I need help, I need help, please!!!

[~Leasha~]

Let me just re-arrange my toothpicks holding my eyelids up...

Ok, now I need help. We need help. OMG we are seriously exhausted and honestly at the end of our patience rope...

Jazz has never really been a great sleeper (apart from that small 6 week stint of sleeping 9pm-3/4am). The 4 months sleep regression took hold and since the beginning of December she hasn't slept through. We have had a handful of nights in the last 10 months where she has slept maybe 6 or 7 hours at a time, but most nights she is up AT LEAST twice, normally 3 or 4 times a night between 9pm and 5am.

She won't sleep longer than 3 hours at a time.
She also normally gets up for the day at 5am. I can't remember the last time I slept past 6.30am.
She also only sleeps once a day, for 45-90 minutes.

(hang on, readjusting toothpicks again)

We tried the no-cry sleep solution, and it seemed to be working for about 2 weeks
BUT NOW she is waking at 11pm, and won't go back to sleep until about 2am.

Honestly, I'm that over it some nights I just want to move her to her own room, and turn the monitor off.
I can't share her sleep problems with anyone IRL as the only responses I get is to do just that, and when I say I don't really want to they get the old "Well no use whinging about lack of sleep if you aren't willing to do anything about it".

She WONT self-settle. If I put her in her cot even slightly awake she cries, and cries, and cries, and then vomits. She will cry even when I am there patting and rocking and shhing.
She will SOMETIMES fall asleep by rocking her, but not when I do it.
If I am around she will ONLY fall asleep if I feed her. If I'm not around she'll sometimes fall asleep being rocked, and other times she'll just keep going and going and going until she exhausts herself and falls asleep on the floor.

And no, panadol does not make it better. Neither does Hylands teething tablets. Neither does feeding her lots before bed. Neither does not feeding her much before bed. Neither does me changing my diet, cutting out sugar, caffeine, or dairy. It makes no difference if she is co-sleeping or sleeping in her cot.

And we have pretty much stopped co-sleeping as she bites and scratches me all night, and expects to be attached to me all night, to the point where I resent the fact that I can breastfeed her. So co-sleeping is not a good option anymore as it makes me cranky and irritated!

**** there has to be something we can do... Yes this is all part of being a mum but honestly i am NOT much of a mum right now. Shel gets up to her one night a week, and its all I can ask really as she works, and its better than nothing. But 6 nights a week and I am ready to shoot myself in the head. I threaten to leave for a week, and we all have a laugh but honestly? If I thought I could get away with staying in a hotel and sleeping for a week I'd be there before anyone could blink.

OMG please help... please please help...

[rachel6188]

No advice Leash just massive hugs,
I really hope you get some advice and sleep soon huni.
Rach xox
*Jazz be a good girl for your mummy- she needs sleep!! Lol*

[squidipa]

big gonna pm ya sweet

[Astrid]

A lot of aspects of DD1. She really did not improve till I weaned her (which was a battle). DD1 was sensitive to food colourings, even if I ate them, so that is something you might want to consider. In my effort to avoid caffeine I drank a lot of orange coloured soft drinks, which for her was probably worse.

I know it was something food related as we both got gastro once, so neither of us were really eating at all and she became an angel baby for a week or so. All the work I had put into sleep rituals fell in to place, it was bliss. Then as we got better and eating normal foods, it all went to pieces again. To this day I am not 100% sure of what the food issue was, but she had grown out of it. We do have to be strict with night time, otherwise she will drag it out. So there is some hope that you will get there, but it does not help you now.

Gosh, I do know that totally over it feeling, when absolutely nothing seems to work. Big will see if I can think of anything for you (chaos here at the moment)

[Liviam]

Leesha I would look into a sleep school and see if that helps. My DD was a nightmare sleeper (your story is bringing back some bad memories) and we went to sleep school. She was so bad that we actually failed sleep school and had to keep going back for three days in a row (ours is only a day time school). They told me it should take 3 nights before you see any improvement. Then it gets better and better each night. My DD was so stubborn it took a week to see the improvement. Now she is an amazing sleeper - sleep school was the best thing we ever did, for her and us.
Consistency is the key. Set her settling routine and stick to it every single time you settle her. You and Shel have to do exactly the same thing so Jazz knows what is happening. DH and I would try something different everytime and we were each doing something different so poor DD didn't know what was happening. Set your routine and stick to it. It is so incredibly hard in those first few days but after a week you have a beautiful sleeper and you enjoy being a mummy again.
Best of luck gorgeous. Let us know how you're going.

