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mcatmay
member
Tell me this gets better at SOME point (sorry, long)
mcatmay
member
You ladies have all heard my sleeping woes. DD gets up every two hours, starting around 11pm or midnight. Usually, it's more like this - midnight, 2am, 4am, 5am, then wakeup for the day around 6:30am. She used to STTN at 2 months (for two solid weeks), then it all went to heck after vaccinations. Since then, i've blamed the 12 week growth spurt, the 4 month wakeful (early?). I don't know what the reasons are except maybe i'm not doing something right.
The girl doesn't seem to have anything wrong with her - she's ahead of most of her developmental milestones, she's always happy and smiling at everyone and she's a pleasure to be around most of the time. She just cannot put herself back to sleep, which is weird because we put her down 'drowsy but awake' at night and that's when she sleeps her longest stretch of sleep (from 7:30pm till midnight). I do EBF - she refuses the bottle from me (will take it from others) and is now starting to refuse the paci from me.
She has teased me with occasionally doing 3-4 hour stretches. For the life of me, i can't figure out what we've done differently on those days. I go over EVERYTHING, from what i've eaten, to nap schedules, to whether she's been to daycare or not. No pattern that i can see.
This now has been going on for 6 weeks straight. Does this get better? Should i be resigned to this being my life until we sleep train? Has anyone started sleep training before 6 months (besides fostering good sleep habits, which we've been trying to do)?
It's getting to the point where, when she wakes up the first time at night, i just lay in bed filled with dread at facing the rest of the night. I've become an insomniac because i flinch at EVERY sound and i can no longer sleep in the same room as DH because he snores (NEVER had a problem with this until i had a baby). I hate sleeping in another room and i hate being so tired ALL the time. Any advice appreciated...
Sincerely,
Beyond Exhausted Mom
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Tell me this gets better at SOME point (sorry, long)
It really does get better, and I'm sure there's nothing you're doing "wrong."
Ugh, I do remember that not wanting to fall asleep/waking at every noise phase. And resenting DH and his snoring. Don't feel bad if you need to go to another room to sleep (or kick him out)--do whatever it takes to get you get more sleep.
When she wakes up, does she want to eat? Or is she just awake and wants entertaining?
What time are you going to bed? When J was in that phase I would go to bed early (9pm) so at least I got a good stretch of sleep before he woke up.
How are you helping develop good sleep habits? Are you swaddling? Using white noise? If she won't take a paci from you, what about your DH? Can he try to soothe her?
Can your DH take a shift from you? That's what we did . . . I would go to bed at 9, and DH would handle any wake ups that happened before 1am (or 2am? I don't remember). So I would get a good stretch of 4-5 hours before taking over wake-up duty. If she wants to eat when she wakes up, you could pump before you go to bed so he could give her a bottle.
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
baby blog/cooking blog
I remember going through that and I don't think anything we did really fixed things. (We were also dealing with reflux, that I'm sure amplified all of DD's sleep issues.) We tried sleep training early (around 4 or 5 months) and it didn't really fix anything. I think we tried it again months later and it helped with a few of the middle of the night wake ups.
You have my deepest sympathy - it SUCKS not being able to sleep, and after a while it really messes with you. But it really does get better eventually. There will be a time when she finally sleeps for 4 or 6 hours at a time, and eventually there will be a time when she starts STTN. Just hang in there until then!
Disclaimer: this may not be very hopeful.
C went through exactly this between months 3 and 5. It sucked. We blamed it on every possible culprit. Teething. Gas. Dairy issues. Everything. We even took him to the pedi specifically because of it. Our pedi said he didn't need to eat more than once in the middle of the night, so not to nurse him every single time he woke. But he still woke. Eventually at around month five, we had to Ferberize (keeping one feeding per night).
It was a rough few months, that crappily coincided with returning to work, but survivable. You can do it!
It does get better--it just may take some time. Is your DH able to get up with you to help with these night wakings? Even if he just brings her to you in the night it might help. Or, if she's not feeding during the night, can he take the monitor and wake up for some part of the night so you can get some uninterupted sleep.
What time are you putting her to bed? We dealt with night wakings a lot, especially with DS. On some nights, he was waking up 10-20x per night. It was horrible, so I know how you feel. The two things that made sleep better for us, even if it was just a little better, was putting the babies down earlier and for DH and I go to bed earlier. In the early days, we'd get in bed by 8:30pm or 9pm at the latest so we could get some uninterupted sleep.
I know it's so easy to obsess over what you could be doing differently, what could be wrong, etc. I think half of the obsession is fueled by your own sleep deprivation. Looking back on what we went through, I don't think anything really helped us beyond setting up good sleep habits, getting the timing of bedtime right, ensuring good naps during the day, doing some sleep training when they were ready (which wasn't until 7 months--prior attempts were disasterous) and just letting the babies mature. They were ready to STTN when they were ready, which for us was 8 months.
Good luck!
