Just - why? So frustrated!

[anna*]

Is she the kind who actually comes and stays overnight to deal with the NWings.

No, that is even more money - £150 per night! . This 'package' is a Skype conversation, a personalised written plan, six weeks of follow up calls and emails.

[babymunkey]

Hugs honey, can't offer much more than that. Xxxxxx

[anna*]

Dudes. Stan is still poorly so we can't have her crying tonight... he really needs to sleep... she's just woken up for the THIRD time and I can't even blame OT she had good naps today. She had Calpol an hour ago... sorry... this is turning into just my personal space to rant.

[anna*]

Ok team, I have a week. If I go into sleep training mode, what should my aims and objectives be?

[becj86]

I do wonder if you just AP as much sleep into her as you can so she and Stan are as rested as possible for the training to begin with the SC... that will at least rule out chronic OT...
Has she ever slept in a bouncer/swing? Would she sleep better there? I know not an ideal long term solution... just me thinking aloud.

If you go into ST mode, I think these:
1. Rule out fluid in ears - this could be hanging around worse than usual after her illness.
2. Drop props that SC will pounce on - so no co-sleeping, go back to feed after 8hr, etc.
3. Keep the sleep environment consistent - so decide whether Stan is in the room or not for the week. Either way, it will be hard on him, but if it gets you somewhere, it will be better for him long term, having a well rested mum will make a difference for him.

Its not easy to see the wood for the trees when you're so tired and finding out why its not working for Audrey is stumping us all!

Hugs xx I know its not easy to decide what to do 

[skatty]

Great advice from Bec, we are all here to support you and rant away  Can you talk to Stan in the day about Audrey's sleep and ask him to come on board and help you with it by maybe sleeping elsewheer for a week (with dad or maybe on a campbed downstairs?), I think he may well like being kept in the loop and feeling a part of helping fix it for you  You could then give the consistancy a really good bash this week 

PS Are there any BWs in London that could come and help for a night, give a fresh eyed perspective and a bit of support? I would do it in a flash if I was there and I am sure there are others that would 

[anna*]

OK about the ears. She has been seen by two paediatricians in the last month. Both times I asked about her ears. The second time I specifically asked about pressure in her ears and the ped said that yes it is easy to miss and there can be high pressure in the ear canal BUT if you are looking for it it always presents as the eardrum bulging. He said that Drs can miss this if they are only looking for redness and/or discharge. But it makes total sense that the drum would bulge. He checked her ears immediately after this conversation and said he could say with confidence that there is no problem with the pressure in her ears. The thing is, I trust him when he said that. I just don't feel like there is any discomfort in her ears. She's not immediately happier when she's upright. She's not crying in pain. I just know in my heart that her ears are not a problem here - yk? I don't want to have to drag her out to the GP at whatever inconvenient time the appointment is, and have to try to convince them for a referral, and then wait weeks (potentially) for a new appointment, and then drag her to whatever children's hospital, and then sit through that to be told that she is fine which I KNOW she is.



Do we really think that Stan in the room or not is having a huge impact on her sleep? There is white noise up pretty loud so she is not hearing him in the night, I don't know what else about him being there could be disturbing her?

Remember I did 13 nights of staying always in her cot, and never feeding before 8 hours, and she was still having 1.5hr wakings regularly at the end of it... I don't know what I can change to make it a different outcome this time.

[anna*]

I do wonder if you just AP as much sleep into her as you can so she and Stan are as rested as possible for the training to begin with the SC... that will at least rule out chronic OT...
Has she ever slept in a bouncer/swing? Would she sleep better there? I know not an ideal long term solution... just me thinking aloud.

We don't have a swing and anyway she would be out of the weight range now (she's over 10kg). She doesn't really sleep in a stroller/car seat either, when she does it is usually 20-30 mins.

[skatty]

I think Stan being in the room effects how you deal with A's sleep, if Stan wasn't there then you would be able to ST without any worry about him waking 

I will stop going on about the ears but I will say we see an actual ear specialist and even he admits to being wrong sometimes if he just looks! The ear drum would only bulge if the ear was full of fluid. He always says that docs that are not specialists do not realise how debilitating fluid in the ear can be and do not always know what to look for, I would not be happy with that explanation but then again we have been through hell with L's ears. Really it is a 5 second job for them, I just don't know why he didn't do it to rule it out  I just think A is in such a bad place everything even if there is only a tiny chnace should be ruled out, kwim?

[anna*]

But you knew something was wrong with her ears, right? I just know nothing is! I will phone the GP and ask about it I guess but I can't just pursue it tenaciously if I don't actually believe anything is wrong! That would really make me crazy!...

I feel completely depressed by this. We did two weeks of not feeding before 8 hrs (Stan was in the room often but either slept through it or got up and went onto my bed if he was woken) and after 2 weeks there was no change.

I don't understand what I should do different to make it work this time. What am I missing here? I keep her in her cot unless she is super upset (rare) and then pick up only briefly. Mostly I hold her hand/stroke her forehead/rub her back/pat her butt of it seems to help at all (it doesn't, usually) and just stay with her til she calms down. Once she's calm and quiet I leave her to go back to sleep alone... Either I'm sitting on the other side of the cot out of sight, or sittin in the hallway until I'm sure she's back to sleep.

