Sleep depravation

HashSlinging

We're now onto our 5th month of sleepless nights with our 5 month old baby girl. I think were both gonna crack up if we dont get some sleep soon, has anyone got any ideas of how to get a baby into a routine, we've tried baths, bottles & bed etc but with this little angle nothing seems to work. I refuse to go down the wiskey trail before anyone suggests it. :P any experienced mums or dads out there want to share some nuggets with us....zz.zzz..z.zzz see you at 3:30am

denissilver

A few questions
Are you bottle feeding-If you make the middle of the night feed a bit offputting for the child they start to sleep right through.The best way to do it is no talking /cuddling/stroking/ in other words completly different to normal.
Have you tried taking the child into your bed.I know all the books say dont do this but as long as you take a few precautions i.e no alcohol/duvet down/child in middle you should be fine.Some times you just need sleep and feck the rules When your up for work you need to relax so good luck

CJhaughey

We co-slept for ages with our boy now 13mths , and TBH it was a lot more convenient, are you Breastfeeding? my wife was and she found it a lot easier to roll over and let him feed for a while.
Co-sleeping is a very natural thing most people do it but won't admit it..
You would be amazed at what parents do in their sleep, pulling the covers up to cover junior, adjusting their position etc

HashSlinging

She's bottle fed and yup we have both tried the blank look, and co sleeping, and sometimes that works, but othertimes (more often) she wont have any of it ... We are thinking of bringing it up with the health nurse... doctors are crap with this type of thing.

niallb

Hi H,
I feel for you!
You've got to realise that you've entered a new phase of your relationship with sleep.
It'll never be quite the same again.
There's plenty you can do to make it easier on all of you though.
Your little girl is nearly old enough to get the idea of a routine,
but with both of you so frazzled, you may find it hard to make it happen.

A few questions to add to denissilver's:
Has she any teeth?
What time do you try to put her down "for the night"?
How much room do you have?
What's the work situation like in terms of daytime/nighttime?
What are the most important hours for you to get sleep?
How much sleep can you get by on and be happy?
How much sleep are you getting?
When our first was born, we were sharing a house with a few friends,
and we asked them not to try to be extra quiet for his sake.
He soon got used to not being disturbed by noises at least.
We lost a lot of sleep with him anyway, and discovered later
he had reflux, and got tummy ache if we put him down too fast
or picked him up too fast. Take some notes on what seems to
help her sleep, and what makes her wake up. Is she hungry, lonely,
windy? Has she got a sore bum? When they start teething, all
the extra saliva can give them terrible nappy rash, even if they've never had it before.

At this stage, you're probably extra anxious when you're trying to
get her to sleep, and she'll pick up on that.

Straightaway, you need to get some sleep yourselves.
If you can, make every second night a sleep night for you or your partner.
At first, you'll feel a bit guilty when you hear the other getting up,
or staying up, but over the course of a few weeks, it'll make a big difference.
Get a babysitter. Not so that you can go out, but so that you can get some sleep together.
Is there anyone who's good with babies who'd stay overnight with you
to let this happen? If there is, have them around to play with her a couple of times beforehand, so that she knows them well.
Even if not overnight, if someone could be there for 4 or 5 hours
it's more than you're probably getting.

Does your girl sleep much during the day? At 5 months, she probably does, but you can be tempted to let her sleep longer once she's asleep just to get a break, and that works against you at night.
A nugget here if you like is when you're minding her, if she falls
asleep, go to sleep yourself immedately :-) I know there's loads to do,
but you can do it when she wakes up, and she'll enjoy lots of things going on around her.

Getting her into a waking routine rather than a sleeping routine
can be an easier first step, because it's more fun.
We found an evening bath (with Johnsons chamomile baby oil) to be a great help, and a friend gave us a book on baby massage which turned out to work really well too.
Plenty of fresh air during the day also makes a big difference to how soundly kids sleep. Not so easy at this time of year.

When you have your own routine and are getting some sleep yourselves,
even if it's not every night, you'll be better prepared to sort her routine.

I sometimes took our son out for a drive in the middle of the night
to let my girlfriend get uninterrupted sleep. You'd be amazed at the number of people driving around the Phoenix Park at night in pyjamas.

We also used to try to get our son to fall asleep and then put him to bed quietly - that didn't work. Eventually, putting him to bed awake,and saying goodnight after a story and then leaving worked best.
There were tears and screaming at first, but it didn't last long (about 10 days), and as we got a bit of rest we were all happier.

You can read them stories from any age, they love hearing your voice,
and you might find she even falls asleep during it.

We were so wasted that ours was nearly a year old when we got around to leaving him go to sleep on his own.
The big idea behind this is that if they wake in the night, they no longer need you to get back to sleep. We'd only one bedroom, so we moved into the living room and got a futon.
Six months is a better age to try it, as your little angel won't have
quite as much energy to stay awake accusingly at you.

When that worked, and we found we were expecting another, we went
"Grand so, sleep routine from the word go! We can be tough and listen to some screaming for a few days." It is awful when you're going through it, but we know now How it's Done.

