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Sleep deprivation. There is a reason it is used as a form of torture. If my body was a gas tank and sleep was that sweet, sweet fuel… I’d be running on empty. I’d be broken down and left to decay on a side street somewhere with no money to tow my sad, sorry arse home again.
There is nothing quite like being a parent whose baby doesn’t sleep. It’s a level of frustration that goes well above and beyond anything i have ever experienced before. Not frustration with the baby so much as frustration that is perhaps taken out on the rest of the world… often unnecessarily. It’s not actually the rest of the worlds fault, it’s no ones fault… but some days, some days I wish there was someone to blame.
Having not had more then 3 hours of sleep in a row since Bo was born almost nine months ago is wearing me down. Like right down…
Hellooooo struggle town. Now, tell me I’m not alone?
I took Bo to baby rhyme time this morning. We’ve only started doing these very western mama and baby things in the past few weeks and I”m so happy to have the opportunity to do them. I meet other mamas and I feel like i”m not alone on this big crazy ride… and being not alone is awesome. Right? Anyway. So we went and we sang some songs about spiders and stars and clapping our hands when we are happy and all that Jazz. Well, I sang, the other mamas sang and Bo crawled around like she was in crazy town trying to tear every beautifully illustrated page out of every single book she could lay her sticky little fingers on. All whilst making the worlds loudest fart noises… much to the dismay of another little girl who was in attendance ‘that baby keeps making whoopsies with her mouth mama‘. Whatevs I think, be a baby (but you know, don’t destroy the books yo… here are some super baby proof ones for you to put your slobbery little mouth on) get your grove on Bo-freak… (but you know, try not to pull that other babies ears off, she may have a totally bizarre-o name but she also likes her ears attached to the sides of her head. Thanks.)
After all the joyous singing and clapping and stamp-your-feeting good times. Us mamas are left to our own devices with cups of tea and babies and piles of toys and books and the forever inappropriate question – How often do you sleep? That I just can’t help but ask every one who has ever had a baby. And HOW did you get that baby to sleep? Everyone’s baby it would seem sleeps like a champion. As one of the mothers looked at me with such pity, when I told my sad-state-of-affairs sleep story… she shook her head… I would just die if I didn’t sleep. She said to me. I hear ya lady. I hear ya. But how?!ย One mama just shrugged her shoulders and told us she was off to put her little cherub off for her next nap for the day. NEXT NAP. Holy hell. Bo had been up for 5 hours already by this point and was going strong… There are some natural sleepers out there. Which is awesome (and I’m more than a little jealous of their mamas but hey, you know, you get what you get right?)… FOR.THEM. Then there is the routine-ers, the baby sleep trainers, the cry-it-out-ers. Which is fine, if that’s your thing. But it’s not mine. It’s just not. I’ve done my research, I’ve made my choices. So… what do I do? How do I maintain my approach to parenting AND solve our never ending sleep dramas?
Tell me I am not alone people!!! Someone tell me there is an end in site before every single one of the hairs on my head falls on the floor and I collapse on top of them after tripping over the bags that hang from my eye sockets.
How do you sleep?
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Rochelle - Hey sash, I’m here to tell you that yours was my own life story when Noah was born. I’m not even remotely kidding, down to having someone tell me they would die without sleep when I asked them the same question, do you sleep? Like, ever!? And if so…HOW godammit?! So no way are you alone in this. Absolutely no way. I know it seems like there is no light, no tunnel even because does the tunnel exist without the light to see it?! Answer us no, just a big deep void filled with maddening amounts of zero sleep. Know the feeling, or getting to sleep and waking up realising you just had x hours of sleep and having a heart attack ( is my baby still breathing?!??? ) it ends sash. And 9 months in means you can’t be far off from more sleep. I don’t know if this will help you, for us it worked and worked fast. I saw a child health nurse up here, I told her everything I was worried about and how much of an issue sleep was, she recommended me a technique called self settling or self soothing. You may have heard if it. It might not be your thing but it could be worth a shot. It teaches your bub to be able to go back to sleep BY THEMSELVES if they wake up, and letting them fall asleep on their own. Which was a rough concept for us given that Noah slept with us at that point. I tell you what though, every 5 mins we spent teaching this to Noah, added up, by the end of the week we were getting there, by the end if the 2 nod week, it was working. If you like, I can tell you the how part but I think I’ve just bombarded your blog enough for 1 sitting without telling you something your probly not interested in! At that point in time though, the only thing I was interested in was more sleep that was it!!! Your opening sentence was actually something of a mantra for us, sleep deprivation is definitely used as a torture technique for a bloody good reason!!