[babymunkey]

Anna, IF Stan could stay at your Mums for a week for example, would you do anything differently? I suspect the answer is no, but worth a thought. And could that be an option if you wanted to sleep train?

[clazzat]

This probably isn't going to be what you want to hear, but I believe that there are some babies who just aren't ready/able to sleep through until much later. Apparently our natural rhythm requires us to be up for a couple of hours in the night (it used to be commonplace for people to go to bed for about 4 hours, get up in the middle of the night and socialise for a couple of hours then go back to bed for the rest of the night) so it is quite possible that some babies haven't got the memo that we do things differently now. E was one of those babies - her naps were fantastic from 4 months, she was a properly independent sleeper and I didn't feed her in the night from 9 months but she still woke up every night until 18 months. I know that I am lucky that I am very low sleep needs myself, so I find that fairly easy to cope with, but honestly once I stopped trying to fight it and tweak things and obsess about it all and just accepted that this was the way she worked, everything went so much better.

I truly hope that the sc is able to give you some answers so that you can get a decent night's sleep, but given all the things you have tried already it might just be a question of waiting until she grows up a bit.

[becj86]

We did two weeks of not feeding before 8 hrs (Stan was in the room often but either slept through it or got up and went onto my bed if he was woken) and after 2 weeks there was no change.

I think this is not necessarily what's going to fix it, but what's going to show the SC that there's truly an issue here and its not a quick fix like eliminating co-sleeping or feeding at every waking. I guess that's the angle I'm coming from

I take your point about the ears. I guess to me it seems like there must be something wrong IYKWIM, for her to still be waking so frequently.

[Katet]

This probably isn't going to be what you want to hear, but I believe that there are some babies who just aren't ready/able to sleep through until much later. Apparently our natural rhythm requires us to be up for a couple of hours in the night (it used to be commonplace for people to go to bed for about 4 hours, get up in the middle of the night and socialise for a couple of hours then go back to bed for the rest of the night) so it is quite possible that some babies haven't got the memo that we do things differently now. E was one of those babies - her naps were fantastic from 4 months, she was a properly independent sleeper and I didn't feed her in the night from 9 months but she still woke up every night until 18 months. I know that I am lucky that I am very low sleep needs myself, so I find that fairly easy to cope with, but honestly once I stopped trying to fight it and tweak things and obsess about it all and just accepted that this was the way she worked, everything went so much better.

I truly hope that the sc is able to give you some answers so that you can get a decent night's sleep, but given all the things you have tried already it might just be a question of waiting until she grows up a bit.

Going to ditto this post. DS1 could be excused for being a bad sleeper because I didn't know BW until he was 13mo, but even after BW we still struggled to get good sleep from him... TBH he only slept well when he dropped his nap. DS2 was a good sleeper until 4mon & then shocking, even with BW (although I did do AP many a time too) we really didn't get good sleep from him until he was about 2yo & even then that wasn't a regular thing. With him (& the wonderful value of hindsight) he is a very low sleep need child (doing 8.5hours now if healthy & he is 7 this week) & it was a balance of low sleep needs but only really coping with average A times. 

I had a great child health nurse when Ds2 was a baby & she said to me that in her 20+years in baby health, she would have met at least 10 mum's per year that really did have children who weren't sleepers, who no matter what people did they didn't sleep through the night. That did help me mentally as I then I did expect night wakings & I set up a bed on the floor of his room & if he woke more than once, I would go in & sleep on the floor with him... it was just easier than being a yo yo up & down. Which having had sick children for the last 2 days & been up & down it was so much easier to do the same last night - except DH slept in DS2's bed & DS2 slept with me... I only had to get up to DS1, but as he is a noisy sleeper & hogs the bedcovers, I'd prefer not to share a bed with him.

[anna*]

Anna, IF Stan could stay at your Mums for a week for example, would you do anything differently? I suspect the answer is no, but worth a thought. And could that be an option if you wanted to sleep train?

I really don't think it would change how I deal with her in the night. A few weeks ago I might have been replugging more but now she won't even let me replug so there's nothing much I can do except be there with her, and that's the same whether Stan is home or not. I guess where there would be a difference is if she wakes at like 5am after being fed at 3-4.

I don't THINK it's an option for him to go away for a week. He has never spent more than two nights (and that's when I was in hospital having Audrey), I think he would be quite upset and feel pushed out. He would rather be home in my bed although that means either DH or I would have to sleep on the couch or on the floor of the kids' room. My mum has quite an active social life (cinema club, choir, secretary of various associations etc) so I don't expect it would really be feasible from her point of view.

honestly once I stopped trying to fight it and tweak things and obsess about it all and just accepted that this was the way she worked, everything went so much better.

So what did you do instead? Try and get her back to sleep? Get up with her in the middle of the night for an extra A time? I'm wondering what 'accepting it' would look like for us? Bringing her into bed with us isn't working, tried again last night and she just wouldn't go back to sleep!

I take your point about the ears. I guess to me it seems like there must be something wrong IYKWIM, for her to still be waking so frequently.

I do know what you mean but there is definitively NOT fluid in her ears... the pressure thing I'm told is agony, and there is no way she is in agony... and it isnt helped even a little bit by pain med. It seems to me, I would be just as likely to find the cause by (for example) trialling reflux meds, when I have no suspicion that she has reflux. You know? I mean, maybe she does, but she doesn't look like it, doesn't act like it, doesn't seem to be in pain... etc. Does that make sense?