DS was also up round the clock for about 8 weeks until we Ferbered at 5.5 months. It was exhausting. DH and I took shifts so we could get 5-6 hours of sleep in a row - I slept from 9 pm - 2 or 3 am, and DH slept from 2 am to 8 am. That meant skipping a nursing session and replacing it with formula, but that's what worked for us. You could also try a shift where you get up only to nurse and then hand off to DH. It does get better - it just takes time.
We did what tomandcourt suggested with DH responding to DS anytime before 12 or 1am so I could get some uninterrupted sleep. He'd try to get DS back to sleep without feeding (at that point the pedi said he could go at least 6 hours overnight without a feeding). I also sent DH in to soothe without milk if DS woke up less than 4 hours since I fed him last. If DS was truly hungry i'd get up and feed him, but after a few nights of that DS stopped waking up as often and got a little more predictable with his wake up times too.
You could also try dream feeding to extend the amount of time you sleep before the next wakeup. We started it around 5 months, but it worked great. I would put DS to bed around 7 and then just before I went to bed around 10 or so, I'd go in to his room, lift him out of his crib and nurse him - he'd wake up a tiny bit but fall right back to sleep after nursing and would sleep straight through til 7 after that. I think your LO is probably too little to sleep all the way through from 10 or 11 to 7, but dream feeding might at least buy you more time between when you go to bed and the next wakeup.
GL - it does get so much better....I think we really turned a corner around 5 or 6 months with the dream feed, and then around 8 months when he stopped needing the dream feed altogether.
ETA: FWIW, I read so many places that 3-4 months was when things started getting easier, more fun, etc. and I thought we must have some crazy baby or be doing something wrong...for us, 3-4 months was probably the hardest part and around 5-6 months things really improved and just keep getting better!
It does get better at some point!
I remember having these same thoughts of despair, dread and hopelessness every single night, knowing I was going to be up a billion times a night.
Sh!t didn't hit the fan for us until 6 months or so and it didn't get better until a failed attempt at the No Cry Sleep Solution led to Ferbering at around 8 months. I still dreaded bed time since DS screamed anywhere from 10-30 minutes after I put him down. It wasn't until 12 months that I weaned out of night time feedings.
You might try either the No Cry Sleep Solution or Babywise, which both have strategies for sleep training before 6 months.
It's really rough right now, but it will get better. Good luck and hugs!
Off to the beach
DS 7/18/2010
Handy 2.0 Due Early August
2011/2012 Races
12/17/2011 Christmas Caper 10K
2/11/2012 Have a Heart 5K
3/17/2012 DC RNR Half Marathon
4/22/2012 10M Parkway Classic
10/28/2012 Marine Corps Marathon
There's a lot of great advice in all the replies you ladies have given me. I'm going ot re-read them slowly to try to pull out the most i can but i thank you in advance.
To answer some questions:
She does wake up and want to eat SOMETIMES - i'd say that there's 'honest hunger' at least twice a night but the very early morning shift of 4/5/6 am, she's not that hungry. She honestly squeals with delight when she sees me come in the room - very cute but i'd love it if she just slept ;-)
We tried having DH go in during the early part of the night (poor DH wakes up at 5am and i didn't want him to be bothered with taking care of the girl at night when he does SO much for us already) and she screamed in panic. I think that she gets disoriented as she transitions from light to deep sleep (this was at around 9 or 10pm, if she happened to wake up) and, even though she absolutely ADORES DH when she's awake (they really are best buds), she wouldn't stop screaming until i came in there. She did this with her mobile too - we had to take the mobile away - that, along with DH not going in there solved some issues. We are now BOTH going into the room if she wakes up early and having DH give her the paci and me talk to her - it's worked once. We'll see if it works better.
I'm no longer swaddling because she now fights it. We have a great white noise machine and i'm weaning her off the sleep sheep because i'm absolutely convinced that it stopping at 45 minutes wakes her up. I put her down 'drowsy but awake' and am even doing that now for naps, more because of her choosing than because of mine. She actually enjoys her crib, which i'm not fighting one bit.
I put her to bed at 7:30pm. Pedi had suggested pushing her bedtime BACK to 8-9pm to solve middle of the night wakings - disastrous doesn't even begin to cover it. We're back to 7:30pm, when she naturally is sleepy. She never fights going to bed.
DH and I are so used to going to bed together at the same time - we have 'pillow talk', which is my favorite part of the day. I think, however, i'm just going to have to go to bed early, like you all suggested and try to fall asleep before him so that the snoring doesn't get to me.
I think we may try to see if she'll take even some of those pre-made small bottles of formula from DH during the day - maybe he can do one of the early feedings - we just worried that, by the time we got a bottle of BM together, warmed up, etc, the girl would be screaming and REALLY awake, whereas she doesn't wake up fully when i go in and nurse her.
I'm going to look up some of the suggestions on books because i don't think i can survive this until 6-8 months of age. Maybe there's something else we can do before that. She has her 4month appt on december 16th and i'll ask the pedi if he has any other suggestions.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
I gets better! I'd stop agonizing/analyzing about what else to do - I think you're doing everything right and should continue until you are comfortable Feberizing.
