Sleep sucks... Help me please:(

[pghtruelove]

Guys, I really don't know what do do about Js sleep. It's killing me. She doesn't go to bed until 9 at the earliest and only sleeps in MAYBE 2 hour stretches. Then after about 2-3am she will only sleep while attached to the boob. Also every time she wakes up she is just screaming bloody murder. I don't know how much more I can handle. And she is such a crab during the day so she cries for most of it. How do I get her to go to bed earlier and actually sleep. I fee lien the only way I'm going to do it is by weaning her from BFing. I'm scared to take that away though.

TLDR: J barely sleeps. Lots of screaming. SO and I are pretty much dying.

[beersandweirs]

This is very similar to how LO slept before sleep training. Obviously I am pro-sleep training, but if you think it is for you, I bet it will help immensely!

[pghtruelove]

Aug 24, 2016 13:58:21 GMT -5 beersandweirs said:

This is very similar to how LO slept before sleep training. Obviously I am pro-sleep training, but if you think it is for you, I bet it will help immensely!

We've tried sleep training. She literally screamed for 4 hours and when we went to pick her up finally she immediately fell asleep in SOs arms. When we tried to put her back down she started to scream again.

Edit to add: we did this for 5 nights and then gave up.

[veggiemo]

Have you tried co-sleeping? When LO goes through rough spots, I put him down in the crib (we have a 9pm bed time too) and then when he wakes, I just bring him in bed with us. He is usually happy about that and goes right back to sleep. When I was nursing I would side-nurse while we both slept.

Also, there have been times that LO has woken up screaming and had a hard time getting calm. Baby Einstein Lullaby on my tablet or phone was a god-send. He immediately recognizes the music and loves it. Do you have soft music playing in her room while she's asleep? I would try that too. Just play the same CD over and over so that if she wakes up, she will recognize the music and it might soothe her.

[jillywilly]

I'm so sorry you're dealing with shitty sleep, I know how draining it is. I'm not sure how much of this you've tried/done already, so I'm sorry if some isn't helpful, but here's what got us (relatively) decent sleep. SLeep training, or just teaching DS to fall asleep on his own helped with sleep a lot. I'm not sure if you have one already, but doing a very structured bedtime routine helped with getting him to bed on his own.

Then, our next step was teaching him to sleep without eating. We separated the bottle (or nursing in your case) from actually getting into bed by as much as possible in his bedtime routine - the last few nights we've actually just given him a snack and cut the last bottle completely. Then, overnight, either have your H go in and try to sooth, since he's not associated with nursing. We wound up decreasing the amount in DS' overnight bottles until he finally (hopefully!) seems to not wake up wanting the bottle anymore - I think the advice for breastfeeding when I was reading up on all this was to decrease the amount of time allowed to nurse. I think others have recommended this website on here before, but I'll paste it here, because I found it immensely helpful:

www.preciouslittlesleep.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/

Good luck - I hope you all get some rest soon!

[pghtruelove]

veggiemo we do cosleep. And I play music for sleeping all night. I can't sleep with her side nursing anymore because she uses her teeth and it's painful. She falls asleep biting me and then when I unlatch her she wakes up screaming.
Kristykristyleelee just googled and found a sleep consultant in my area. Will be contacting very soon!

[erbear]

There's a sleep consultant at kids plus pediatrics in squirrel hill/greenfield that people SWEAR by, dr. Wollyn. Maybe give them a call?

[mcp6286]

H didn't sleep well till we weaned her from night feeding. We left a bottle with water and a paci in her crib. She was really mad the first night when she went for the bottle but the next few nights she went right for the paci and fell back to sleep, then stopped waking all together.

FWIW our dr told us we had to do sleep training for a full week to know if it would be successful. We got lucky with H and our modified sleep training worked after 1 bad night, but maybe ask your pedi if you should give it another try for the full 7 nights? I know that's miserable but if it helps in the long run might be worth it. We also left H a blankie, lovie and like 5 pacis so she had all her soothing aids available to her.

As far as bedtime, we never let her nap past 4:00 no matter how miserable she is. We also found that the soothing bath-and-story routine does not work for her. Our crazy girl prefers a rousing game of chase-and-tickle lol. I give her a warning at the beginning of the game that we're going night-night soon, then we run her ragged for 20 mins, then I tell her to get her paci and blanket. I let her wander with those for 5-10 mins, then put her to bed. Our bedtimes have been much less awful since we started this. I know H and J are similar in a lot of ways, so maybe an alternate style bedtime routine would work for you too!

