Still having problems - more advice/support please

Hi again,

MJ has been having sleeping issues from about 6months (prior to that was sleeping 8pm-8am approx)

i have now managed to stop the night feeds that were started again around 7 months (1-2 overnight) and she will pat to sleep if she wakes in the night (although it can take anywhere from 5 seconds to 1 hour to get her to drop off)

BUT when she goes down for the sleep she really fights it.

i feed her dinner at around 5pm, then we have a play and then a bath.
After bathtime we move into her room and she has a play, then a feed the she plays while i read stories... by this time if the door to her room is open she will have gone out and if its closed she will have tried to open it and had a grizzle.

then we go to the bathroom, sit on the potty (we are ECing) wash hands, brush teeth then back to her room, then we change her naapy and get in her sleep suit.
Next we close the blinds, she knows at this stage and is getting grumpy.

Now we will move over to the cot and say good night to all the toys, one by one i get one out of the cot, we cuddle it and say night night and then it goes back in the cot. Lastly i cuddle MJ, say night night and she goes in the cot.
Sometimes she will go in fine and sit there and play other times it is all over straight away...

Now this is the hardest point... no matter if i pick her up or leave her in the cot and pat her, she will cry and grizzle until she is asleep. She will also arch her back to get out of my arms and stuggle and for this reason i have switched to the patting as although it take significantly longer, i am not worried about her hurting herself... It breaks my heart, why does she hate her cot so much?

The second that she wakes again she is crying - not whingy cry, standing up crying with real tears, its so hard to deal with and now i am starting to dread bedtimes as i know that she will cry no matter what i do

Sorry that this is a long post, but i wanted to say what we were doing so that maybe there are other ideas.
I am feeling like i cant cope with it anymore... and DH works until 9 or 11pm so he cant help me, so im doing it all alone and cant hand her to anyone for help :(

Thanks

SJ - you're having such a rough time! And it must be so hard doing it alone. Is there noone who can help at all?
I would hazard a guess that she either objects to being confined in a cot or that she objects to being away from you...You know, MJ will get over this. And she'll be better off for all the time you've spent helping her. That said, you do need to find a way that this can work for you too in the meantime.... I don't think I have any practical advice for you though, sorry.
My DS is the same. I've made peace with this though. How? I gave up. If he doesn't want to sleep in his cot, then he doesn't. He sleeps on a mattress on the floor, which he shares with me during the night (or at least part of it). He's happy there. At night, he'll go to sleep there on his own (unless his gums are hurting him, which is a lot lately, unfortunately). He just rolls around happily, chatting away, till he runs out of steam. He can't do that in the cot - he bumps the sides and gets upset. And he associates the mattress with me, which makes him happy I think (even when I'm not there).
This may not even be an option for you, but that's how I've dealt with it
Hugs

:hug:
sorry youre having a hard time atm - I dont have any advice but I just wanted to encourage you - MJ is so lucky to have such a warm, gentle & caring mummy - you are doing a great job :)
hang in there!

My DS used to be a real sleep fighter too. If DH was home he would hold him and bounce up and down (sort of mini squats) until he fell asleep - quite a work out! When DH wasn't home (which is quite often as he's a shiftworker) I found different things worked for me at different times. Sometimes he would fall asleep while I pushed him in his swing and then I transferred him to the cot. Otherwise I would put him on my back in our Ergo (baby carrier) and walk back and forth around the house until he fell asleep then transfer him to the cot. I think the key for us was that he needed movement.

Have hope though - we can now put him down in his cot, leave the room and he just goes off to sleep on his own. It does all pay off eventually!

Thanks guys,

Marcellus - do you go to bed at the same time as your DS? what time does he go down?
MJ goes to bed between 7 and 7.30pm - when she was a baby she always had a feed then put herself to sleep at 8.30 - we continued this for ages and then she started going down earlier and earlier... i dont think i could go to bed at 7!!! (although some days i probably could!)

Miss J - how did you progress to that - did one day it jsut happen or a slow progression? will i be doing this for months and months? (its been 5 already)

Hi SJ,
when I read your post my heart went out to you, I so clearly remember the trauma I went through with my DD in a similar way between the ages of 6 and 10 months.

You have some really good advice from some of the ladies here, perhaps trying something completely different may work for your DD, she could be one of those 'exceptions to the rules' IYKWIM!!

I don't have any practical advice from my experience really, what worked for me was sleep school, however I think from what I read of your post, my experience was just different enough to not really work for you... however, I did notice this thread and thought of you. Maybe some of these ideas might do the trick??

All the best, I really really hope you find a solution soon. It is a really challenging time to have trouble with sleep at 11 months... I remember only to well.

