Sleep training, formula and selling them on ebay ramble

A few weeks ago we had a week of Seb doing a 5-6 hour stint at night, it was bliss. This broke and he went back to every 2 hours feeding and then we had another few 'good' nights of a 4-5 hour stint.

The last few nights have been awful. Last night in particular he refused to go to bed until 11pm even though he was exhausted. We were so tired I fell asleep while I was feeding him on the bed and MrDL put him in his cot. He woke up 20 minute later screaming the place down, I felt awful having only slept for 20 minutes and he wouldn't calm down. After 30 minutes of trying to calm him in his room (he'd only just fed so couldn't be hungry and already had calpol because he'd been whingy all day and had bright red cheeks) I took him into our room. The second I got into our room he stopped crying and started smiling So I turned round and took him back to his cot where he started screaming again! I know he wants to sleep in with us but our bed is just not big enugh and I always end up sleeping on the wooden edge and getting an awful nights sleep, so I can't do it anymore. After aother 10 minutes of screaming MrDL came in, took him from me and put him in our bed. I ended up feeding him to sleep again. He was then up at 1am, 3am, 5am, 5:30am, 6am, 6:45am and got up for the day at 7:15am.

I just can't do it anymore. It's too much. I'm exhausted to the point I have a near permenant headache and I'm fast losing patience.

He doesn't need to feed that much through night, he's 9 months old he doens't need to eat that regularly through the day, why should he at night? Some of the nights he slept well he's barely eaten any solids, so I don't think it is a food thing. I could keep blaming it on teething, but we've had 9 months of this and no teeth yet, so the chances are it's not that either. I've just got a crappy sleeper and I need a break.

The last few nights have been particularly tough because he's not been going to bed until gone 11pm (I need an earlier bedtime than this!) and all evening he's clung to me like a limpet, whinging if I put him down or MrDL takes him and feeding all evening like a cluster feeding newborn. I wouldn't mind so much if it meant he feeds well all evening and then sleeps a good chunk at night but it doens't so effectively I have him glued to me all evening and night.

I hate the thought of controlled crying, I don't honestly think he'll respond to it because he just gets more and more hysterical, but I'm running out of steam and need to do something. What's worked for you? It's so hard to start making a stand though when I'm so tired. I hate going down the route of feeding him to sleep everytie, but sometimes it's anything for an easier life.

We're going to give him formula tonight I think. It'll be the first time he's had it, but at least then I can go to bed and MrDL can feed him. Or if I can get the time to express today I might do that and he can have EBM.

Failing that, what's ebay's policy on selling live babies? He's quite cute, just broken.....

Poor you

My LO doesn't sleep well anymore either, he's also up every hour or so at night and I'm exhausted.  Like Seb, he doesn't need feeding that often during the day so why does he need near-constant boobage at night??  Argh - I feel your pain!

CC wouldn't work for us either.  I've left him a few times in utter desperation (and to make sure I didn't hurt him ) and he'll just scream and scream for hours and when he gets worked up it takes even longer to calm him down. 

So, no advice but lots of sympathy. If you come up with any ideas please let me know as I neeeeeeed some sleep zzzzzzzzz.......

 x

You poor thing, you must be exhausted.

We've done things very differently and have an early bedtime, with a routine (bath, milk, bed) and he goes down at about 6.45pm. I'm assuming you have a bedtime routine?

I really can't suggest anything other than CC, i know it's so painful to hear them cry like that. I would assume it's probably a habit for him now to keep needing to suckle on you to settle himself back to sleep. Does he have a dummy?

We have ahd a few unsettled nights while he has been teething but only in the first few hours after going to bed. After a cuddle, he settles back to sleep.

Sorry, not much help there x

I don't have a magical answer I'm afraid.  I am trying to get K to sleep in her cot throughout the night as I'm not enjoying co-sleeping much anymore either.

Just some questions:

Does he nap throughout the day?  When is his last nap before bed?

What time does he usually go to bed?  Do you have a bath/feed/story routine so he knows bedtime is looming?