Then we had twins, and at the first squeak, we were rushing in to pick
one up before she'd wake the other one. Sometimes we'd make it,
and sometimes our son would wander in an hour later and ask us was there any chance we could stop the babies crying as he was trying to sleep. I'm guessing this is your first, though there's always the possibility it's just the first that won't sleep.

When teething kicks in, your poor kid is going to have a hard time sleeping. I endorse a product called Dozol for this at night, though we used Teetha the rest of the time.

denissilver speaks the truth above though, everyone takes
their kids into bed at some stage. I've seriously considered tying a
single bed to the side of our bed to make more room after waking up
a few times with 5 humans,a large dog and a cat crammed into it.

In some ways this is the hardest part, by the time se's 14, you won't see her before noon if she can help it :-)

Good luck,
NiallB

luckat

All that NiallB says. And when she's 14, prepare for the tragic Joycean cry of "Nobody *understands* me!" and the door slamming behind her, too.

Is the babby using a dummy? Apart from the fact that it's much safer -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4509240.stm Dummies reduce cot death risk

- it's also very comforting to a baby to have something to suckle on.

Now, the other thing is that you need to get into a routine, and be a bit stern with yourselves about it. At whatever time the baby goes to bed, you need to do *the same things, in the same order, taking the same amount of time*, every single evening.

At, let's say, 7.30, you put on a particular CD. May I suggest Dinu Lipatti playing Chopin waltzes? Or Mozart's Flute and Harp Concerto? Don't choose something twee and Disneyish, because you're going to start to hate it after a few hundred plays, and it's important to use the same CD always.

Give her the evening feed, with the lights down low, and no conversation between adults.

Now, the baby goes into a warm bath with a few drops of lavender, and the bathroom lights down low. There's gentle, calm washing and drying - no rowdy play; if she gets rowdy, just look away, and when she calms down, smile gently and look back at her.

Put the jammies on and wash the teethies gently with a soft toothbrush if she has any. (If her gums are sore, don't go near them, obviously.)

Now bring her up to a warmed cradle and put her in. Give her the dummy and sit with her, rocking her and reading (again in dim light) for 15 minutes. Then go out and leave her, without making a big deal of it.

If you do this every evening, at the same time, for the same duration, two things will happen: she'll start having a physical *and* mental association between that particular music and that particular routine and sleepiness, and you'll all calm down about it too.

While she's so little, it might be an idea to have her cradle beside the bed, so you can just reach out a sleepy hand and plug a soother in if she half-wakes.

And if she's given a night feed, maybe bring a little fridge into the room for the ready-made bottle (if she's not on the breast), and the bottle-warmer, so she doesn't have to be taken out and into bright light to feed her.

Even if she's on the breast, you can always teach her how to suck from a bottle too, so night feeds can be given by a non-breast-wearing parent type every second night.

Finally, both parents should try to arrange to take a half-hour snooze at some stage during the day if it's at all possible - I know this is difficult for working people, though.

Don't worry. This is a stage. It will pass. You will sleep again.

Hobbes

If you do this every evening, at the same time, for the same duration, two things will happen: she'll start having a physical *and* mental association between that particular music and that particular routine and sleepiness, and you'll all calm down about it too.

Thats what we did with our Son. We had a toy that plays music and set it off always at bedtime and whenever heard then sound he would fall asleep. It did eventually wear off though but now he sleeps almost the night through.

Another thing we were told was to not tip-toe around the child when is sleeping. Or they get used to the silence and then any noise will wake them.


1. Find some toy that plays music. Always play it when its time to go to bed. The child gets conditioned to go to sleep when they hear the sound. Worked for my son up until he was around

hallelujajordan

I highly recommend you buy "The contented little baby book" by Gina Ford . .

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0091882338/qid=1134634167/sr=8-1/ref=pd_ka_1/203-0879870-0959949

This book gives fantastic advice for getting babies into a routine . . we have two girls (2 and a half and 9 months) and we continue to use Gina Ford's advice on both of them . . Neither have ever had a problem with sleep (Touch Wood !!)

hillybilly

You poor things, you have my fullest sympathy. I had that for 3 months. I used to meet my husband on the stairs quite regularly, him going to work and me going to bed!

We tried EVERYTHING! We took advice from anyone prepared to give it and nothing worked. My mother had 9 children and even she was stumped. We tried the routine, the baby books, keeping her awake during the day (what a nightmare that was, she ended up cranky and so did we), changing her to milk for hungrier babies (she drank alot of bottles at night) and nothing worked.

We didn't go out for those 3 months as I didn't think it would be fair to expect someone to mind her when she didn't sleep. We had her christened at 3 months. My sister (her godmother) wanted to mind her that night so we could have a much needed night out. I came home at 3.30am expecting to see her wide awake and full of life but she was fast asleep. She drank a bottle at 11pm and hadn't stirred since.

From that night on she started going to sleep earlier and earlier and eventually we got her to bed at about 8pm, for the whole night. I'm sure the christening was a coincidence, but I'll just say, even if nothing else works, the baby will settle into it's own routine eventually. I know it's no help, but you're not alone. Keep the chin up, kids are well worth it!