Can't handle it anymore.

[AmandaJ]

For the last 3-4 weeks my 11 month old has been not sleeping very well, I've taken him to the doctors and he's not sick. He use to sleep for 7 at night til 4 in the morning now I'm lucky if he sleeps for more then 2-3 hrs at a time. He wakes up either crying or screaming, I can pat him back to sleep which works but last night was the last straw. I put him to bed at 6:20pm he woke at 8:20pm and DH patted him to sleep. He woke again at 10pm so I gave him a b/f and he went back to sleep, at 1am he woke again and I gave him another feed and put him to bed, about 10mins later he was crying so I patted him to sleep and went back to bed, again he woke 10mins later, so finally at 2 am I got him to sleep. At 3:30am he woke so I went in and patted him again and he drifted off til 4:30am so I give him another feed, change his nappy, put him back in bed and pat to sleep again, he woke again at 5:30am, I patted him and he slept for another 15mins. So I've been awake and up since 5:45am.

I'm so frustrated and tired and emotional, I just have no idea what to do, I'm finding myself crying cause I'm so tired. I just want to know why he has all of a sudden got really bad at sleeping and what can I do to get him to sleep longer. I just can't function properly with this amount of sleep.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

hugs xoxo

[clareb]

Oh, amanda,
I don't know that I can help but I can let you know that I'm having similar troubles with my 11-month old?!!
I posted in the comforted sleep thread and some suggestions to me were separation anxiety or teething? I'm afraid I don't have any answers but when I saw your post I just wanted you to know I there with you! She's started sleeping through again but I find I'm awake waiting to see if she wakes up all night so I'm still just as tired!
I'm just praying it's a phase but I'm afraid I lost the plot and became a teary mess last night too. My head knows it's all ok but the (sleep-deprived) rest of me doesn't!
Hang in there and I hope someone can have some clues for you.

Clare

[BellyBelly]

Amanda, your feelings are completely normal, I am a Dr Jeckyl & Mr Hyde when I have had no or little sleep to this day, I dont get a straight nights sleep.

Have you considered co-sleeping for a while or putting the cot in your room with the side down? Then you can pat him from your bed or he can settle with you. Seperation anxiety is difficult and peaks at 18 months, but starts well before then too. They dont understand that you are in the next room - you could be in China for all they know.

It is a difficult time, I hope you can steal some sleep somewhere during the day or get some help at night. It is so tough but always remember that it will pass.

Some good books if you can try and read, it helps! Sleeping Like a Baby (Pinky McKay - goes up to 2 years of age I think but toddlers too) and The Science of Parenting (Margot Sunderland). The Wonder Weeks is great, but its hard to get and I think only goes up to the 13 month stage.

[AmandaJ]

Thanks for all the encouragement.

Clare I read your thread after I posted and thought wow that sounds just like Cody, I know what you mean by a teary mess cause I'm like that too.

Kelly I would love to co-sleep but my DH is such a sound sleeper and he moves a lot, I did do it for a while with DS1 and he accidently rolled on top of him, luckily I was awake and got him off and DH was devastated that he'd done it without realising. And the cot will not fit in our room (it's a tiny one,lol). The GP did suggest putting a matress in his room, which is what I'm thinking may have to happen, I just want some sleep despartately. It's funny how none of my other boys ever did this, or maybe I don't remember it (which is most probably the case).

hugs xoxo

[*Ang*]

Amanda it is like you have read my mind! Alex is currently screaming at me from the loungeroom cause he is over tired - well if you didnt wake 5 times last night then we wouldnt be having this problem!!

Alex has been doing this since he was around 5-6 months old, he wakes up screaming, not nice gentle whimpering but actual screaming. We also have had him checked out etc and there appears to be nothing the matter with him. It is getting to the point where I am seriously considering moving to Perth just to get some "proper" help with his sleeping issues.

The only different thing I can suggest is that some people have told me that Alex is having night terrors - yet no-one is able to give me a solution on how to handle these!!!!

And like you and Clare I too am a teary mess. In fact I just got off the phone to DH who is in Perth atm for work telling him that this cannot possibly be my child...

[Roryrory]

Amanda I sympathise, Flynn went through this at about 8 months.

I am not in favour of controlled crying, but ever since he was real little Flynn didn't like being rocked, touched or cuddled when he was tired. Kind of like me - I like to be left alone to go to sleep. I realised that my being in the room with him was distracting for him so we spent one night putting him down to sleep and going in every 30 seconds or so, picking him up if he really got up set, singing to him, rocking him to calm then putting him into bed, and so on, but essentially letting him cry a little on his own without us there. He was crying because he was tired, I think, more than because I wasn't there. He still does this now, he will lie in his cot and rub his eyes and cry in a real tired way, roll away from me and cry, and close his eyes and sleep.

So Amanda, maybe Cody doesn't like having you "in his face" when he is tired, iykwim? I am not saying my approach is the best but it worked for Flynn, and now he tends to go to sleep pretty well (that said he was up about 8 times a night for the past few days cause he has a cold, but I think you are going thru something different from the sounds of it).

I know how you feel, and I hope you find a way to get sane (hugs)

[ZigZag]

Hi Amanda.
You poor thing. I hope you get some rest soon. I know exactly how you feel.
Hailey went through the same thing at 10mths. She was always a brilliant sleeper and slept through the night from about 10 weeks onwards. Admittedly she started to have sleeping issues, exactly as you describe, shortly after being put in a spica cast for hip dysplaysia (sp?). I am however, not entirely convinced it was the sole cause to the start of her sleeping issues, as I think the start of separation anxiety had a bigger part in it.

