Dreading the evening...

[verryberry]

HI Ladies,

Just wanted to preface this with a disclaimer J MY post is not about looking for sympathy or a poor me rant.. I know I am very lucky to have a healthy, happy baby and I’m sure I’ve probably been spoilt up until this point, but I am now at a point where I am struggling with what is happening and feel I need a sounding board. I have been hesitant to post because I am (stupidly) worried about what others might think of me but that’s something I have to get past I think, I don’t like admitting that I am not “in control” of a situation, so here goes.

My 7 month old has always had some issues with sleep in one way or another. AS a newborn he would fight day sleeps quite strongly, one day he went for 10 hours without a nap during the day. Gradually he went to having catnaps of 20-40 mins twice/3 times a day with the aid of being rocked to sleep.

After awhile he was simply becoming too heavy for the ricking (standing up rocking)- he is 12kg’s at 7 months, so you can imagine he has always been a big bubba! I then began putting him in the cot awake to try and get him to drop off on his own (day sleeps) at this point I began to give him a dummy (probably about 4 months old) which I still struggle with emotionally as I swore I would never use a dummy, and am angry at myself for giving in after not having had one for 4 months…

This worked ok during the day, putting him in his cot, he would generally fall asleep ok, sometimes with patting, but it usually took him awhile- up to 30 mins or so, to put himself to sleep. In an attempt to lengthen his sleep cycle, I would sneak in around the 35min mark to pop the dummy in. In doing that he would go on to sleep up to another hour.

During this entire time, his night sleeps were fantastic. He would genially fall asleep being breastfed in the evening, at around 730, I would pop him in his cot and he would sleep through solid for the next 10-12 hours.

Now, my problem begins in the last 6 weeks or so. Day sleeps continue to be ok, using the dummy trick; he was on 2 days sleeps, 1 in the morning after about 2 hours of waking and one after lunch.

The last few days have seen him taking up to an hour to drop off for the day sleep so I have cut back to 1 sleep in the middle of the day in an attempt to ensure he is more tired and will go to sleep more quickly in the process. So far, this has worked ok.

Nighttimes have been a drama in the last 6 weeks or so. Gone are the days of him falling asleep at the breast (Unless he is super tired) or if he doest start to fall asleep while feeding, I will take that opportunity to put him in the cot while drowsy thinking that he will drop off quickly. WRONG! HE then begins a process of crying, getting up on his knees and rocking back and forth, moving around the cot... getting him to go to sleep at ngihttime is taking up to an hour and a half some nights and I feel like I am at braeakign point.

My hubby is gone before 6am in the morning and home just after 7am in the evening so it’s tricky to use him in the bedtime scenario- even though he is more than willing to help. Our bedtime routine is very consistent and has been since birth- bath at 6, story, BF and 630…

At this point I should mention that he got his bottom 2 teeth at 6 months with no worries, his top 2 officially broke through on xmas day, but since mid Nov til now (when the problems have started) we have seen the top teeth- so I am wondering if this upturn in sleeping could be form the teeth? His next lot of top and bottom teeth look like they are very much on their way. I am worried that I am correlating his now upset sleep with teeth and in turn am starting habits that will be hard to get out of later..

I have tried everything at bedtime from rocking to sleep in the chair, laying in cot patting and shushing (He seems to be distracted by my presence and tries to grab at me through the cot) controlled comforting- I have tried this on 3 different occasions and crack each time, putting him in bed with me to sleep.. Using music, mobiles… I guess my problem is that I am inconsistent, what works one night might not work the next, then I end up frustrated and in tears.

I am so worries about trying controlled comforting as there are so mane for’s and against with regards to the long term effects of leaving them to cry- even though you go in to check on them regularly.. When I have tried this he becomes hysterical and very hard to settle and sobs for ages after. I feel so guilty doing this and don’t feel that it is right for me…

If he wakes during the night I usually send huibby in to pop in a dummy (successful 90% of the time) as I’ve read that babies can smelll your milk when you go into them and are less likely to become upset if its not Mum going back and forth to them during the ngiht.. he is on 4 milk feed s a day and 3 big solids feeds, so I don’t think the problem is hinger, and as I said he is a big boy. I make sure he has lots of activity during the day- he is learning to crawl at the moment..

I know there are people out there with much worse problems, but for me at the moment it is a very real problem, with me getting frustrated, resentful and dreading putting him to bed.