Hi again
DS also goes to sleep quite early sometimes - I leave him there to sleep alone till I'm ready to go to bed. The room's babyproofed so it's safe for him to move around and we have a monitor so can hear when he's up anyway. Sometimes he wakes up again really quickly and we have to resettle him, but sometimes he's out for a few hours so I can have a little me time (or finish my work for the day :wall:).
Really hope you can find a solution

My Ds hated his cot and would stand and scream and cry like he wa completely terrified of it or something. To this day I wish I knew about BB then, hopefully I would have come up with a better solution than controlled crying which in the end did'nt really work....in some ways I feel like I failed him, but i guess I did'nt know any better. In desperation I did what was advised, but when that did'nt work for long we decided to put him into a single bed without the legs and guess what? he was happy, we did have to put a barrier gate on his doorway or else he would leave the room but it worked... I reckon try the mattress on the floor, maybe even lay down with her until she gets her confidence back, when she is fully asleep leave the room then to have some me time, also if you don't already have one a night light could make a big difference.
Good luck I remember the feeling well.:pray:

Thankyou ladies for this post. My DS is 9 months and is having heaps of troubles with his cot. he goes to sleep fine but is waking every 2 hours after banging his head on the cot or getting his legs/arms caught in the bars. I think tonight I will try and put him on a mattress on the floor and see how he goes. Do you think 9 months is too young for that? Do your bubs ever fall off the mattress onto the floor? Jack's room has tiles so I would be worried about that. I might put a single mattress and then his cot mattress next to it.
Will let you all know how it goes.:pray:

Marlene - DS has rolled off in the night. I lay pillows by the side of the bed to cushion the fall, so rolling off wakes him (usually....) but he's not hurt or too shocked. Also, it's a queen-size mattress so plenty of room for him to roll around (though it's still not big enough for him some nights). A single & cot one next to it might be alright. Hope you get some good results.

Well, I havent tried the mattress thing yet...I couldnt get the cot out of his room (How on earth did I get it in there??) so I will have to pull the whole thing part...which I havent been bothered to do yet.:rolleyes: His room is only small and I cant fit the mattresses on the floor with the cot in there.

I am having the same problems as SJ.

My son DJ is almost 11 months old and I still have to pat or rock him to sleep. He won't sleep by himself, so I would love any tips....Not sure about the matress idea.... I think it is alot of controlled crying I need to do and slowly move myself away from being with him as he goes to sleep.

Has anyone had any success from reading any of the books on sleep??

Hi SJ, just read your routine. Have you tried shortening it. Maybe after teeth etc just put her in with her favourite soft toy and wish her goodnight. I had to take all toys out of Paddy'e cot except his sleep toys that he cuddles at night. I do know someone who used to put the tshirt she wore for the day in the cot and that help the bub feel more secure. HTH

HI guys thanks for the replies

Teach i have shortened the 'routine' and it seems to have helped a bit.

Now we are playing outside the room before bed, and the feed, then cheange nappy in room, say goodnight to 2 toys (the ones that she sleeps with - she like one in each hand) then into the cot.
She normally grizzles for a lttle while 9i stay and pat her back, but dont pick her up) but is no longer standing to cry which is heaps better.
WE also have a CD that goes on and last night she was asleep by the 3rd song whcih was soooo much better.

I am patting and then when i feel her settle i am just leaving my hand lightly on her and then after a while i just stand there so thats she can feel me in the room. when she is asleep i leave the room.
I think that this is going to take a while but its getting better... (tinight will probaby be a shocker now that i have said that!)

She is still waking overnight, last night was 1.30am and 3.30am and then up at 6.30 - (she was still tired but wouldnt resettle) but she will go back to sleep much quicker now with patting and then just my hand on my back, less than 5 mins

eventually i can see her getting off to sleep by herself, but i also keep thinking that she is only 11mths, i have my whole life with her and if i have to be tired for a while, really its not that bad, i also take heart in those that have been through the similar thing and their bubs have grown out of it.

Shell i have tried a few things out of books and they are awful and i just can go through with them.
Sometimes if she is really worked up i have left the room, but for no more than 30 secs, it helped a little as when i returned she would settle better and then i would stay with her til she was asleep. At times this took up to an hour, but really in the scheme of thing i would prefer that to the other methods...
thanks again guys

SJ - I went out and bought a book today by Kim West - called Good night sleep tight. I have started to read it but will let you know if it is any good when finished.

DJ is still awake at the moment 6:30 and has been awake since 12:30 today, he only slept for 40 mins in the pram today while I was at the shops. I have tried giving him his dinner, bath and bottle followed by reading some books, but he is still full of beans..... oh well, I suppose it will take some time. I haven't read the book in full yet. Just tried to put him down earlier tonight. No luck.

DJ still wakes up through the night around 2am only a few times a week and normally is fine if we just give him a bottle. He is always hitting his head on the cot when he moves around during the night. So I think that wakes him up.

Sounds promising SJ - hope this means things are settling down for you