Can babies just not like sleeping?

[Haydies]

Urg... no fair. It looks like Miss No Sleep is trying to drop back to one nap a day. At night months?! That can't be good for her? DH is actually really worried she's going to suffer unless she sleeps more. And clearly she doesn't cope with it as she has crashed at 4:30pm today and yesterday because of it. Course, she was also awake at 4am this morning (noooo) after going to bed so early. God love her though, obviously mummies grunting let her know it was too early and she just lied down with me and kept stroking my hair and face.

I'm pretty good with the caffeine - I don't drink coffee and very rarely have tea. Like, once every 6 months rare. I do like my diet coke but drink the caffeine, sugar, everything free one. Chocolate, well no comment.

We get good days and bad. So far this week we've had two nights of constant waking, and two nights of 3 hour long stretches. I think even a four hour stretch in there somewhere. It's just the day time that sucks... and her not self settling again at night.

So you drop the ball 1% of the time, that isn't going to scar your child for life.

That's what I think I worry about. I read The Science of Parenting and because I had such a crappy childhood, I actually came away understanding myself better. All the things it says to not do in the book, my mum did. The whole 'loving in torment' thing REALLY hit home. But of course after reading it all, and knowing how my mum treated me (she lost her cool so often), I worry that if I loose my cool, I'm ruining DD. I worry that if I loose it - cuddle - loose it - cuddle etc... that it's going to be the 'loving in torment' and her fearing she can loose my love.

Of course, when I get a decent sleep, I have patience out the wazoo. When I'm tired, she's usually tired too, she gets upset easier, I have shorter patience etc... all in all not good.

Did you read the last bit of the book? That YOU need to recharge and have someone look after you too?

Yeah, but that's a whole other set of problems. DH works in the city and it's a 2+ hour travel time. He's gone at 7 in the morning, home at 7:30pm at night. DD is up at 7 and down at 5:30. Unfortunately too, if he goes in to resettle her, all she does is wake right up. I guess daddy just screams play time.

Meh, I just don't know..

P.S. Sorry if this reply comes off very whiney/woe is me. Very, very tired today after the 4am wake up. Struggling after only ONE half an hour nap (for her, not me, I was driving when it happened) and generally feeling like a crapola mum at the moment. ** The feeling crap part is due to her taking a flying leap off the couch the other day and it keeps replaying in my head **

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

I hear you - my DS decided to do a 5am wake up yesterday and had a really bad night last night, we were up 2-4 with him (plus a quick wake-up at 8.30 and 10), not good. I also hear you about the flying leaps: DS does them onto our hard oak wood floor.

Ignore the feelings atm because you're run down and tell me - do you scream-cuddle-scream OR do you lovingly teach more of the time? It's the "most of the time" your child will remember.

I had a crappy upbringing too, a lot of the "bad" stuff in the book just rings so true for me, and not only are you fighting your tiredness and over-emotionalness atm you're also fighting your memories and how you were taught to parent, which is SO hard to do even on a good day. I make a point of telling DS he's a good boy because he tidied up his ducks after his bath, or he plays so nicely with other children, or he gave way to someone while out walking (not much choice when he's in the pushchair!) because I remember never being told to do XYZ then being told off and disappointing because I didn't do it automatically. (Poor DS thinks that food is a something-please, like a grape-please or an apple-please because I'm keen for him to know what I want rather than me expect a mind-reader when he's 6.)

I don't think I've suggested homeopathy to you! It was a wonderpill for us - it's not working 100% of the time but it does work so well and I thank God for that; I couldn't have continued with being up for 2-3 hours every night plus another 2-3 wake-ups with it. DS did 12 hours straight Tuesday-Wednesday, he is a genius boy! Sure, he doesn't like going off, but most of the time he'll stay down now.

Best of luck to you and I think you're doing a great job, you're having to learn on the job so to speak and it's not easy.

[Janie]

, It's really hard, I know.

One thing I wanted to say, which may or may not brighten your day is that there is no way my DS would go to sleep like Savannah! Unless he's BFing (and even that's only been the last 2 months), 99.9% of the time, when he knows he's being put to sleep he just cracks it big time. There is no way I could lie on the bed with him and he'd actually BE HAPPY! And then nod off! So to me, you're doing really well there

If you can do it, I'd recommend giving the diet a go. I'm only recently discovering the foods that make DS crazy, and hate sleep even more than normal LOL. I wish I'd realised earlier.

Ryn, when you say homeopathy, what exactly are you talking about?

Gotta dash, but know that you're not alone

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Homeopathy - homeopathic medicine. A good practitioner will give you a good half-hour (or more) for an interview, ask you general behavioural questions, then prescribe natural tablets accordingly. It isn't a 100% guarentee, just like everything in life, but it did work wonders for us. DS is now happier playing alone too, before he wanted me to join in constantly, and now he just needs me around generally. While needing Mama wasn't something I wanted to fix, or even thought was wrong, it is quite nice I can sit down or talk to friends in the park and he'll play for 10 minutes or so without needing me.

