Uh oh.. we have sleep issues!! Help!!

[Arimeh]

Arghh we are soo tired!!

Miss M has decided that she is totally allergic to sleep. At the moment, her current routine is to wake up around 7am-ish - go to bed at around 10.30 for a 1.5hr - 2 hr nap - and then fall asleep on her bottle at around 6.30pm for about an hour - then we give her another bottle at 9/10pm - and she usually wakes a few times during the night, and ALWAYS at 3.30/4.00am - and then she's up until 5am - then goes to sleep until around 7am.

We don't give her anything at 3.30am - but I'm thinking we may start giving her a bottle again, just to try to get her to go to sleep!!!!

This routine would be FINE if she was an only child and I could sleep during the day. Problem is, if she's up till 5.00am - she cries and screechs - which wakes DS - so then HE'S up from around 5am. For the entire day. No day sleep.

DH has been a total star, he gets up to her all the time, and usually takes her out to the loungeroom and she eventually falls asleep on his chest (this is after having her in bed with us for an hour and she just wants to play, sing, screech etc) and makes for a very unsettled nights sleep for DS - who sleeps with us.

Problem is - DH will leave for tassie in a month or so, and will be down there a month, so I'll be on my own, with the two kids, neither of whom are good sleepers (DS isn't that bad now that we have dropped his day sleep, he crashes at around 6.45 and wakes up around 10pm and crawls into our bed for the rest of the night) and I'll be around 7ish months pregnant too (with SPD - just for the added bonus).

I need some help - some solutions to get her into a better sleeping routine (ie actually bloody sleeping would be nice!!!) so in a month's time I don't end up killing myself with sleep deprivation!!!!!

I don't even know where to start. DS dropped his 10pm feed when he was around 7ish months - and only ever woke up briefly during the night and that was fixed by putting a dummy in his mouth. DD doesn't use a dummy. So we haven't experienced this for so long (ie - its been going on a YEAR now) and its hard not to get frustrated at her when she wants to play at 3am and all we want to do is sleep!!!!

Help please

[Epacris]

Oh Mel, first big hugs sleep deprivation is torture (like real, proper torture).

Can you try to keep her awake more during the day. For her morning nap, let her have an hour, then wake her? Maybe she might then have her afternoon nap a little bit earlier and don't let that one go too long either? Might be worth a try.

I wouldn't reintroduce a night feed if that's not what you want to do, it will only encourage more night time wakefulness

Just another thought, bright sunshine during the day helps reset body clocks. So when you wake her up from her naps, take her outside into bright sunlight.

More hugs

[Arimeh]

Thanks Rachel.

If she has two sleeps during the day - she has one at around 9.30 for about 40 mins, and then one around 3ish for about the same - then she won't go to sleep till her bottle at 9.30/10pm (depends how cranky she is getting as to the exact time we feed her) and she STILL wakes up at 3/4am.

So since its a struggle getting her to go to sleep during the day (think of lots of screaming, fighting, rocking on hands and knees in cot in a desperate attempt to NOT go to sleep) we find it easier to get her to have the one sleep for a few hours and crash easily at night on the bottle. Its just the constant waking at 3/4am that does our head in. And the wakefulness afterwards....

I mean, it would be easy to get angry at her if she was a little grizzle guts, but she is sooo freakin happy all the damn time that you can't get angry at her. Which sorta makes me angry at me cos I can't get angry at her.. lol

[Mishca]

Hugs hon. Totally understand you need some sleep!

Will she go to bed an hour earlier say at 9.30am? or does she just fight the sleep? and then only let her sleep for 1hr max so you can put Aricyn and Miss M to bed for their day nap together later in the day? I do this with Julia and Tara, Tara goes to bed for morning nap at 8.30am and sleeps til 10am then they go to bed at 1.30pm and have a sleep and then they dont go to bed at night til 7pm or 8pm. Tara always wakes up at midnight as she hears DH go to bed and she wakes up for the day at 6am.

Hugs mate. xxx

[Epacris]

yeah, that's not much day sleeping is it

Ummmmmm.... when she wakes at night how do you/your DH interact with her? It's sometimes really hard to get the balance right between comforting and stimulating. Are the lights low or off, how much eye contact, how much talking to her, are there any toys that could be stimulating her? Try to be as quiet and as no-fuss as you can?

More dunno More hugs

[Arimeh]

she won't go to bed earlier Belle - we have tried, that used to be her routine, and it worked fine - two day naps, but she just fights and fights and fights it, and we both end up frustrated.

Aricyn doesn't have a day nap anymore. If he has a day nap he won't go down for the night until 9.30/10.00pm. Plus he is so whingy after he wakes up after a nap during the day - he's just not a good waker-upper-er.

But yes, your routine sounds good - but would never work here unfortunately.

[Arimeh]

Originally Posted by Epacris

Ummmmmm.... when she wakes at night how do you/your DH interact with her? It's sometimes really hard to get the balance right between comforting and stimulating. Are the lights low or off, how much eye contact, how much talking to her, are there any toys that could be stimulating her? Try to be as quiet and as no-fuss as you can?

When she wakes up, DH tries to resettle her in her cot, then gives up and brings her into our bed.