I feel that my relationship with hubby is affected as by the time I pout bubs to bed I am emotionally drained and don’t have much energy left to focus on him. I usually then go to bed not long after as I am unsure of how many time bob may wake during the night (now can be 2-4 times a night- the other night he woke at 11 and nothing I tried would get him back of to sleep until 130) It would be lovely to be able to enjoy some down time with hubby before going to bed in the evening, especially as he works suck long hours during that day.

Fprgot to add, I think BUb is experiencing some sep anxiety during the day, he doesnt cope as well if left to play on his own for awhile eg if I have to hang a load of washing, whereas he used to be quiite happy to do so. I am home with hikm one on one during the day and endure he gets lots of playtime, stories, cuddles, songs etc with me..


I don’t know if anyone has any advice but I just felt that I had to get out everything that is going round in my head. If you have made it this far, thanks so much for reading.

[Mmm Dessert]

Verryberry, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said you've been a bit inconsistent. I know how hard it is to just be desperate for a baby to go to sleep when you feel like nothing is working. It's easy to keep trying different things every night to try and find something that works.

I had a similar problem with my DD at around your boys age. Finally, at my wits end I cracked and bought Tizzy Halls book. I know it's not for everyone but I pulled bits and pieces put of it that I agreed with and the sleep changes were fantastic.

We've never let our DD just cry and now at 20 months she goes down without a fuss for two hours during the day and up to 12 hours at night.

[JiminyCricket]

Hi, I have a 17 month old and if its any consilation he has been through all of that and still is to some extent.
From my experience my baby changes every couple of months into a different routine and changes his sleeping habits.

At 17 months he has only just started to get to sleep by himself in his cot!
During the day I still have to push him in the pram to get him to sleep and can take more than half an hour of pushing, then i have to park him outside the laundry with the dryer going cause the humming noise helps him sleep a long time.

Dont worry about using the dummy, i too swore I would never use one and at 5 months I brought him one out of sheer desperation and It worked for about 5 months untill he decided he was over it and has refused to touch one since.
Sometimes you just have to do what works to get some peace :)

Once he got to 11 months he was fully breastfed and would only sleep at night on the breast in my bed , so I introduced a formula bottle before bed in hope that he would sleep better, sometimes it worked sometimes it didn't.

He is 17 months now and he has 3 formula bottles a day and I managed to get him to go to sleep by himself by sticking to routine of... dinner/bath/bottle/story/bed, I turn on his mobile (it has sars that light up on the roof and music) and I say ''love you nigh nigh Ill just be out here''.

He grizzles and sooks but hes more cranky than anything if he keeps crying after a few minutes I go in and reassure him that i am still here and that its bed time now.

Most of the time this works , I have noticed that even the slightest change in routine will ruin it.
So I make sure that after his bath he has a little play untill I know that hes tired and ready for bed then just before I put him down I do bottle and storys.

i f I let him play after bottle and storys and try him in the cot after that he will not go to sleep by himself.

In saying all this he STILL gets up approx 5 times a niight to have booby and sleeps in my bed most of the night.

If you think your son is teething you could try bonjela or Brauers teething releif before bed.

Perhaps because of the change in DS day sleeps he is a bit confused about what's happening at night , I wonder if you give him 2 shorter day sleeps he might be more content for bedtime.

Its so hard trying to figure out what they want sometimes .
Hopefully your son is just going through a short phase and will change his pattern soon enough.

Sorry for ranting a bit , good luck.

[Seacretsquirrel]

I think it is a hard stage with teething plus they are getting more mobile at this point too which can disrupt their sleep as they process all the new stuff and want to practice (even at 3am)
I agree about the dummy what ever gets you through - though if you want to get rid of it is is supposed to be easier now than later but there is a huge number of people who had no probs at older ages so I think if it is working run with it.
I found with my 2 cutting the extra day sleep infact made things worse (sleep begets sleep) and DD had 2 sleeps till nearly 2 and still has one (about every 3days) at 3, DS is 10 months and has a moarnign sleep at 9am then both kids go down about 12-30 ish (they are up at around 6am and have an early 11am lunch and we have dinner between 4-30 and 5-30 and they are in bed by 6-30 - DS usually has a feed about 6ish and into bed and he will potter in his bed while I read to DD then if he is still awake I go and give him a top up and then he is done (though sometimes he wakes a couple of times over night but he is getting bettter) I do sort of do controlled crying but I'm not great at it either.
We had some issues with DD's sleep a few times and for some reason and earlier bed time helped more than a later one.

HTH Not sure I have really but you are not alone. Hope you get some relief soon.