Rowena - I had to reply because I totally sympathize! My little man is now almost 26 months and has only just started letting us get more than 4 hrs sleep in a row. Up until recently we have spent 2 hours at nap and bedtime trying to get him to sleep. We have tried every single sleep consultant, method blah blah blah in the book, but you know what worked for us? Putting him in his bed with a toy, lights on and he falls asleep (after an hr of talking to himself). My hope is that when he masters this he will put himself back to sleep during the night too. Of course we have the 2 year old molars coming through so we are back to square one again with sleep, but the light is on the horizon still. It sucks having a non sleeper and I hate hearing those parents that complain about their lack of sleep even though their hub sleeps for a 3 hr nap and only wakes once briefly at night and can be soothes to sleep with the boob or bottle. A night time wake up for us lasts 2, sometimes 3 hrs and we are doing that twice a night sometimes! Of course this probably isn’t helping you to hear but I just wanted to let you know that 1) you’re not alone in your lack of sleep hell! 2) it does get better-even I’d it may take a while to get there!
Lila - Eve is not a sleeper. Unless she was laying on me. Until very recently she would not stay asleep. Now I can get her to sleep on me and if I am super careful I can lay her down to sleep and move away.
One thing that has helped is taking one side off her cot and putting it against our bed, that way she can still crawl over to me and resettle if she wakes up but can also roll away into her own space. Because of this she seems to be starting to self settle sometimes which is a big step. We are getting roughly six hours from 9pm to 3am which is heaven. Cry it out and controlled comforting were never an option as Eve went into full stress mode the second we out her in the cot. Taking the side off so she can come and go has totally changed her attitude toward the cot.
You aren’t alone. I do hope you get some sleep soon.
linda @ OP SHOP MAMA - You poor thing – it really is a cruel and frustrating thing, not having enough sleep.
Despite anything we ever did with our 5 kids, they all have proved to have a different approach to sleep. We have always been family bed people, baby-wearers and not into all the training stuff.. Number one was like your girl. Number 2 – chalk to number 1’s cheese! Falling asleep in seconds flat, in his high chair, on the floor etc! At 7 he is still like that and I believe always will be!
So the things I CAN TELL YOU THAT i believe, FROM my EXPERIENCE:
* Nature seems to play a big part in their sleep habits
* They certainly go through phases of sleep patterns. Good ones and bad ones! Some phases last a while and some seem fleeting!
* Try and make it work for you and your family. With one of ours, one of us had to go for an hour long walk every night for a while to get him to sleep. With another I would drive to Timbuctoo in the day in order to get him to sleep for an hour! etc!
* I always choose sleep over housework, for my sanity! If I had kids asleep or at kindy.. then I would always try and sleep, if I;m tired. The housework never goes away, even if I did chores in those moments!
* When sleep deprived, early nights are a good idea when possible! The distractions (blogging, hanging out with your man, doing stuff for yourself, folding all the washing etc etc) can be ignored for the sake of a couple more hours sleep… Apparently those hours before midnight are the best time to get the best sleep..
I am not a parenting expert or a sleep guru but these are just my experiences! YOu might have heard it all before, but have to try and help a fellow blogger/parent in need!
Hope you get some sleep soon!
Kerry - Nah, it only *feels* like everyone else’s baby sleeps great – they’re all thinking the same thing! Some babies sleep badly from the beginning, others learn to sleep badly, some learn to sleep better. Oh, and a full night’s sleep for a young child (one who is still napping and / or breast feeding) is actually only 5 hours… so not enough for the adults who care for them! :S
Sarah - You sound like me when Stan was 9 months…I went around telling everyone that I now knew why they used sleep deprivation as torture. I think by nine months I’d only ever had 4 hours in a row and I was beginning to lose the plot as he only ever power napped in the day for about 20 mins maybe twice…..and only really one me!