[pghtruelove]

We do have a routine. We eat dinner at 6, bath time, night time walk, nurse, read a book, and then SO rocks her to sleep. Also she is still taking, at least q nap a day for about an hour. We have been trying to get her not to drop the second nap but it's getting harder and harder.
During wake ups usually SO will try to rock her back to sleep but we hit a point where we are so tired nursing her back to sleep is all I can for us to get the tiniest amount of sleep.
erbear we have tried making an appointment with him but they want all of Js records and for some reason my pediatrician won't send them unless we are changing practices. We are switching to that practice for starting at our 18 month appt so I should just switch that all over sooner and get in to see him.

[pghtruelove]

Aug 24, 2016 14:57:22 GMT -5 @scoop said:

pghtruelove I mean a daily routine. Like wake, snack, nap, lunch snack, dinner.

We do have a daily routine. It does change sometimes if we are out somewhere but for the most part her routine is the same every day.

[pghtruelove]

erbear just called them. He is no longer seeing patients regularly but he is holding one of his sleep classes on Tuesday the 6th. Thanks for reminding me about him!

[pghtruelove]

Aug 24, 2016 15:04:40 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

What does your pediatrician say about this? Do you think she is getting quality sleep at night? Or is lack of sleep the reason she is always crying during the day?

Every time I have brought it up to our pedi he just says "oh let her scream until she falls asleep. No kid has ever died from crying." This is why we are switching peds, we feel like he never takes anything that we ask about her seriously. It's always oh she's just a smart kid.

[pghtruelove]

Aug 24, 2016 15:11:44 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

Aug 24, 2016 15:08:47 GMT -5 pghtruelove said:

Every time I have brought it up to our pedi he just says "oh let her scream until she falls asleep. No kid has ever died from crying." This is why we are switching peds, we feel like he never takes anything that we ask about her seriously. It's always oh she's just a smart kid.

Honestly I think he may just be trying to say that you shouldn't be running to her every whim at night. Which I agree with, but the way he said it was very dickish. It's so hard to do, I know, but honestly it is the only way she will learn to soothe herself without needing your boobs. I think if you can get her to learn that things would greatly improve.

Talking to SO I think we are going to give it another shot this week starting tonight. And make sure to more strict about our daily routine. Make sure she is always at home for nap time and make sure everything is to the same time every night. As much as I love nursing m, I do think it's time for us to end it, she is just too reliant on it(even during the day). Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I really really appreciate it!

[pghtruelove]

Aug 24, 2016 15:35:51 GMT -5 @jemomma said:

Aug 24, 2016 15:14:46 GMT -5 pghtruelove said:

Talking to SO I think we are going to give it another shot this week starting tonight. And make sure to more strict about our daily routine. Make sure she is always at home for nap time and make sure everything is to the same time every night. As much as I love nursing m, I do think it's time for us to end it, she is just too reliant on it(even during the day). Thank you everyone for your suggestions. I really really appreciate it!

If you really want to continue nursing then do it. I don't honk you necessarily need to stop all together just because you night wean her.

ETA major lol that my phone autocorrected think to honk when discussing boobs.

I do think it is time though. It's not just night time. She is constantly grabbing at my shirt and screaming because I won't nurse her. She has never used anything else other than my boobs for comfort. She never took a bottle or paci, and doesn't have anything like a stuffed animal or blanket that she has imprinted on. She literally uses my boobs as her stuffed animal. Also loling like crazy at your phone autocorrecting to honking.

[Deleted]

Do you use white noise or a loud fan? Do you have a night light?

[Deleted]

Also is she teething? Does she need tylenol or Advil before bed? The biting comment made me think teething.

[Deleted]

It sounds like we have similar babies but not the boob biting. Ouch. I would be done too.
I'm just co-sleeping so that we all get quality sleep so I don't really wake up when she wakes.

Eventually I need to bite the bullet and move her to her own room but she has no room at this point since we are using our 3rd bedroom as Hs office.

[stinybean]

I'm just popping in to say good luck pghtruelove! I have no extra advice that hasn't already been said.

