Hi,
My LO has just turned 7 months and has always been a pretty poor sleeper. He is EBF and I just held onto "he'll sleep when he is ready" and repeated this as a mantra for 6 months.
About 3 weeks ago I reached breaking point with the lack of sleep, he was waking somewhere between every 40 minutes to 2 hours. Sometimes he would take a feed and go straight back off and others we would be up for hours.
I spoke to my HV and she pointed me in the direction of PUPD. After having a bit of a read of various bits online I decided to give it a go to coincide with a week that hubby was off work so he could be my back up. It rapidly became clear that the picking up was too stimulating and just enraged him more, but keeping him lying in his cot with shush pat (whilst still not fun!) worked a lot better.
I stumbled across a Baby Whisperer board on another baby forum that I use and asked for help, and they gave some great advice. As a result his daytime sleeps are now pretty good. Night times are still pretty bad. Better than what they were, but after just over 3 weeks of trying to break bad habits we seem to have plateaued at sleeping for 3 1/2 hours max.
Our typical day:
Awake at 6 (usually quite happy and chatting to himself and his lovey in his cot in his room so I can sometimes leave him to it for 15 mins whilst I doze a bit more)
BF (often doesn't seem massively hungry)
He has a play on his mat whilst I get ready for the day
7/7.30ish Breakfast (we are BLW for the last month, he is a little hit and miss how much he eats but his nappies tell me he is giving it a go!)
8.30 go back upstairs to get him cleaned up, nappy off time, massage, close curtains have a little wind down cuddle
9ish BF where he has a good belly full
9.15/9.30 nap - after BF & burp I put him down drowsy
usually sleeps for an hour & a half
10.45/11ish awake, take the dog for walkies
11.30 BF (often not very hungry)
12 activity
12.30 lunch
1.30 go back upstairs to get him cleaned up, nappy off time, massage, close curtains have a little wind down cuddle
2ish BF where he has a good belly full
2.15/2.30 nap for an hour and a half
3.45/4ish awake, activity
4.30 see if he will have another BF (sometimes has a little but not very hungry)
5pm dinner
5.30 bath, massage with the lights off, get ready for bed
6ish BF - very long BF at least 30 mins
6.30 down in his cot drowsy - this is where it tends to go a bit wrong!
I will put him down drowsy but he usually wakes up and is pretty wired as soon as he hits the mattress. He will then thrash about, kicking hitting the mattress, smacking himself in the head, generally flailing. He starts off just being very excited, I have tried leaving him to it, thinking he will just let off steam and then settle, but all that happens is after about 20 minutes of this he enters meltdown and gets very upset screaming and crying and the thrashing/kicking/hitting goes up a notch.
What I ended up doing was pretty much restraining him in his cot with my body virtually alongside him, murmuring reassurances over and over and hold him still until the thrashing stops, he would still be screaming and crying but the movement would slow and I would start to ease off until I just had my hand on him and carry on murmuring to him. He would eventually go to sleep like this.
He would do this for daytime naps, but never as long as it lasts at night time. You can imagine this is pretty distressing all around.
The last 3 days we have got to a point where I now dont have to totally restrain him, I just hold his hands with him arms in his favoured sleep position and that seems to be doing the trick. So an improvement to the total body restraint, but still a long way off from where I want to be.
So once asleep (usually around 7, although has been up to an hour of thrashing on occasion until 7.30 or
he then wakes like clockwork at:
10.30 where I feed, burp, clean nappy (he feeds so much he ends up leaking if I dont change him at least once during the night and this wake up seems to be easier to get him back down. nappy change at later feeds meant we would regularly be up for an hour and half as he didnt want to go back to sleep) and put him back down, usually by 11.30
2 where I feed, burp, put him back down, usually takes 45 minutes
4/4.30 I have tried not feeding him here, if I dont feed him he will go back to sleep within 15minutes but is then awake again within half an hour, if I do feed him he will sleep until 6 or even 6.45 if I am really lucky.
Some nights are worse, but always clock work! So a bad night is once down, up at 9, then 10.30, then 12.50, then 2, then 4, then 5.45. I swear he has a clock, he woke on the same hour markers even when the clocks change!
3 night wakings (on a good night) is a massive improvement to where we were, but once you factor in how long the feed takes, then having to hold him down, then sit with him for 20 minutes I am exhausted and on my last legs. We also dont have as many good nights as I'd like!
I guess I really want to either be told I am doing all the right things, and to keep at it, things will improve, or have some new ideas of things to try. Getting him to sleep is so distressing for us both. I hate to see him so upset, I try to tell myself it is for the best in the long run but after 3 weeks and little improvement it is really hard.
I am conscious I have changed a lot on him within the last 3 weeks, like not BF to sleep, not feeding him every time he wakes etc, so dont want to throw too much at him, but I can't carry on like this for much longer. I am at breaking point.
I have tried to feed him more in the day, but it usually ends with him biting me as he wants to just play about. His bottom two teeth came in a month ago and I think they are bothering him again, but they seem to have been bad for two weeks now and no teeth. I use a teething gel before naps and then he gets a dose of ibuprofen before bed to try help with the discomfort.
Thanks for reading this far if you have made it, I appreciate it is pretty much our life story!
