Sleep Help Xposted in Parenting

[poorlittlefish]

I need some help, I am about to go batty.

My DD2 is 6 months old, almost 7 months.  When she was first born, she was a great sleeper—regularly doing 5 hour stretches in the pack n play next to my bed.  I would rock her and put her back in the PnP when she woke and things were great.  I thought that I finally had the “good sleeper” that I felt like I deserved after DD1 who, at 3, is still not sleeping through the night.  Ha ha ha. 

A couple of months ago, her sleep started falling apart, she was waking every couple of hours. She was spending 85% of her night in bed with me, nursing. It turns out that she had an ear infection but even after getting rid of it, things haven’t gone back to normal.  After the holidays,  I moved her into her crib to see if that would work and it made no difference.  Right now, I put her down at 7:30 and she wakes up about every 45mins-hour until I go to bed.  Then I deal with about 2 nightwakings before I just bring her into bed with me. 

I don’t mind cosleeping for part of the night but I need her to spend a few hours in her crib.  I miss sleeping with my husband, my lower back and hips hurt so bad I can hardly walk in the morning.  In a perfect world, she would be in her crib until 2am or so, then she can come into bed with me.  I know, I can’t have it perfect but can anyone help me?? I am working on the No Cry Sleep Solution but it doesn’t seem to be working.  She isn’t hungry, the temp is fine, she doesn’t take a pacifier so what more can I do?  I am seriously about to lose it.

[JuliMummy]

I know how you feel. It is just horrible to be so sleep-deprived all the time and not get the space you need in your own bed, It sounds like your daughter is doing exactly what my daughter did. (I, too, told everybody that I had ordered a good sleeper when I was pregnant with her, and it turned out that she was much worse than my son.) But I'm afraid I don't have a magic solution either. I think you just have to try and cope as best you can until she finally gets better on her own. My daughter is now 17 months and has just started sleeping better. She now only wakes up once during the night. We night-weaned a few weeks ago, which helped a lot, but only because she was ready for it. Whenever I tried not feeding her during the night before then it was a complete disaster. I know it's hard to hear that when your little one is only 7 months, but you never know, she may get there sooner. In the meantime, one thing that helped us was to have a single mattress next to our bed, which she has been sleeping on for the last three months or so. It means that when she needed to feed during the night I would go down onto her bed with her, feed her back to sleep, and then go back into my bed. But it also meant that when she was sick and wanted to nurse all night I could just stay in her bed with her, which wasn't great but much better than the three of us squeezed into our tiny double bed. 

I had a thought the other day which I found comforting, and you might too. Maybe our little ones were placed in our families for a reason, in that we will care for them lovingly even when they make our life hell with their constant night waking, and we will get through it and have confident, happy, loved children, rather than letting them scream for hours and hours every night until they eventually work out how to sleep properly (and probably no earlier either). I don't know if that makes any sense, but it helped me...

All the best. Try to accept what is happening as normal for your daughter and hang in there until things improve. 

[poorlittlefish]

Thank you for this.

I had a long talk with my DH last night and I think that I just need to readjust my expectations.  She is still very much a baby and I know, having an older child, that this too shall pass.

Thank you for your thoughts and the reminders, I appreciate it.