There IS light though at the end of the tunnel. For some reason between 10-12 months something happened. He just got the hang of sleeping, and it has continued to improve. Now mainly things are good, he naps well and sleeps through the night unless he’s ill, and he is now 22 months.
I think we had a combination of him finding his soother at night and suddenly having the dexterity to put it back in his own mouth (he sleeps with one, but it never leaves the cot) that helped with me knowing then he didn’t need feeding, just simple soothing. Crawling more and therefore wearing himself out, and perhaps eating a bit better too so he was full? But I think one night I woke to hear him cry, was beyond exhausted myself, lay there thinking ‘i’m coming little one, mama’s coming’ only to drop off back to sleep, woke in panic realising I never went in to check on him, only to realise he’d obviously gone back to sleep himself, that everyone was ok and I’d had a bit more sleep than normal! Not saying I was suddenly a fan of cry-it-out, but it did make me relax a bit more and let him cry for a little to see if he REALLY needed me…
There is no magic solution of course – hey if only!? But I wanted to say I feel your pain, and I promise it WILL get better…keep going mama you are doing a good job.
xoxo
Aimee - I know exactly how you feel. My son got up ever three hours (or less) like clock work until he was a little over six months old. I also did not feel comfortable with “cry it out” – I know it works for some people and that is great but it wasn’t for us. The biggest change in his sleep patterns happened when his doctor told me to stop nursing him during the night. By six months he was 22 pounds and she was very confident that he could make it overnight without eating. She told me to offer him a sippy cup with water when he woke up and that eventually he would stop waking up becuase water is nowhere near as interesting as milk. The first two nights were difficult, he would wake up I would offer him water and he would reject it and start to whine. I held him and rocked him while but I did not offer him the breast and eventually he would settle down back to sleep. Slowly the frequency of his night wake-ups have declined. Now at 9 months he wakes about once a night or if it is an awesome night than he sleeps right through (from about 7 p.m. to 5:30 a.m.). Of course if he is sick or teething there are a lot more wake ups. And sometimes when he wakes up at night it still takes up to an hour to settle him back down. So maybe (if you haven’t already) you could consider night-weaning Bo (with the approval of her doctor)? Whatever you decide please know that you are not alone in this struggle! Best wishes:)
Jess - I hear you, and you are not alone. Master M is almost 9 months, and he’s a snacker. He still breastfeeds 8+ times in 24 hrs. Often 2 times a night, sometimes more. And on the days I work, we play catch-up most of the night. Pretty early on I realised if I let this broken sleep thing get to me, I’d be a mess. I think that the most torturous aspect of sleep deprivation, is not the lack of sleep so much as the mental anguish of feeling deprived of such a basic need.
Four strategies that helped me when I found myself starting to get anxious at each night, worrying about how much sleep I might get:
1. Stop counting. Don’t count how many hours since you last were awake, or how many hours until you have to get up for the day. Stop counting how many times you’ve woken each night. Don’t even have a clock in your bedroom. All those calculations wake you up more, and make you frustrated. If you can just let it be, you’ll be less disrupted, and back to sleep sooner.
2. Listen to your body. Once you’ve stopped counting, you can gauge how tired you are by how you actually feel, instead of factoring in how tired you should be considering how little sleep you actually got. Turn your frustrated brain off for a bit, and see if your body is actually as tired as you think it should be. It’s easy to psych yourself out, and convince yourself that your sleep is inadequate based on ‘how much you should be getting’.
3. Co-sleep, with plenty of room for everybody. We have a queen mattress and a cot mattress on the floor side by side, with the cot mattress against the wall. This makes night feeds a less wakeful affair, and everyone can go back to sleep quickly without coming fully awake.
4. Eat more. If your sleep time is on the lower end of acceptable, you can balance out your energy needs by consuming more fuel. Our bodies are adaptable like that.
I don’t know if that will help you any or not, but I sincerely hope so. I don’t get as much sleep as I used to, but instead of yearning for the old days, I have found myself in a new normal. The new normal is so very different, but I am willing to trust that my body is capable of supporting an infant, and thus adjusting to a new normal.