Can you perhaps sleep on an inflatable bed in his room for a few nights, so he knows you are there but that he has to sleep in his own bed?

I can only tell you what I think I'd have tried at that point - C was a similarly bad sleeper, and just as we'd think it was improving, it would get worse again.

I'd try the formula first, and give it a few nights to see what happens. In some respects, I wish we'd tried it, but that's easy to say in hindsight!

Failing that, cc did work for us. I wouldn't have felt comfortable doing it at 9months (altho I know many who did, and I would have no problem with someone doing it) but we did it at 12months and it worked. It was hard for the first couple of nights, but his sleep improved no end, and in the last week he's actually slept thro, 7-7, on about half the nights. It's unreocgnisable.

Big hugs tho. I know you're having a real mare of a time with this, and I really hope it does improve soon.

Oh lovely I honestly don't know how you are coping.

My first thoughts were napping in the day. When and how long does he nap? L's sleep improved greatly when he started napping in the day.

I know you tried an early bedtime and it didn't work but do you still have a bedtime routine at 11pm?

Poor you, it sounds awful and you must be so tired. It really affects everything when you're exhausted.

If it might be teeth with the red cheeks have you tried Nurofen? I always found that more effective for teething pain than calpol.

What worked for us in the end was doing a bedtime routine (we'd been guilty before then of feeding him to sleep in the sitting room then carrying him upstairs and putting him down) and putting him down not quite asleep. We did bath, bottle, bed, I'd not let him go quite to sleep on the bottle and put him in the cot sleepy but still awake with him dummy and stay in the room until he was asleep. At first it took ages (luckily it was summer at the time so I could take a book in and still have enough light to read!) but eventually it got to the point we could just put him down and leave. But that may not be much help to you as he didn't regularly feed in the night from when he was a couple of months old and though he woke a lot I think it was just due to not knowing how to settle himself and/or losing the dummy rather than wanting/needing food.

I hope things improve soon

Sorry to hear things are still a struggle.

I hate to say it but could it be time for a much stricter routine? I know a lot of people don't agree with them for young babies but he is beyond that now and it is almost certain the nightime waking isn't through hunger but habit.

In terms of naps during the day it changes on a day by day basis. Yesterday we had 3 30 minute naps at 10:30am, 1pm and 5pm. Today he's slept for an hour and a half at 10:30am and had no nap at lunchtime. It really does depend on what we're doing and where we're at. Even if we're at home in the afternoon and I put him down upstairs in his cot in a dark room he could do 15 minutes or he could do 2 hours. I never know.

I stopped him having a late nap the other day and tried to keep him awake, so we did the whole bath/bed routine and he fell asleep at 8pm for 20 minutes and was then up until 11:30pm. It's like he treated bedtime as a nap.

Even getting him up for the day at 5:30am when we had to fly down to London made no difference to his bedtime, he still stayed awake until nearly midnight, you'd have thought he'd be exhausted by that time, I know I was.

We tend to do bed and bath earlier in the night after he's finished his tea (BLW he needs to be bathed straight after tea and if we leave tea too late he won't eat it). Maybe I should just stay upstairs with him from that point and get him in his room and calmed down for bed. Me and MrDl don't get to spend any time together anyway, I may as ell be upstairs in a different room all night <sigh>

Sorry to hear things have gone rubbish again with S's sleep.  I don't have any advice, but wanted to send you a  and really hope you manage to both get some decent sleep soon x

sorry haven't got time for a long reply or to read the other responses properly as i'm at work.  We were in a similar situation with A at that age - sleeping in with us, waking numerous times in the night, taking an age to settle, up mega early etc.  What worked for us:

1) cold turkey on feeding to sleep/during the night

2) daddy doing most of the settling and being v firm about not letting him into our bed (this was hard!)

3) seeing a Cranial Osteopath (can't remember if you've tried this already) - this was MAGICAL for us!

4) being really strict with daytime sleep - 45 mins in the am max, 1 hour in the pm max.  He wasn't impressed at this but it has made a big diff.