[Inertia]

Leasha - First and foremost - You are a wonderful mum. I know that the times like these puts the doubt into you, and sometimes it makes you think "maybe they are right". No, they aren't. They are narrow minded. Completely lacking in imagination. There is more than one solution to every question.

Sleep school sounds like it could be a great idea. With Sam, my only recourse was to make sure he wore himself out by bedtime. he was just a big bundle of energy and cutting out any thing that contributed to that energy after a certain time and ensuring he was as active as possible was the only thing that made him start to sleep normally again.

Also she is denying you the day sleeps - so your potential nap. With Haz I learnt the hard way that as wonderful and blissful as it is to have him napping and giving me me time - I would regret it horribly that night when because of his nap, he wouldnt be tired until 2am. So after a certain time, I also had to ensure they didn't take that nap. Getting a full nights blissful sleep easily trumped an hour and a half of peace and quiet.

Also I agree with the consistency. Certainly there are some times where you have to be flexible, but on routine, you have to make it as uncomplicated as possible so as not to confuse them. Harry knows full well now that if the lights are off, its bedtime and there is no compromise on that. It did take a while but now he just climbs into bed and drops off. The lack of light was important because it hid everything. There is nothing fun looking in their field of vision.

hope you can get some good sleep really soon.

Oh, and one very very important thing to remember - you can still love Jazz without liking her sleep patterns. You are entitled to that without being a monster. We don't have to love every little detail - and disliking one thing doesnt instantly translate into not loving them or not loving them enough.

[MantaRay]

Leash, you are doing such an amazing job to be doing so much on so little sleep. It is so tiring when babies wake so often.

I am wondering what happens when Shel gets up to her? Can she be settled easily without a feed if it's not you that gets up? I don't know if you have given any thought to night weaning yet - it's still quite early, but you sound like you are ready to improve your night sleeps. How do you feel about this? If it's an option for you, some mums find that just going away overnight for one or two nights is enough - at that age Jazz will understand that you are not there and therefore can't feed her. She might still wake, or she might even sleep though.

Other than that, I don't think there's much else you can do - many mums find it's easier to get through when they stop stressing about not getting enough sleep - but that's easier said than done, especially after so long. I am not sure that sleep school would be a good option for you - most use some form of CIO and I can't see you being comfortable with that. If it's any consolation, many babies do start to sleep longer at around 12 months, so maybe Jazz will be one of these (fingers crossed!).

[Astrid]

Ok, coming back to this. DD1 was odd, she needs flexible consistency when she was younger. If I was very strict, she would fight it. So that meant often I would have to change the music we used at night time to help get her down. She was such a sleep fighter, it was kind I like she needed some tricking to get her sleep, so it was like sleep time, but not really. Even now with our strictness of milk, teeth, toilet, books and bed, she often wants the music changed. I do think part of it is just plain personality. DD1 is stubborn, physically active and mentally active. I think she has a lot of trouble winding down and I am the same at night. If I can't get to sleep easily, then I could not expect her to. I fight sleep myself, often as I know that I will lie there for ages tossing and turning.

One of the colourings we had an issue with was Anatto (160b), it is a natural colouring found in many dairy products and surprisingly on some oven fries. So I always had to check the labels as I could not trust the ones stating 'natural colours'

[~Leasha~]

Thanks Rach and squidipa xx

Astrid... I didn't consider food additives going through my milk. Should I see a dr or dietician to get advice on an elimination diet, or could I just do it myself?

Dan, I have been hesitant about sleep school, as I know the one in Brisbane leans towards CIO techniques, which I'm just not happy with. As desperate as it gets, I just can't put her through that.
We do try to be consistant, we try to work with the NCSS techniques.

Inertia, it is hard when her day sleeps are my little slice of sanity lol, but some days I do wonder if she had no day sleeps she'd sleep better at night but it usually means she goes down to bed between 5.30 and 6, and then wakes at 8am ready for action She won't go back down until 11 or 12, sometimes she'll sleep for 5 hours afterwards, but i end up with just as little sleep being up until midnight than if she was sleeping... just hard to get that balance, its like she has no body clock or rhythm...

MR - If Shel gets up to her, Jazz will just play until she falls asleep. Sometimes Shel will try to rock her, but mostly it doesn't do much. But if I'm in bed, Jazz will eventually fall asleep. I'm so ready to night wean. Day times don't both me so much as she doesn't seem to want it so much but it seems like all she can think about as soon as the sun goes down. If i thought I could go away for a night I probably would but Shel isn't comfortable with Jazz by herself, I'm not really sure how I could wean her without not being her :-S

Fingers crossed she starts to work herself out... sometimes I worry that she really doesn't have a natural rhythm or cycle, everything is just all over the place, nothing is the same from one day to the next. People talk about babies getting themselves into routines but she doesn't have one. no amount of me trying will help her get into one. There's nothng predictable about her, except that she'll whinge ALOT.