Blessings to you and your sweet babe during this trying period.
erica @ expatria, baby - Oy. This brings back (painful, heavy eye-lidded) memories. My stuation with my girl was very similar to your own: in a small isolated place, traveling frequently between home and Asia, an AP, anti-CIO mindset, and a kid who just wouldn’t sleep.
Seriously. My girl used to wake 12+ times per night. It would take me an hour to bounce her asleep each nap and night time. She’d nap for 20 min, and be up! AWAKE! But tired. Oy. Nothing I did made much of a difference with her nigh-time sleep.
I did manage to improve her nap time sleep by becoming super vigilant to signs of tiredness and getting her to sleep immediately as soon as I had an inkleling that she was sleepy (hand to ear, jerky movements, increased whining, clinging.) That helped stretch her naps more toward 45 min.
As for nighttimes, the only thing that worked was night waning. I was really nervous about that, but it turned out to be a total non-issue when I did it at round 11 months. My husband took over middle of the night care for a few nights and she weaned without so much of a tear (at night only…she’s 2.5 and still not showing any readiness to wean completely).
That said, my kid still sleeps badly. She still sleeps in our room, and wakes. She still takes more than an hour to fall asleep at night (two hours last night OMG!!!) And it’s hard, but not nearly as hard as it was when she was nine months old.
Some kids are just not sleepers. It’s not the way they’re made. And it has nothing to do with what you do or dont do as a parent. It WILL get better eventually. Believe me. I do get a few full nights sleep per week now. In the interm, just be kind to yourself. Know that it’s hard, and that you don’t have your husband around, and that you just moved, and everything is so out of whack. Just be gentle. Don’t expect too much of yourself.
krysta @ afairytalecomesalive - Hi Sash, nice blog!
Since I had my son, 13 months ago, I had the worst sleeps in my life. At first he would wake up every three hours to breastfeed and gradually he increased his sleeping time at nights (thank God). All this time he has changed his sleeping “program” a million times! He wakes up sooo easily, even in the middle of the night just to play for a couple of hours and then go back to sleep! I was frantically looking for someone to blame. I was going crazy! There was no chance for CIO type methods in this house, but I didn’t know what else to do. Until I red in one of your posts that women in your village just live their lives as always and if the baby wants to sleep, then he/she will! This helped me so much! Ok, I might want him to sleep more but he doesn’t, so…let’s have fun then!!! If he’s not sleeping but he’s happy we’re fine. If he’s not sleeping and he’s fussy, it helps me to take deep breaths and think that it’s just a difficult day (or days), it will pass and we’re gonna be fine again.
Patience my dear, you have a beautiful baby!
Christine - We got a hammock. You’d have seen them in Indonesia, right?
I’d put Willow in it, then put some music on, then leave the room. (Mostly Norah Jones.) I don’t know if the music soothed her, because one night I accidently left my Rammstien cd in there, and she slept fine, but the music is good for me. It lets me know how much time passes, without clock watching.
So willow would cry, and let her cry for 15 minutes/ 3 or 4 songs, then cuddle her. Normally she’d fall asleep pretty easy. Then I’d return her to her hammock, she’d fuss, then sleep. Unless something was wrong, of course.
She used that hammock till she was about a year old. Sometimes she’d sleep next to me. After the hammock she slept next to me. And life was good.
Brandee - You are not alone. For the first twelve months of my sons life he never slept through the night. He had two short naps during the day. We gave up the 2 am feed around them months. That helped a bit. But it wasn’t until after his first birthday did he sleep all night. And then his first set of molars appeared and he decided 330 was a grat time to wake up. But that has now passed. Sleep when they sleep! You’ll get through this! Then when she does sleep through the night or simply longer than three hours, you’ll lie awake watching her ๐
Eva - Is there any subject about parenting that attracts so much discussion and angst? I don’t know any parent who hasn’t had some form of sleep issues, so you’re definitely not alone. My daughter is 8 1/2 months old and we have had our fair share of sleep issues, particularly between 5-7 months, and we had to do quite a bit of work to get sleep back on track. Now (and I’m not bragging here, just stating our current situation) Bunny usually has about 3 hours of naps during the day and usually sleeps from 6pm-6:40am with one wake/breastfeed at about 4ish. We put her in her cot awake and she puts herself to sleep in about 5 minutes.
