Any one else still REALLY struggling with night sleep?

mwagner25 · March 2014

Hey ladies, just looking for some support. We are still really struggling with getting sleep at night. We get Oliver down for bed around 7 pm then every half hour or hour he is up until ten. After that we might get a couple 2 hour stretches before we go back to the every hour until morning. We tried everything, white noise, formula at night (otherwise he is EBF), nursing to sleep, not nursing to sleep, pacifier, shush and pat, swaddle, sleep sack. I am just hoping we aren't alone and that other Mommas are still up 5-10 times a night with their babies. We won't co-sleep because my wife is adamantly against it. I can't help but feel like we are doing something wrong. Maybe we are attending to him too much at night? It's so hard to let him fuss and not go in. I am rambling now... But please tell me we aren't alone in ordering every sleep book out there because we can't figure out how to get him to sleep. I should also say that Oliver is 13.5 weeks. ETA: PIP

DebateThis · March 2014

Ditto CaiShov. Beyond that, I'd honestly have a conversation about safe cosleeping at this point. IDK if you're still at home (or if you didn't return to work) but that many wakeups per night would utterly destroy my ability to function at work as well as be a good parent and spouse the next day. We were "adamantly opposed" to cosleeping/bedsharing as well and then we discovered that it was the best way for all three of us to get some quality sleep. Henry went from waking every hour to only waking once per night, literally overnight.

Hugs to you. I hope you can come to a solution and get some rest soon. There's a reason sleep deprivation is considered torture by the Geneva Convention!

[Deleted User] · March 2014

Thank you for posting this! We are in the same boat. He WAS sleeping well until daycare started a month ago and now I am lucky if I get more than 2 hours. Sometimes it's not even that he needs anything, just that he wants to hang out. i must be a really cool mom ha ha.
Hopefully our LO's catch on soon that sleep is f'n awesome and they are missing out!

brandeeteer · March 2014

Right there with you. I'm lucky if I get 3 hours sleep. I go to bed at 8 (you can see how well that works since it's 1030 and I'm bumping). DH stays up with LO until around 1130 when he finally gets LO to sleep. For the last two weeks he has slept until 130. Then he's up. Like wide awake screaming up. For the rest of the night!

Eta: crappy grammar.

cagoldi · March 2014

Another vote for bedsharing or co-sleeping if you can get your wife to agree to it.

We don't bedshare at night in general because DH is way too heavy a sleeper and neither of us are comfortable with keeping the baby in bed with him. I do let him sleep in bed with us for his morning nap on weekends. And there have been a few rough nights when we were so exhausted DH decided he would just sleep on the couch and let our LO sleep in bed with me so everyone could get some rest.

We were back to a lot of wake-ups again and decided the easiest solution is for us is to put a twin mattress in the baby's room. DH and I start off in our own bed and then whichever of us has night duty will go down to him when he first wakes up, feed him and get him back to bed, then just stay in his room to sleep the rest of the night. Then if he cries or starts to get really fussy we can just reach into his crib to settle him. That way if he continues to wake up we aren't climbing up and down the stairs 5 or 6 times and it's much easier for us to get back to sleep.

Try different things, try everything until something works.

We reached a point where he was STTN and then he went back to waking up a ton. Be flexible, because once you finally do get him to sleep longer stretches there is no guarantee that will continue.

aeterhune · March 2014

Mine is like this too. I finally made the decision to co-sleep (same bed) after doing research on how to do it safetly. He tends to wake up every 1-2 1/2 hours wanting to nurse and having him next to me let us both get a little more sleep. This website has some great info about safe co-sleeping. https://www.askdrsears.com/topics/health-concerns/sleep-problems/sleep-safety/safe-co-sleeping-habits
Hopefully you guys can find something that works for your family, I know how exhausting it can be.

3Dewdrops · March 2014

My 3 kids have all been drastically different when it came to sleeping habits. The first slept about 10 hours by this age. The second slept in 45 minute increments til about 7 months. This LO sleeps a longer block anywhere from 3-6 hours and then gets up every hour or two. "Bedtime" for us tends to be 10 or 11. I do hope you get better sleep soon but don't stress that you're doing anything wrong. Baby will decide the schedule for now.

TJHine · March 2014

Baby sleep changes so much! We had been at a place where he was waking every 4 or 5 hours, but for about a week now it has been every two again, and I've been up every 1 or 2 hours tonight.
I don't have any advice except that eventually these babies will all be sleeping through the night so we just need patience! And a lot of coffee!

mwagner25 · March 2014

@CaiShov and @ashleyross... Glad to know I am not alone. Misery loves company. Lucky us to have the kiddos who don't sleep well. I am about to strangle some friends of our who have twins, younger than Oliver, and are getting more sleep than us. But... Not many 13 weekers can match our butterball's size wearing 9 month PJs now. I attribute his impressive size to the frequent night eating.

mwagner25 · March 2014

@Sing2phins, we put him down for bed at 7 for two reasons. First, his late evening nap is already difficult to get him down for, so by 7 he is so fussy/tired we just put him down for bed. Second, he seems to have some idea that 7 is bedtime, bc usually when he wakes from a nap his eyes are open, he is wanting to play, happy, coos, ect. After he gets put down for bed at 7, when he fusses or cries he doesn't open his eyes. He doesn't want to get up. He doesn't take long to get back to sleep (5 minutes of rocking or 2-3 of nursing) but when we leave him to fuss it escalates to full on wails. So he just seems to need our help to get back into a deep sleep. I have been thinking that it is probably the transition between sleep cycles that wakes him?

mwagner25 · March 2014

@chrisy_01 we have had a bedtime routine since he was six weeks. He gets a bath on bath days, then pajamas, then stories and songs in the dim nursery with moms. My wife gives him his formula bottle 4-6 oz then says good night. He nurses to fall asleep, the he gets swaddled, rocked, and put in the crib.

mwagner25 · March 2014

I appreciate all those who have given co-sleep/bed sharing advice. I know it works for lots of families but it isn't for us. We actually did have him in the RnP in our room for the first 6 weeks exclusively, but he is a noisy sleeper so I wasn't sleeping much. When we started our bedtime routine we always put him in the crib at first then brought him to our room when he woke up. He now hangs out of the RnP, he is just too big. We keep it in our room for when we are desperate but he is really too big for it. Our room is too small to sidecar a crib. And at this point I don't really want my grunty, farty, noisy baby back in our room all night.

I love that noisy kiddo, but don't sleep well next to him.

I know that there are plenty of well-respected doctors who advocate bed sharing. But, my wife was a paramedic for 8 years and had two tragic calls that involved bed sharing. Out of respect for her I don't push the topic and don't side lay nurse in our bed. With her life experiences it just isn't an option for us, but I have heard from many that it is the best decision they ever made for their family.

rspalding001 · March 2014

We are still struggling too. Little One wakes up all the time. I feel your pain. I just keep reminding myself this can't last forever. Good luck!

mwagner25 · March 2014

@CFox815 we do put him in the RnP when we get desperate. But his legs hang off the end and he is really too big for it. We *try not to do it on a regular basis because we know that soon it won't be an option if he keeps growing at this rate. But some nights you just have to get through until morning.

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Any one else still REALLY struggling with night sleep?

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