. Every once in a while the bedtime routine gets DS all worked up as well. When that happens, we let him play for a while, and then instead of starting over with the routine, once he starts showing signs of sleep we go directly to trying to put him to bed. For us, that means rocking, nursing, and on bad nights rocking in the bathroom with the shower running so that the white noise soothes him. That generally works for us.

Also, I think at this age it still isn't about him getting away with things. I'm definitely trying to not pander to his every whim anymore (like letting him fuss a little (not cry) if he wants me to be RIGHT NEXT TO HIM and I need to do something else), but I think he is still at an age where it is a lot more simple then him trying to manipulate us. He seems to have legitimate emotions...those emotions are just very fragile. I don't know if thinking about it like that helps at all, but I know I try very hard to remind myself and DH that he isn't doing it TO us, like last night when he woke up every hour and had to be soothed for at least 30 minutes to get back to sleep due to teething. His reality is just rough sometimes, and we have to do what we can to help him through it.

Hang in there mama! Go with the flow, but take care of yourself as well...and if you figure out how to juggle it all, please let me know.

WyoGal · February 2011

Dawley82:
I can get her asleep or almost asleep and put her down in her crib and she immediately wakes up and rolls over on her tummy and starts freaking out. We start over and either the same thing happens or she is too awake and hyperactive at that point that it's impossible to get her calm again. Some nights it takes about 2 hours to get her down. Other nights (bad ones like last night) she is awake until we go to bed. Last night we had her in bed with us from the start.

We were totally there. The one thing that stood out to me was about tummy sleeping. Around 9 months (maybe even earlier) we accepted that M was a tummy sleeper and instead of putting him down on his back only for him to wake himself up and then have trouble settling on his tummy again, we started putting him down on his tummy. This allowed us to soothe him by rubbing his back which eventually (after a year) led to us being able to help him self-soothe and step away. He needed A LOT of guidance to get there, but in the end I believe it paid off.

Hugs! It's so tough to have a high needs sleeper. She's not "getting away" with anything by sleeping with you or not being able to self-soothe, she just has a longer schedule from other babies of needing comfort and doing it on her own, just like talking, walking or crawling. If crying before sleep only makes her more tense (to the point of vomiting) it sounds like CIO won't work for her right now.

3003girl · February 2011

i have not read all these posts - but real quick, my LO started the flailing thing and we started to swaddle her legs. it has worked for the past few nights. much more sleep (now she only wakes up every 2-3 hours instead of the 1 it had turned into being)

she was not going down for us - she would get to the brink and then start kicking and crawling around and be wide awake. the swaddle helped a ton!!! sorry this is short and rambley.

Dawley82 · February 2011

Thanks for your comments and encouragement!! You don't know how much it helps to just get it out and to know that there are other people out there that understand. Sadly I don't know anyone in real life that can relate and everyone makes me feel like AP is the reason we are having issues, so I'm learning to just not talk about it with people. I'm thankful for this board! Smile

KittyKatMom · February 2011

Dawley82:
I can get her asleep or almost asleep and put her down in her crib and she immediately wakes up and rolls over on her tummy and starts freaking out.

We were having this issue with DS as well, so I started putting him down in the play pen (which is actually the Arms Reach Co-Sleeper converted to a play yard). I figured out that whenever I put him down, he immediately wiggles around to try and get comfortable, and in the crib, he would bang his head or other body part against the wooden rails and wake up. The mesh sides of the co-sleeper flex, so if he bumps into them, it's nice and soft.

This is only night 3, but so far, so good. The first night, he woke up right away when I put him down, but settled himself back to sleep for the first time ever. He is still waking up frequently throughout the night, but I'm 99% sure that is due to teething, so I 'm going to stick with this for awhile longer and see what happens.

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