[Baldie's Mum]

got no advice.....but please be kind to yourself! :hugs: :hugs: Parenting is hard work. :hugs: :hugs:

[JLeesmum]

i could have written that.. heres a quick run down of what happens here..
well, ds turned 10 months yesterday..
he used to fall asleep fine by himself when he was about 3 months, then he got a cold so i rocked him to sleeep one night- biggest mistake so far.

so ive rocked him to sleep from when he was 3mths-7mths, then at 10.5kgs i had enough so i thought i would try giving him a bottle before naps, it worked great, he would drink 150ml and then fall asleep, id put him in his cot and he would nap for 2 hours (3 times a day)
now he isnt drinking as much, thats not working anymore, so i just hold him in his dark room put the dummy in, (which i also swore i wouldnt use) give him a quick rock in my arms (usually he closes his eyes) then i put him down.. he then rolls over and crawls up to the cot ( to stand up on it). i just walk out and shut the door. sometimes he goes to sleep, sometimes he screams. if he screams i turn the monitor off, and walk outside where i cant hear it, i try to hand a load of washing or something- as soon as i hear him cry, im straight in his room, i just cant handle it. so if he wakes, ill put the dummy in, and usually he will throw it away, so i pick him up again, with another little rocking episode till he closes his eyes, then do the same thing...
but he sleeps well at night- 5pm-5am with maybe 1 or 2 dummy spits.
he has 4 top teeth and 2 bottom ones, the only thing i noticed with the teeth was his day sleeps were only about 1 hr instead of 2..

umm... you said your trying to give him 1 day sleep so you know he is tired..
well with DS, as soon as i see him rub the back of his head or pull his hair, thats when i know he is tired, if i leave it even 15 or 30 min longer, he is soooo hard to get to sleep.
all babys have different tired signs, some rub their eyes ( mine does that when he is waking up, not tired). so maybe try to catch them early?

[Cheerio]

Wow, he sounds exactly like Olivia was for me. I felt exactly as you do and totally understand where you are coming from. My hubby was doing night and day shifts of 12 hours so I felt like I had absolutely no backup.

I ended up ringing Ngala here in WA as I was seriously going to lose it. After trying lots of different techniques at home which failed we went to them. I guess it is the equivalent of a sleep school but didn't feel like a boot camp and they were so so so supportive.

Even though things were never perfect with her sleep they dramatically improved as they gave me the confidence and support because I felt I had absolutely no idea what I was doing as nothing worked! In the end the only thing that helped was teaching her to sleep on her on which yes did involve heaps of crying but was so so so worth it. As not only did her sleeping change which helped me, it also made her such a happy baby and less clingy and whingy.

The only other thing I did with Zane early on was cosleep as I just decided there was no freaking way I was going to go through this again so I gave in. He is in his room now though so that approach worked for him.

Consistency is the key, but sometimes it is so bloody hard as one thing will work one day and not the next and out of sheer desperation and sleep deprivation you do something else until it works.

Whatever you decide to do, get some sort of support, wether it be someone to stay with you for a few days or hubby having some time off to do it together as that absolutely was the key for me and it was alot easier not to break.

Sending you lots of hugs and cyber support, if you ever need anything you know where I am on FB. :hugs:

[moozle]

You are certainly not alone. I have read everything in your thread in many other threads and have even experienced most of them myself with DS! We had a very tough time sorting out his sleep but we got there. I totally agree with you about not leaving them to cry. I couldn't do it and just wouldn't. We used the baby bliss method which basically involves patting and shhhing until they get very drowsy, then leaving. The first few times you do it, they will fight you and he may cry for an hour or so with you there but as you said, it's taking an hour and a half to settle him anyway so maybe it's worth a shot? The most important thing is to stick to it. Think through what you are comfortable with and stick to it. It is so tough but so worth it. I sat down with DF before we started and said what I was happy to do and he supported me to stick to my plan. I was not allowed to pick DS up unless he vomited or choked (I was thinking worst case at the time and I'd like to point out it never happened), otherwise, I was allowed to pat, shhh, sing and stroak his head and whisper to him and that was it. If he got up and started grabbing at me, I was allowed to lie him back down and keep shhhing and patting. Eventually he got drowsy and I walked out. The first night he started back up again and cried straight away and it took me another 20 mins to settle him again but after he calmed down and I left, he went to sleep and slept for 12 hours. The next night, it only took about 40 minutes all up and by the third night, maybe 10. Now he goes down without a sound and I honestly do not think it has negativly impacted on my relationship with my son. If anything, it's better as I'm well rested and so proud of him for his sleeping! If you want any more info, let me know :hugs: Sending sleepy vibes your way :)

[missie_mack]

At 7 months my DS' sleep routine changed dramatically. He too was a cat napper up until this time (generally 3 x 45mins during the day and all night from newborn)

My advice would be to let your child find its own routine. They all settle into one of their own accord and whilst short term it can be difficult long term I think you will find everyone far more happier (although I must admit I am a little anti on controlled crying and baby training theories)

[BabyPaparazzi]

:hugs: for you. It is difficult to decide what to do, there are so many self-settling techniques these day.