In our experience (and please don't think I'm in anyway plugging controlled crying), I kept telling myself that it was just a phase and it would pass but I put up with it for 6 months and it became so bad that Hailey would make herself throw up if we tried to leave the room. We had no support around us and I had returned to work p/time and hubby was working long hours. We were getting no more than 3hrs sleep a night and that was mostly broken sleep - the worst kind of sleep! The longer down the road we got, the more desperate we were at attempts to get her to go to sleep i.e. patting her, rocking her, holding her, singing to her, lying in the room with her, walking her, driving her in the car, leaving the light on - we tried EVERYTHING! Sleep deprivation can do nasty things to you if you let it carry on for too long like we did.

In the end, after seeking lots and lots of advice from clinics and doctors, we seeked professional help and went to Tresillian. They do use a method of 'controlled crying' but are so supportive and won't do anything that you don't want them to do. I know there are people that don't agree with CC (as did we), but when you have nothing else that is working and you're not functioning as a person (or family) anymore, what else can you do but try. There are a couple of other places similar to Tresillian that provide help with sleeping issues but I think it depends where you're located. We were in Sydney at the time.

Anyway, I'm not in anyway saying that you should use CC, just that you should get someone to help you through it (take over whilst you have a couple of solid hours sleep) and have some sort of plan of attack to stick to, rather than our method pre-Tresillian, which was trying absolutley everything under the sun to get her to drop off to sleep, which I think probably confussed her and made her even more anxious. Once we stuck with a definite plan of attack, she came right within a week. It was amazing to see the difference. It was like a light switch went on and BAM, she was happy to go to bed awake and slept right through the night and has never turned back.

Also, where possible try to not encourage sleep by a means of you needing to be there i.e. patting etc....in our experience, it just lead us down a miserable path of her relying on us 100% to help her sleep. Perhaps try sitting in his bedroom, not looking at him until he drops off. Over a period of days you could start to move further and further away from the bed until you no longer need to stay in there.

Sorry for the long winded post.
Hope you get some sleep soon.
Cheers

[Fee]

I can sympathise because Cooper has gone through this on and off for the past couple of months. It is very frustrating when you're used to them sleeping well!

I hope it passes soon. It has with Cooper at the moment. We're on a good thing right now - LOL. Although I am sure it will all change again soon.

I would try the mattress by his cot and see if that helps.

We're still having issues with self-settling though. Cooper goes through periods of being able to self-settle and periods of not doing it. Right now he doesn't do it. He just screams. I have to pat him to sleep for all sleeps.

*hugs*

[Joy]

Hi,
Just wish to offer my support and my experience. My DS was sleeping 13 hours then stopped. For 3 months we struggled on with betting up 4-5 times a night. End result was that he was hungry, I'm still b'feeding but for a while there gave him up to 100mls of cows milk from 10 - 11 months of age to settle him at night, worked a treat for us. I also used to add a bit of oatbran to his dinner to add a bit of bulk in his tummy. After these 2 things he was straight back to his earlier sleeping habits.
Anyway that's our experience. hope it helps
Turned out I was starting to cycle again and then got pregnant possibly leading to him not liking my milk for a while.
hope you find some answers and a solution soon.

[AmandaJ]

Ok an update, well on Thursday night I put him to bed after giving him some extra to eat and a bit of booby, he went to bed at 6:20 and woke at 8:20 and DH patted him to sleep and he slept til 1am and had a feed and went back to sleep until 5am and had another feed and I started to pat him but really bad hayfever, so DH took over and he then slept til 6:50am. So I felt a bit better having had some extra sleep. Last night, he really hadn't had a sleep during the day so was tired early so I only got to give him his normal size meal and no extra and he was in bed by 5:45pm and he slept til about midnight and DH brought him in for a feed and he was back in bed by 12:30am (awake I may add) and he slept til 3am and I gave him another feed and put him back to be awake but I had to pat, then he woke again at 5am and I patted him but he only slept 10-15mins, but I think he is getting better at least better then the other night.

Ang Wyatt also gets night terrors and he wakes up crying and just wanders around the house but still seems out of it and usually he doesn't go back to sleep for a few hours, if you google it you should find out more about it that's how I found out the symptoms. Oh I think they said that it's like a cycle, if they don't sleep much then they get the night terrors and because they get the night terrors they don't get much sleep. Wyatt usually has night terrors for a week or more and the last time he had them it was only for about 3 days so it varies, I also think boys are more prone to them then girls from what I read. If you want to email me about it or want to talk about it some more just drop me a line.

Rory Cody's the opposite of Flynn, he loves to be cuddled and patted, but I soo kwym, Lockie was like that didn't like been held to sleep or rock. I have let Cody whinge til he's fallen asleep, but when he's standing in his cot screaming is the worst. How's Flynn and his cold going?

AmyGirl thank you so much for all your information, both DH and I were worried that he was going to get to use to been patted to sleep and that is defineately not what we want.

Fee I hope that Cooper stays sleeping good for you, it's so hard when they don't self settle, know that I'm thinking of you and know how you feel.

Joy I took your advise about maybe he's hungry and that is the reason I've started to give him more food for dinner. So I'm hoping this will help him sleep long and be the happy boy that I know he is. I've been having stomach cramps for the last 3 weeks and I had a BT to see if I was pg and it was neg, but the doctor also suggested that my cycle may be trying to start again.

Thank you so much ladies, it's nice to know that your not alone when this sort of thing happens.

hugs xoxo