This is what worked for us:
1) Recognising that our baby is our baby, not someone else’s and not a theoretical baby in a book – she is a little human, not a robot, and like any other human sometimes she has good days and sometimes, not so good days. She has her own personality and her own wants/needs and I had to learn to interpret these. For example, I loved co-sleeping with Bunny, but she made it clear at about 5 months old that she didn’t want to do it any more – she slept much better in her cot. At 8 months, much to my disappointment, she made it clear that she no longer wanted to sleep in our room either. I cried the first night she slept in her own room, but Bunny loved it – she slept for 13 hours and only woke up once for a breastfeed.
2) Prioritising her sleep. When Bunny was 10 weeks old I put aside an entire week with the intention of focussing on getting her to nap in her cot – on day 3 she was napping 3 times per day for at least 1h20m each time and falling asleep, on her own, within 5 minutes of being put in her cot. I did this by staying home, watching the clock, and putting her to bed after she’d been up for 1.5 hrs. Each time she’s had sleep issues, I prioritise her sleep again and block out a week or two where we don’t do anything but stay at home, play, feed and sleep. Within a couple of days we get back on track.
3) ROUTINE!!!! I thought routine was a dirty word before I decided we needed one. But I realised that a routine doesn’t need to be a strict schedule that you need to stick to to the minute or else everything will fall apart. But having a predictable rhythm to the day makes it so much easier for the both of us. Also, having very clear and consistent nap and bed-time routines/rituals definitely makes a big difference. It sends a clear signal that it’s sleep time. The effectiveness of our nap/sleep rituals was clearly demonstrated last weekend when we left Melbourne for a weekend in New Zealand. Bunny didn’t sleep on the plane and didn’t sleep much while we were in the car travelling from Auckland to Bay of Islands, but when we were at the hotel and the holiday house, she slept like a champion because we did the familiar ritual and she had her sleeping bag and security blanket.
4) Learning to distinguish between Bunny’s cries, learning to wait and learning to trust that she can sleep on her own and sleep well. Instead of rushing in to her everytime she cries, I wait and see what type of cry it is – if it’s a distressed cry, then I go to her. If it’s an “I’m awake and had enough sleep” cry, then I go get her up. But if it’s an “I’m so tired, I need to sleep” cry, I leave her be, as my presence only distracts her and makes it harder for her to sleep. Learning how to distinguish between her cries was one of the best things I did and I know Bunny appreciates my trust in her.
5) I sought help from ‘sleep experts’ – some of them were great, some not so great, but I learned something from each of them (even if it was ‘this definitely wont work for us’). I can recommend The Baby Sleep Site (US based but services all countries) – I liked that while these guys promise that they can help (and they did help us) they also acknowledge that as babies change/grow, their sleep changes and they can have good days/bad days. They don’t guarantee that you ‘do this method once and you will have a perfect sleeping baby for ever after’. I don’t believe anyone that says that, because it denies the fact that babies are human rather than programmable robots. I also used a Melbourne-based expert called ‘Calm Babies’ that helped me to distinguish Bunny’s cries and implement a new, age-appropriate nap schedule.
Every parent I know has their own methods that work for them and their baby. Sometimes they’re similar to what worked for us, sometimes they’re vastly different. The one factor that is common among all the parents I know that have babies that regularly sleep well, is that they prioritise their babies sleep – they just prioritise it in a way that works for their family.
Best of luck in finding what works for you and Bo so that you can both get the sleep you desperately need!
Heather - Bless your heart! Sleep deprivation is the worst. I’m a routine, CIO girl myself, and I’ve been able to do it until this babe. She’s still waking sometimes 3 times a night at 7 months old, and my two older kids were both doing 12 hour stretches by now. We’ve run out of bedrooms, though, so she’s still in the room with me which makes it extremely difficult to sleep train at night. I completely get women who say they don’t want to CIO. I mean really, it’s never pleasant for anyone involved. I will just mention that over the years and many mommy boards I’ve been on, I have had at least 10 women who were dead against it finally come to me for advice on how to do it. Sometimes you’ve just gotta do what you’ve gotta do, ya know?