5) pushing his bedtime a bit later - he's always had a bedtime routine and we wete putting him down for the night at 7.30.  We've moved this to 8 and again it's made a big diff

His sleep still isn't perfect but he'll now do 8pm to between about 5.45 and 6.00 am around 80% of the time.

I'll come back to this tonight when I am home!

Oh and one of these

I would have a cheek to give any advice as I have posted quite a bit in the last few weeks about G's sleep. She is normally settled before 8pm (we often start closer to 6pm when we realised that she still gets up at 6am even if she is in bed at 6pm ish rather than 7pm but it is taking almost 2 hours to settle her). She is up every 1-2 hours following that. We are looking at moving G into her own room and have thought about basically putting her in her cot and keeping a hand on her until she falls asleep (see Andrea Grace's website). I am not sure it is going to work and I don't actually know if I have the strength to go through it as she stands up in the cot which is an added problem. The other option I had considered was daddy doing the settlings, but this would result in lots of tears too. We are trying to improve the bedtime routine ie story (different one each night as she is used to that), then BF and then the same big night, night book story.

I looked at the videos and case studies on the Andrea Grace website - have a look there, it might be more reassuring and suit you better than CC? However, I haven't tried it yet so can't say if I can even tolerate it.

We worked hard at 2 naps in the day of at least an hour. However, that only worked for a short time and broke again.

Do you think we would get a better deal if we sold them both on e-bay together?

oh DDL big - i haven't really got any words of wisdom either - A's sleep is not as bad a S's but still a bit hit and miss - when we were away last week at centre parcs he slept the best he ever has - but moving to CP is probably a rather drastic and expensive solution to the problem!

A, however does go to bed much earlier than he used to - till 7ish months he was up till at least 10pm and was sleeping in our bed. I had to sort both of these out - i needed some of an evening back as H works and having A all day and evening on my own was really wearing me down as he didn't nap either. I had to get him out of our bed for his own safety as he was getting too mobile and taking up more and more of the bed. I managed this by gradually bringing bedtime forward and introducing a routine - tea, bath, feed, bed (which started with weaning as he needs a bath after his dinner has been smeared everywhere) - he now goes down beween 7-8pm. I don't bring him back downstairs after bath, we sit on my bed and i feed him in the dark and then put him in the cot (sometimes he is asleep sometimes not) - sometimes he'll be fine, other times he screams and i'll fully admit i feed him again if he screams.

He is getting better at naps though like S they are only 30-40mins unless we are in the car when he'l have an hour max before waking - this seems to have co-incided with hm being more mobile so i woner if he is tiring himself out more.

sending you lots of hugs and sleepy vibes to S - i really wish i had an solution for you.

I wish it was getting better for you. You sound exhausted. With t we just rode it out and did whatever was quickest and easiest to get more sleep. He eventually started sleeping longer at about 18 months, but then he wasn't as bad as s. And we got an evening as he was going to bed by 8.30/9'(although it was taking me over an hour every night to settle him) I think I said it before but he never came back down after bath unless he was ill. I would just stay up with him. Making sure I'd eaten dinner with him. It wasn't easy at all. I'm so glad c settles in the evening better generally. If she would just cut out the 3/4 night wakings it would be lovely.'i'm not sure what to do about her's but letting mrDDL try and settle him I think is my first choice as like you say he can't be hungry all that time. But can probably smell the milk on you. In regards to formula other than giving me a break every now and again it doesn't make c sleep any longer, and I have found she also on occasion will comfort suck from the bottle and if I don't notice will then projectile vomit the excess formula back up again, not fun! I really hope something works soon it is very draining. Hugs to you. Edited to add, she is mainly BF like S but has the occasional bottle to help me out so this is why I think she easily takes too much, as she falls asleep drinking it. And what ladyF said below about separation anxiety as well. I hadn't thought about it but t was definatley worse at around this age. If you carried on co-sleeping can mrDDL sleep somewhere else so you have more space?

What about separation anxiety?  It really starts to crank up at about 9 months.  They smiles when you return because they're not scared and on their own anymore