[heartofglass]

We cosleep and I was able to wean A down to one night feeding. It was rough and a lot of crying but it has worked for the most part unless he's not feeling good or teething. I may have missed it, but is she teething?? Ibuprofen is a lifesaver for us.
He still wakes up a couple of times but he'll go back to sleep with a snuggle instead of a boob now. If it's after 2am he can nurse and that's it until 6-7.

[pghtruelove]

@poppyc8 no white noise but we play sleep music. It's what we have always played for her. Maybe we will try white noise and see how that goes.
Yes to a night light. And yes to teething right now but this has pretty much been her sleeping habits for months. Just right now is worse(probably because of the teething).
We are setting up her room tomorrow to make it a nice space instead of the storage that it is now. And I think we are going to try sleep training again.

[Bluedaisy]

This might be a stupid suggestion but have you tried an earlier bedtime so she's not so overtired.

[Deleted]

Sounds good. Maybe she is finding the music too stimulating compared to just ambient noise. Try setting up her room and doing the entire bedtime routine in there after a bath. Then she can start to feel comfortable in there. Right now she probably is attached to your room as her comfort zone.

Teething sucks. I hate it!!!!

[periwinkledaydreams]

Hugs pghtruelove. I'm almost scared to even type out my comment just because we had such terribly similar terrible sleep up until very recently. Minus the boob (we stopped bf at 5 ish months) and sub in rocking, pacifier replacing, hours of snuggling, we were just barely racking up a few hours a night. Right around the time we switched from bottles to sippy cups, it started improving. I went straight to a sippy before bed, and no milk overnight, where she had been getting a bottle to sleep and a bottle at any "bad" waking (like she was waking so many times each night but giving her back her paci would work for some of them, if we made it there in time, others she would not relax at all until we gave the bottle).

For us cutting bottles completely made a huge difference. We also modified her night routine (much like mcp6286 said) to where we do bath straight after dinner then some wild playtime in the living room. She seems to wind down much better by burning off that last bit of energy rather than by quiet time. We call it loopy time. I basically let her play happily until she's not happy anymore and I know she's ready for sleep. Sippy of milk, books (2 books always, one of her choice and one is the same every single night) then we say goodnight to her room and her light, and lights out. I still hold her to sleep and put her down sleeping, but that time sitting there has gotten progressively shorter and shorter, and last night I put her down awake for the first time ever and she put herself to sleep. *knocks on all the wood*

She still wakes up some in the night but I never lift her up from the crib. If she cant find her paci herself she'll whine til I give it back to her. I don't know what advice to give here since your J doesn't take a paci, and cutting out picking her up was hard enough but so helpful eventually.

I know I just wrote a novel with not much advice but mostly to say that I FEEL YOU and it will eventually get better, so please dont feel hopeless. I know how hopeless I felt about sleep even just a month ago. Its been rough and a lot of slow changes over time, paying attention to details, and it was hard work for us here. You've gotten a lot of great advice and anecdotes here, I hope it all helps. And I'm so glad you have a sleep expert resources I'm sure that will be amazing!

[pghtruelove]

Bluedaisy we have tried that. No matter what time we try to put her down its never until at least 9 that she falls asleep. And she wakes up at 730 everyday.
Edit to add: our goal is to get to sleeping by 8 every night and we just end up rocking her forever.

[blueskiessmiling]

Good luck tonight, pghtruelove. I think everyone else pretty much covered everything. In terms of trying to consolidate naps, I do something that is probably against advice but works for us: I push DD to stay awake until after lunch before she takes any naps (and she's an early riser, so that's a stretch). Since she won't nap long, this pretty much makes it equal time periods between waking for the day and nap, then waking from nap and bedtime. She seems to both fall asleep and stay asleep better that way.

Then again, her sleep isn't exactly consistent, so I'm certainly no expert in this area.

[pghtruelove]

@jemomma you were so right. She still slept in bed last night but I didn't nurse her and every time she woke up she went back to sleep faster than the last. Still a lot of wake ups but I feel like I got more sleep. Anyways, thanks everyone for your help, hopefully over he next week-2 weeks things will get a lot better!

[maddielynn321]

I'm glad to that you had some improvement last night! Yay! I hope she adjusts quickly and you can get some real sleep!!

[shahoi]

I'm glad that last night was an improvement on sleep for you, and that your first night without nursing was successful. I hope it continues!