Anyway, if you aren’t comfortable with it I totally understand. I agree with the person above who mentions routine. We stay pretty much on routine, and I really think that it helps the kids to feel safe knowing what comes next. You can even just follow their cues, they’ll often let you know what routine they need to be on. Also agree with the watching for sleepy cues and putting them down BEFORE they get overtired. For my 7 month old, she takes 2-3 naps a day and is never awake for more than 3 hours at a time except for her last stretch before bed. Bedtime is at 7:00ish. A bedtime routine is really good as well. Bath, lotion, jammies, book, rocking with song, bed is what ours usually looks like. If babe is easily overstimulated, keeping it quiet and turning the lights lower for an hour or so before bed is good.
I read a book when my first babe was 8 weeks old or so that really stressed the importance of sleep in babies and children. It talked about studies they’d done on brain development and sleep. Freaked me out a little bit, I’ll be honest haha. Just wanted to share another way, I really hope you can get some much needed rest soon! I need some myself Zzzzzzzz.
Heather - Sorry, I meant to mention one more thing (as if that ^^^wasn’t enough). I’ve had friends swear by “The No Cry Sleep Solution”. No idea what ideas it implements, but might be worth a try.
Lucy - I totally feel you. I have year-old twins, and one is a decent sleeper (although not in the past few days), but one has sleep apnea and is up every few hours, if he even goes that long. We’re working on getting him used to his breathing machine so that he can sleep through, but have you tried to get a one-year-old to wear a breathing mask? Next to impossible. And I always live in fear that one will wake up as soon as I’ve gotten the other to sleep. I usually end up cosleeping with the baby with apnea once he wakes up for the first time. I have local family who will watch the boys so I can take an occasional nap. But I must admit that sometimes I fall asleep on the floor while they’re playing, and I rely a lot on caffeine. I just keep thinking, this too shall pass….
Luna U - Hi Sash
You are NOT alone!!! Anouk is almost 10 months old and has never ever slept through… one night she slept for 5 hours straight and that was awesome (although maybe I am just imagining it hahahaha).
We are an anti-routine family. I understand why people find routine important, but I just refuse to force my child to do anything. If she needs to wake up for 10 minutes every few hours for a little eat, then so be it. We co-sleep so it’s not like I have to really get out of bed!
Until a few months ago, my husband and I spent a lot of time feeling annoyed and upset about it until I realised all we seemed to talk about was Anouk’s lack of sleep… and then I realised that I really felt as though I was criticising her. It’s not her fault she hasn’t learnt to sleep yet so we embraced it, banned sleep talk (other than a “wooohooooo four hours!” here and there and just let it go.
Sure, we’re tired and some days I want to scream at anyone and everyone, but most of the time I take a deep breathe and remember that she’s just a small person, trying to figure stuff out. ๐
» November challenge… changing the way we look at food. Inked in Colour - […] transformation hasn’t really taken off just yet. What with the lack of sleep, I’ve been lucky to have the energy to get dressed for the day let alone transform […]
» This small town life… Inked in Colour - […] been a busy week in this house of Bo. You know, with all of the no-sleeping going on we’ve had rediculous amounts of time to do stuff. Though I do feel a little like a […]
Olga - I was anti routine before, but i was always for following my baby’s cues. People said it above, watch her carefully and act instantly. I did it for couple of weeks and…what-do-you-know… He is more or less on schedule, that he made for himself. The key with this aproach is to be at home and available to facilitate sleep (rocking, nursing, singing and such). Also, sometimes when all else fails, but he is clearly sleepy, we put him in a stroler and wonder around for hours, so he can sleep. Stroller really works great (and cheaper than driving around). I know you like to wear her, me too, but it doesn’t work as well for sleeping.
Good luck! Oh and one more thing. Your health is really important and your child needs you to be healthy, so maybe trying out different methods isn’t such a bad thing if it gives your babe a healthier mama. Just a thought.