What you really need to do is some research into self-settling, whether it be no-cry techniques or cry-down (cry out) or any others and decide which you personally feel most comfortable with and stick to it like glue, with no variations or inconsistency.

We personally used cry down from 6 months and had a sleeping angel by 7, the hardest part took a week and it was bliss after that. DD has slept 12 hours a night ever since, was in a bed at 14mths and happily walks there herself for sleeps. Dont get me wrong though, she has pushed it a few times and we had to stick to our guns.

Good luck

[verryberry]

Thankyou so much for your replies and support girls! It has meant a lot over the last 24 hours..

Yesterday I discovered one of his top eye teth had popped through o/night, and a bottom eye tooth just about there also, which may expalin the rough trot we've been having lately... Last night I fed him and he was pretty much asleep by the end of it, so I popped him in the cot.. lo and behold 20 mins later heawoke, so I went him and cuddled him.. it is such a lovely thing for bonding, as he was strokingmy face and I was able to give him lots of pats and cuddles.. afte only a couple of mins he was out to it so I put him back down.. he slept through besides a little stir around midnight.. he was down by just after 730 and woke just after 6 this morning.. which I was happy with..

I think for the next couple of weeks I am going to spend some time really deciding how I want to progres with the self settling- as in controlled comforting, but think I would feel better in my heart of hearts to wait til we seem to be over the teethign bump.. I know in myself I am likley to look back and feel guilt/regret if I try something new at the moment while he may be needing soem extra closeness and reassurance cos of his teeth.. this may sound weak of me but I dont want to look back and say I wish I would ahve...

I think a big thing for me is keeping calm at bedtime, last nght I had accepted in my mind that this is what I was going to do and be ok with it, maybe he picked up on my calmness. I also tried to be more organised during the day with dinner washing up etc so there was nothing to distract me form the task at hand..

I remember stressing so much about his sleep when he was a newborn, I woiuld stresif my dasd held him and he fel asleep, I was so scared h would create sleep associations with that.. I think maybe I overanalysed and read too much- there are so many diffferent opinions and ideas out there as PP said.. I guess as a first time Mum I have to go with my gut and trust my instinct, which is easier said than doen.. at the moment, my gut is telling me to try to cuddls approach, perhaps I will retry the "camping out:" method of sitting beside his bed then gradulally moving back further..

Will & Evie-I do have the SOS book adn ill reread that to revisit her ideas, I liek the idea of taking a few things and combining them to what works.. glad to hear it worked for you :)

Jupiter- Tahks for your honesty adn reassurance, each baby is different and there sure is no one size fits all approach.. you made me feel betetr about the dummy also :)

Seacret- Thanks heaps, you reminded me about the valeu of the day sleeps.. he had two yesterday and dropped off for both quite easily, I feel that was important to his routine last night...

Waiting- thanks hun, you bought a smile to my face!

Smash- Great idea to distract yourself when trying new methods, thats probalby half my problem, I am a helicpter mum and hover, I ahve found if I just leave him during the day sleeps that he has a bit of a play around or whatever and then drops off by himself!

Cheerio- Tahnks for your friednship, much appreciated :) I do co-sleep soemtimes during the day and it does make a difference, Im gald it worked for you and Zane.. hubby has got a few consecutive days off comign up so that might be a good time to explore some other options.. mu mum is also a great support so I will call on her if need be also.

Moozle- I would love some more ifor on Babybliss method, it sounds liek soemthing I could def try, are you ahppy to PM me?

Missie- Tahnks heaps, I think kids do thrive on routine, glad to hear your sone grew out of his catnapping

Bel- What a success story! Well done on doing the hard yeards, it surely paid off! Will def look into the methods some more, I think half my problem was doing things willy nilly on the run and not being entirely sure of the how or why of it all.. did you do the leave for 2 mins, 4 mins, 6 mins with returing for 1 min in between?

Once again, thanks for your support and ideas.. am still keen to hear more if anyone else has advice

[rachtony]

VerryBerry,

You could try www.bedtimebaby.com.au. I know that they email free routines out. Not sure if they are downloadable on website or if you need to contact them but a friend of mine used them and is much more relaxed with her bub.

Good luck!