Hang in there!!!
This was us, exactly. We had to stop swaddling and DS definitely woke up the moment the sleep sheep stopped. We started putting the sheep near the door, on the ocean noise and about 15 minutes after he fell asleep we would gradually turn it down until it was off. It sounds like you're doing a great job so far!
You can put the bottle together ahead of time . . . and we never warmed J's bottles, he drank them straight out of the fridge with no issues. Just a thought.
TTC #2: BFP 12/17/11, m/c 1/7/12 and D&C 1/12/12
baby blog/cooking blog
This exactly!
you are not doing anything wrong! some kids are good sleepers, some are not. I am a true believer that sleeping is a developmental milestone, like walking, talking, etc. - you really can't force a baby to do it before she's ready.
I LOL at "drowsy but awake" - I tried it all, putting down drowsy, putting down awake, putting down after in deep sleep in my arms for 1.5 hrs, NOTHING worked for us - as soon as I'd lower the baby into the crib, up and screaming she would be. Every 3 hrs until we Ferberized at 9.5mo (per our pedi, who said eBFed babies may need to eat at night until 9mo old). DS was up every 2 hrs, Ferberized him for 6 weeks and it was horrible and did not work, when he was 10.5mo old. Went back to co-sleeping, Ferber worked at 14mo but at 18mo he's now going thru the wakeful period.
I know how horrible and exhausting it is. THIS TOO SHALL PASS
I don't really have any good advice because I'm in a somewhat similar situation. DD#2 is still waking up once a night. She did STTN for a few weeks but her 6 month shots and the following fever seemed to have messed up her schedule. So, I can identify with your situation. I definitely don't think you are doing anything wrong. For me, DD#1 STTN from 10 weeks onward. I've used the same techniques with DD#2 but she is proving herself to have a different personality from her sister. So, sometimes it's partly the personality of the kid.
Sometimes what we do for midnight feedings is we put a bottle with water in the room and then we pre-measure the formula with one of these formula dispensers. That way, all you have to do in the middle of the night is dump the formula in the bottle and swirl. At least the milk is room temperature rather than cold.
I hope it gets better for you. It can definitely be exhausting.
Umdbride, i like your plan for weaning off the sleep sheep. So far i've just been turning it down. I had tried just putting it on 23 mn and all that accomplished was having the little girl wake up at 23 mn.
Useonfire, I suspect some of it is to see me. She has just started daycare (two weeks ago) - is there some relationship between daycare and her wanting to spend more time with mom?
Tomandcourt, i would love to put the bottle together ahead of time but the little girl is finicky about BM in a bottle - it HAS to be the playtex bottle with the fast nipple and must be at least room temp or slightly above.
Vtkendra, thanks for the suggestion of the dispenser. Didn't know that existed. That might make it easier - provided the girl even takes formula ;-) We'll give it a try because i do know we have free dry formula samples i kept as a backup.
Thanks for the suggestions!!! We've got to change SOMETHING so we'll see what works for us. As Sofka said, this too shall pass but it feels like an eternity until it does ;-)
I don't have much to add other than having been there. I think that was a particularly rough time because I had just gone back to work, and we'd been teased with a couple of long nights (6 or 7 hours).
For us, it got better at about 5 or 6 months, and then we ferbered at 7 months. But after that, LO started daycare, got a cold and cut 4 teeth in about a 5 week period and sleep went to hell again. We are finally back to STTN and have been for maybe 3-4 weeks. It's blissful, yet I still find myself wanting more!
No matter what it is, it is definitely NOT you doing anything wrong!
Oh, definitely. Infants crave routines and this is a big change for her. She is used to seeing you all the time and now she doesn't have that. She will adjust of course, but this could definitely be a big factor.
- When she wakes up in the middle of the night, how long do you wait before you go into her room? If you're going right away, I'd try to wait 2-3 minutes. Sometimes M would surprise us and fall back asleep on his own if we didn't rush in right away.
- Keep having DH go in by himself sometimes. I understand she freaked out one time, but if he keeps going in every night for several nights, she will get used to it and not freak out anymore. Besides this giving you the opportunity to sleep for a longer stretch, your LO probably associates you with milk, so if DH goes in for at least one wake-up, she will not expect to nurse and may go back to sleep more easily.
- I'll echo what other people said about white noise. That helped us a lot. We still use white noise in M's room at night.
I also want to say that there's not much you can do to get her to STTN until she's ready, which may not happen for a few more months, but hopefully you can get to a point where she's only waking up 1-2 times a night, which is much more manageable.
Another idea is to try putting her to bed EARLIER. Try googling baby sleep and cortisol - I remember reading that when babies stay up later than they should, their bodies produce a hormone to help them stay awake and those hormones ultimately interfere with their sleep and they wake earlier than they would without the extra "stay awake" hormones.