Jessica - YOU ARE NOT ALONE! My sweet baby does not sleep either. It’s very sad. I am not willing to let her cry it out or anything so I just deal. I wish I could offer some advice! I just wanted you to know you are not the only one. Maybe It will change once they get older. We can only hope.
Alicia - I am just one more comment here to say that you are not alone. Aimar is 14 months old and he still wakes up 2-3 times per night. Good nights mean he settles easily after some cuddles, bad nights mean he starts talking and/or crying and it lasts for a loooong while till he falls back to sleep. So yeah, I totally understand you when you say that you are tired, sleep deprived… Somehow, though, we manage, our bodies manage and even adapt so much so, that when I have been away for a night, I still wake up 2-3 times.
I don’t have any tips, we’ve tried co-sleeping, music (which does seem to help a bit), holding him, leaving him some space… and really, some things work sometimes but not always. So I just go with the flow and try to feel what he needs day by day, or rather night by night.
You are doing GREAT!
Lisa - Hey Sash, I had to comment because I feel you so bad…my son is almost 11 months now and I the most sleep I get is 2 hrs in a row which is rare around here, 1 hr is regular. I don’t want to discourage you…but it has gotten worse and worse over time. He had a good schedule at 3, 4 months; two small naps a day and a regular bedtime, waking every 3 hrs to nurse. Then at 5 months he got his first 2 teeth and he stopped sleeping. From then on it was always a hassle to get him to nap and sleep, even with the breast. It was almost impossible when teething. But this passes. What is worrying me now is the frequency with which he wakes. It’s gotten so bad that we had a couple of nights now where he wouldn’t go off the breast at all, he’d unlatch and roll over, immediately start crying and wanting the breast again. Or at least wouldn’t let himself be soothed any other way. I think I stopped really sleeping, I’m just dozing all night long, dreaming half-awake, which makes for some really weird fantasy-real life entanglements in my brain ๐ no joke, sometimes I fear I’ll go seriously nuts out of sleep deprivation. I have a really hard time carrying on a decent conversation sometimes because I’m at a loss for words. I’m also permanently sick, headache, stuffy nose, sore throat – for months now. There is no explanation for his sleep patterns, he is not teething now and hasn’t been for a while and he is as healthy as can be. “Sleep training” isn’t an option for me, in fact I was told once that it was only invented to rationalize it for parents who let their babies cry it out because they would otherwise throw them out of he window. But with “sleep training” they could keep up theit feeling of being good parents.
I couldn’t do it but I think my sleep deprivation could come to a point where I’d be able to overcome my hesitation to keep my sanity. I’d have no other option since I’m a single parent. And a baby is better off screaming than with a dead or seriously (mentally or physically) ill parent. But I’m not there yet and I hope that it will work itself out before I have to take measures that drastic.
Anyway, it helps to hear that others share the pain ๐ I wish you good luck and good vibes to keep the energy floating…sometimes it helps me to think about the unthinkable things I am able to endure and that my superhero body will also continue to fight on even without any sleep at all…sometimes I think that’s bullshit.
Kara - I also don’t like cry it out but we are using a modified version of it – I watch for cues of her being tired, then do a little “wind down” routine – change her diaper, wrap her in a light blanket, read a book quietly then rock her a little and lay her down awake but tired. I then give her and myself 5 minutes. If she falls asleep great, if she cries the full 5 minutes, I go and soothe her. But once she is calm again I lay her back down. I repeat until she’s asleep. It lets her know I will comfort her but once she is calm again it’s time for bed. Works 90% of the time and she will nap 1-2 hours. We do this for bedtime too and she is sleeping 8-9 hrs. I don’t feed her at night because she doesn’t need it – I just tank her up during the day.
Routine is key! I don’t think an exact schedule always works but giving her cues that its time to sleep really works. I have myself a week to set up the routine for bedtime, then I did the nap routine after that.
Good luck!!!
Bettina - Oh man, sleep. What is that!? It’s funny how obsessed you can get. I swear I am not kidding, I thought I could ‘work him out’ if I wrote it all down, like that would help. Dumb mama in a sleep deprived fog. Ours NEVER slept, then slept through, and then didn’t. And now it’s hit and miss, depending on whether he is doing gymnastics in his sleep.
Babies!