All lights are off (cos three of us are all in the bed anyway trying to sleep (or stay asleep in DS's case!) and the only talking we do is to tell her that its sleepy time, whilst we drag her down from being on her hands and knees to a lying down position. No eye contact (its dark). Its very no fuss cos we're trying to bloody sleep.. lol

[Epacris]

Oh... Mel... I'm sorry, I've run out of suggestions... more hugs

Maybe someone else will have some more/better ideas.

[Cassius2]

i'm gunna be norti and advocate a milk drink at 3.30am...

DD started waking rather consistently at 4.30am (for the day) so in the end i had to go 'back' to the boob in the dark and back to bed routine. it wasnt that bad and rather quicker than i thought she started sleeping through it again ITMS...

HTH and hope you get some sleep ins before DH goes away! xx

[Michelle71]

Mel - we have been using some tips from the no cry sleep solution book (toddler and baby - toddler is probably better for you) and even just a few of the pointers have made getting a *routine* easier (are you sure you don't have clones of my 2 children though ) The number of hours sleep and the signs of tiredness / sleep deprivation were really helpful here. DS looked like he was busy and playing when in fact we had missed the first tired cues (subtle ones) and he was now overtired and far more difficult to settle.

DS is on day 2 of waking for a few hours in the middle of the night and he did the same around your DD's age. Unfortunately it was a stage here and we just had to ride it out - which in no way helps with the sleep deprivation.

[Arimeh]

Yeah Michelle, I remember DS going through a stage here and there of wanting to get up at 3am and watch Dora, and having to deal with his screaming and stuff because we wanted him to go to bed - that was before Miss M came along though - so probably around 17 months he did it? It was only a night here and there - not continuous like her problem.

Even now, I have her in her cot trying to get her to go to sleep. I've tried patting her on the butt, and she just rolls away from me and looks at me. Then gets up on her hands and knees, at which point I leave the room. Cos if she's not going to even try to go to sleep with my help, I'm not killing my back leaning over the cot!! She cried for like 5 seconds, and is now chatting to herself in her cot.

I feel so frustrated and helpless because I haven't had to deal with a "happy" sleep deprived child before!!!

[Mak]

Oh no! I am not much help as we had similiar issues - DD1 would not and still doesn't sleep with us, she'd rather play! Very annoying as she was so happy whilst were pretty grumpy... One of us ended up crashing on her floor for a week, it took a few days but she eventually just rolled over and then went back to sleep - we were just there but didn't chat/play - seemed to work for a while anyway.
Sleep deprivation is awful - hope that things change for you soon. FWIW - My DH went away for a week when bub was 8 weeks and DD1 had been a shocker up until then - the whole week she was great, not sure why!
GL - it is a daunting prospect.

[Claire_A]

What happens if you just leave her in her cot? If she's happy and just talking/playing with herself she might end up putting herself back to sleep. My DD does this and if she's happy I just leave her and usually 20 mins later she's back asleep. Maybe worth a try?

[Arimeh]

Originally Posted by Claire_A

What happens if you just leave her in her cot? If she's happy and just talking/playing with herself she might end up putting herself back to sleep. My DD does this and if she's happy I just leave her and usually 20 mins later she's back asleep. Maybe worth a try?

We do try this. She ends up screaming after about 15 minutes of happily chatting. That's usually how we get her to sleep for her day sleeps. She was fine for about 15 minutes just before, then started screaming - so I went in there and patted her bum - she was asleep within 3 minutes.

If she's happy we leave her. If she's screaming, we tend to her.

[~Kaz~]

Massive being sent your way. That sounds like torture but I know what you mean about can't get cranky.

Clearly I am no expert but I am just finishing up Pinky McKays "Sleeping like a baby" book so I feel like one cause none of it hasn't worked yet

She suggests that if you have a baby who consistently wakes up at the same time each night, to pre-empt them by setting your alarm for 30mins before they usually wake up. Give them a cuddle etc and then put them back to bed. Then you gradually wake them 15 mins later each time and re-set their waking time forward. Sounds nuts but that's what she suggests!

The other thought I had is that perhaps she is trying to gain more time with your DH? If she doesn't see much of him during the day, it could be that she has worked out night time is a good time to get one-on-one time with him. I hope that's not the case for you cause it doesn't bode well for when he goes to Tassie for a month.

GL hun. Am thinking of you.

[Muppity]

I have no answers - just wanted to sent you hugs

But, thinking about it - could I suggest copious amounts of gin - either for you or the kids - doesn't really matter which

[snugglybean]

Rather than going back to a 3am bottle, can you tweak her food intake through the day?
It's hard to decribe without knowing what she normally has, but the idea is to reduce the size of her early meals (breakfast, morning tea, any bottles) or use faster burning food, like fruit.
Dinner then has loads of protein (meat, legumes, wholegrains, whatever) then her late bottle is the biggest one.
It's not to starve her (like that nutcase on bringing up baby) but to help her build hunger throughout the day, so that she takes on the most food at night, which may help her get through.

If you want to go through routine specifics, I can give you more ideas. I've seen it happen a lot between 10-14 months, and I've always found that this approach works.

I hope you work something out!

[Arimeh]

Gin sounds good. Probably shouldn't whilst pregnant though

Snuggles buggles - she eats HEAPS during the day - she never stops.. lol... for dinner she usually has some form of meat and always has vegetables. She has fruit after her toast for breakfast, fruit after her sandwich, and usually snacks throughout the day as well.