im at the end of my tether. LO (he's on formula) will feed at 6pm then about an hour later we start bedtime. Change, twinkle twinkle then in crib. He will then sleep and dream feed again at about 10pm (sometimes he wakes for this but lately he's been asleep and I pick him up and feed him) he then goes down again at about 11pm. Then it seems all hell breaks loose. I have been up every 30mins to an hour tonight. I fed him at 3am and he has been wide awake ever since. I finally picked him up at 5am and he's now asleep in my arms. I'm so tired and have spent most nights crying as all I hear are how other people's babies sleep through the night. What am I doing wrong?? I feel like such a failure all the time. Why can't I get my child to sleep?
Re: Not slept in a month
YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE and you aren't doing anything wrong.
Is there a reason you do a bottle an hour before bedtime? Why not give a bottle AT bedtime then put in the crib? I've done that with both of my kids and it never created sleep problems, in fact, it made naps and bedtime a hell of a lot easier! Bottle, rock, cuddle then in the crib.
Also, do you have to do the dream feed? I think parents do that to try and keep their LO full so they don't wake up other times but IME it's better to just let them wake up to eat when they want to. Not when you want them to. My first kid stopped waking for a MOTN bottle at 7 months and my 2nd kid was 9 months. I let them determine when they were done with those bottles. BUT that doesn't mean you need to go to them every time they wake up in the night. You need to determine which wake up's are for hunger (usually only one at this age) and which ones are just your LO having a hard time going from one sleep cycle to the next. Those are the ones you can sleep train for.
I think you need to change your routine up a bit. Parenting is all trial and error so keep trying! I know you are exhausted and I spent many, many nights crying as well. It's not easy but it will get better.
Ugh, things sound pretty bad right now
Like I said to OP above, you need to be able to tell the difference in wake-up's before deciding what your next course of action is. Keep getting up to feed, but sleep train for the other wake-up's.
For both of my kids they would consistently wake-up 2 hours after I put them down every night and I knew they didn't need anything at that time so those were the wake-up's I worked on first. Give them 10 minutes to work it out themselves, go in, rub back, say I love you and leave again. I was consistent with this and they stopped waking up crying at that time. That helped with the rest of the night. Sleeping improved tremendously.
And yes, you do forget how shitty the baby stuff is and convince yourself you want another! My kids are almost 4 and 16 months and it's awesome at this age. Well, the 4 year old kind of sucks....
I'm not saying you are doing this but I know WAY too many moms that blame every negative behavior on teething. I can honestly say I've never been able to tell when my kids were/are teething. Sometimes babies and kids are just dicks LOL.
Have you given anything for teething pain?
My pediatrician is encouraging us to sleep train at 4mos. I am so beyond desperate that we're gonna do it.
TRUTH.
Just wait until your LO is 3. You'll seriously consider walking out your front door and never coming back. Changing your name, hiding in another country. I've never experienced hell until I had a 3 year old
Also, you aren't doing anything wrong, and don't feel like you're defective because your baby isn't sleeping through the night. Despite our dream feed drop success, we still get up plenty because LO feels like fussing around in his crib instead of sleeping. Fun times for all!
It's not as bad the second time! You figure out some tricks