[Ness27]

Hi Haydies
Just wanted to pop in and see how your doing Any improvments? Stella is still being a buggar during the day(and some of the night!),think it might be teeth but I feel like Im always blaming teeth and they never appear lol!!
I had to laugh at how you said you wait in the garage till she wakes up! I usually keep driving around till the 30mins is up! I have a very good knowledge of our suburb now! And with the price of fuel I cant keep doing this!!
Anyway hope your going well x

[cheekymonkey]

Hi, I was wondering if I could join this thread. I too have a 6 mth old baby boy who is a "bad sleeper". He has never gotten as much sleep as he "should" but things just seem to be getting worse as he gets older. Our journey has not been easy from the start, huge amount of trouble breastfeeding from the start (milk too slow to come in, dehydrated by the end of week 1, resorted to formula top ups while trying to establish BF, barely any dirty nappies and breast refusal by 8 weeks) So, sadly I ended up putting him on the bottle. So feeding has never been relaxing, he fights the bottle, reflux etc. I don't have BF as a tool to sooth him. He rarely sleeps more than 45min naps, and rarely sleeps more than 2 hrs at a time overnight - but I cant feed him back to sleep, and is normally up for the day 5am-5.30am. I have been existing on 3 to 4 hrs of broken sleep per night and I cant even think clearly any more. We live near my DH's family but they have been unsupportive and judgmental (They think I'm not positive enough, therefore causing DS's problems) but they have no idea what its like to have been sooo sleep deprived for sooo long - to feel like nothing is easy......

Rosehip - We have recently taken him to see a Homeopath, after having no luck with paed, osteo, GP, so fingers crossed.

All that said, I do agree, children like our are never still, there little minds are always ticking over and their little mouths are never quiet, highly intelligent little beings, and we wouldn't swap them for anything!!

[Ness27]

Hi Cheekymonkey
Sorry to hear about your struggles with your DS,it sounds like you are an amazing mother and reaIly trying everything to help him.Its sooo hard when you have a 'non-sleeper' and I think you can only truely understand whats it like when you've been there.I hope your family are more helpful than your DH's

Your post really made me feel for you about the no BF as a tool for soothing.I sometimes feel abit resentful at having to be the one to go to DD and feed her during the night(I'm BFing) while DH is sound to sleep but to be honest I do use it as a 'quick fix'.So a big well done to you

Good luck with the homeopath,hope it helps

[Haydies]

Come on in CheekyMonkey, the bed is warm.

I'm going to have a bit of a whinge here, sorry girls. I'm really struggling at the moment, the past couple of days to week Savannah has really thrown sleeping out the window. We're down to one half an hour nap a day, and to top it off, her night sleeping has gone out the window. Three nights in a row she was waking every 20 minutes, and wouldn't let me leave the room again without getting upset. Over night she's been waking every hour, and from 4am onwards just isn't settling. She was up at 5:30am the other morning!

I feel like I'm not getting a break anywhere - she doesn't sleep during the day, she fights sleep going down at night, wakes all night and is up at the crack of dawn. At least give me ONE break somewhere.

To make my life just so much better, my right boob seems to be doing... something. I think it's actually causing a lot of the problems over night. It feels full, like rock hard in some spots, but I don't think it's emptying properly. I have all these hard lumps, but expressing (either via the pump or my hand) does nothing. So I don't think Savannah is getting enough to eat, and thus, not sleeping properly. And of course me, in my tired it's 4am go back to sleep state, don't realise and keep putting her on the same side because "oh, that's the full one".

I'm having a real "I feel like such a failure" day today. A lot of is due to a family get together yesterday which, urg, was not good. Especially with a very old fashioned MIL and a SIL who completely agrees with her. Gee I ticked both of them off yesterday when I didn't bow down and kiss their feet for showing me the light that controlled crying, lots of noise when sleeping and drugging with nurofen where the answers to my prayers.

And then today I wanted Krispy Kreme donuts and she started crying the second we were in the car because she was so tired. Waaaa! No fair!

think it might be teeth but I feel like Im always blaming teeth

At the rate I blame teeth, Savannah should have 50 by now!

BTW, wrt Science of Parenting: a baby who has never cried (I really believe that one) compared to a baby who is in an orphanage from birth and probably not had much cuddling or love. I think no parent here will hit either extreme no matter what they do, but it is saying it is better to show love and respond to a baby's distress than not. So you drop the ball 1% of the time, that isn't going to scar your child for life.

I think this is the biggest problem (my problem) with reading the Science of Parenting. It made me think that Savannah could never cry. That any time she even started to get distressed (and I mean the real crying, not the sooky whinge crying) that stress chemicals were washing over her brain doing irreparable damage. Then every time I get frustrated or raise my voice a little, I worry that she's "loving in torment" and what that's doing to her. Basically after reading the book I feel like every time I do something it says you shouldn't do, even for 5 seconds, I'm stuffing Savannah up.