[missymoo84]

Oh Leash hun How terrible that your going through this.

Have you thought about cutting some of her day sleeps? Everytime the boys started waking a lot I would cut their day sleeps, by 1 hour.

Also try to not watch the clock. I know it's easier said than done but once you stop thinking about the sleep your missing it gets easier. Ashton was a 2 hour night feeder until the last 2 weeks when he has only JUST started sleeping through. Having a nap during the day when he went down as often as possible really helped. Maybe she is just going to be one of those babies who doesn't sleep through, there are many of them trust me.

Might sound silly but is it possible to move your room around? There might be something in the room that is making a shadow and scaring her? My friend had this, the fan was creating a shadow on the wall and her little miss would scream for hours until she was cuddled to sleep.

Hope something works and it improves soon.

[squidipa]

looking at the gorgeous pic of her in your ticker leash she looks too innocent and cute to cause trouble. My older 2 kids had no routine they refused it and the 4 year old sorta had one some days but joshie does have a routine that he created and i follow the best i can. BUT he is a dadda's boy!

[Astrid]

Originally Posted by ~Leasha~

Astrid... I didn't consider food additives going through my milk. Should I see a dr or dietician to get advice on an elimination diet, or could I just do it myself?

Look up Failsafe and the Fedup site. Sue Dengate.

[~Leasha~]

Thanks Astrid, have found the site and bookmarked! Have to say, its definitely opened my eyes already, I can't believe the things in some food.

[Marlene]

Oh Leash, I wish I had answers for you (I need them too). I want to night wean Jack as well, but when he wakes in the night he wants booby to go back to sleep, and I just don't have the strength to let him cry. He does sleep slightly better than Jazz, but I'm still up once or twice a night and early in the morning.
I think what has really helped me has been changing my attitude drastically, trying to hang onto the thought that This too shall pass...You're probably ready to strangle me by now, LOL, but I really do know what sleep deprivation is like and I also know exactly what its like to have not much support, and also to have everyone telling you "well, if you're not willing to do anything about it then don't whinge". I even get that from DH because I am still BFing Jack back to sleep during the night..
I found that when I am feeling really down about it all I look at all the gorgeous happy faced photos and videos I have of Jack, and I also have a few songs on my ipod that really hit home and make me appreciate my little man so much more.

Sorry for my rambling...I just wish I knew the right thing to say to help you.

[marcellus]

Is she teething? Cause DS is absolutely horrid when he's teething and he has been for most of the past 8 months. He is up at least 2-3 times a night, up for the day at 5am, maybe sleeps 90 minutes during the day if we're really lucky...

Night weaning may work for you - we did it a couple of months ago and DS still wakes just as much as ever but he doesn't always need me. It was VERY hard for a couple of weeks. DH had to do a lot of teh heavy lifting at night and there was screaming, I'm afraid. But he got used to the idea and things settled down again. It may not fix the waking, but might at least give you a break. Also, stopping feeding to sleep (which turned out to be easier than I'd feared) seems to have helped him too - he goes to sleep much quicker now.

The only other thing I can think of is more Shel time... you obivously need some more help.

[lilias]

I have no advice leasha, just a big hug . I know the feeling. I have two that won't sleep. Last night I was up every hour from 10pm til we got up this morning. Thats just with DS. DD was awake about 3 times, luckily DH was home to tend to her. It sucks big time and I'm praying after almost two and a half years, that at least DD figures out the sleep thing soon....

[Happy Mummy]

[QUOTE=~Leasha~;1932511
Dan, I have been hesitant about sleep school, as I know the one in Brisbane leans towards CIO techniques, which I'm just not happy with. As desperate as it gets, I just can't put her through that.
We do try to be consistant, we try to work with the NCSS techniques.

[/QUOTE]

With having read some of your techniques, I wouldn't recommend the Brisbane sleep school to you either. We went about 2 months ago, and there is a lot of CIO methods, and I think we came home worse than when we went in with some things.

But, back to your original post, we are going through a very similar thing with DD. One thing has helped, is only one of us in the room, and I am not the 1st option to DD. (actually my mum is the best, but not practical, LOL)..

We are just persisting with routine.. Not much help with me being so tired, but hoping sticking with some routine after baby is born, will also help DD..

[~Leasha~]

Just a question about not feeding to sleep..... HOW? She would never sleep!