Can babies just not like sleeping?

[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.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Eugh - I had DH away this weekend. DS didn't go to sleep until 9-9.30 both nights. He woke up stupid early too (6.15 and 5.15). But at least only woke up when upstairs went to bed and not all night. I'll admit I did let him do some crying after screaming at him (literally at one point), then felt guilty so went back, kissed him and snuggled down in bed with him. He played for an hour then went off to sleep happily, very little work. But still too late and too much fighting. Then DH came home and he was off to sleep as normal at quarter to eight last night, I hate those boys sometimes.

Drugging up doesn't work. Because baby neurofen has in sugar, E122 and Sunshine yellow, the three biggies for hyperactivity. Give you baby a hyperactive fit just before bed? Yup, that really works. I won't have it in the house. Yes, I give alternatives but VERY rarely; he has pain, he deals with it. Better a bit of pain than a screaming mama in my eyes!

Everyone gets stressed sometimes, adults and babies. OK, so it's not great and not ideal, but it happens. It happens no matter what we do. We just do the best we can. When does a child tell a mother that the best wasn't good enough. Prioritising children over extended family (parents and brothers) shouldn't happen?

If you were letting your child cry for you while you ran around after your mother, who has three other children, two of whom can drive and one of whom is married, still living at home, then that's something you can be accountable for. If you let your (admittedly adult) child cry for you as you dismiss her and buy your brother a house, you will be held to account for that. If you love your child but struggle every once in a while, that's going to be understood and even expected. Not to say we shouldn't strive to do better, but I promise it won't hurt your child.

[lullabyblue]

I'm joining this thread.
I must say I am depressed to read about all your bubs who don't sleep as my DS is only 6 months old & I really really really am living in delusional hope that it will get better....
I don't know how we can live on such little sleep for so long.
One of the above posts really rang true on the mother in law front- they have forgotten what it's like and don't have any understanding of how hard it is to function on next to no zzzzzzz- I would really like my MIL to say I'm doing a good job.....
blech- so depressed...

[Ness27]

Hi ladies

Just really need to have a whinge...Stella has also decided she doesnt need any sleep during the day now too! It was fine yesterday,she managed to keep a smile on her face all day (although there definatley was not one on mine!) and ended up crashing out about 5ish when we went for a walk (so then of course she wasnt ready to go to bed at 7 aaaagrh!) She'd had about half an hour earlier in the day but it took me an hour just to get that out of her! So today was mothers group at my house and all I wanted was for her to have her usual 30mins before everyone got there so she would be happy (she's almost always the first one to chuck a paddy ).Well I only got 20mins from her and I had to spend 45mins trying to get that and I was trying to get myself ready aswell as clean the house and prepare lunch-so stressfull! Anyway she wasnt to bad to start with but then got grizzly and upset. We had been talking about solids and how much they need etc and I said maybe I'll start giving Stella abit more to see if that helps at all...then one of the girls said 'yeah you should cos she's always crying isnt she?' I was crushed I know she didnt mean it in a nasty way but I hate that she thinks that of Stella!
So thats my whinge,thanks for listening(well reading )

Haydies-you are definatley not a failure in my eyes you are a legend 'cos you started this thread and I cant tell you how nice it is to feel like I've got somewhere to go and vent,and where others understand what I'm going thru,so thanks x