It is quite literally doing my head in. The sleep deprivation is bad enough (wakes virtually every hour, feeds every 2) but now has developed the need to shout and scream whenever indoors. And he is loud. Just spent a week away with some nct families and their babies sounded like guinea pigs squeking in comparison. I am sat here with head phones on trying to drown the noise dreading bed time. Oh and otherwise he seems happy and healthy 92percentile doing all the stuff he should. Wife insists he is to young too do snything about it. Refuses controlled crying and wont suggest any viable alternate

I wish I had good news for you but the best I can say is it will pass but the only issue is how long it takes

My eldest was about 4 when he stopped. Get help from family so you can get sleep now and again

Spare room and ear plugs.

I don’t want to worry you, but you may want to think about getting the child’s hearing tested.

Play the Carpenters to the devil child and leave them to scream for a bit. They’ll fall asleep eventually and they’ll soon get out of the habit of every time they scream they get something.

We currently have a 6 month old ruling the house, with a bit of sleep training we managed to get to a point where she wakes once or twice a night, sometimes sleeps through. Before that we were up all the time, it’s bloody awful. Is the baby in the room with you? +1 for the earplugs and a spare room, we did that when it was bad no point in martyring yourself.

Our first wasn’t a good sleeper. We eventually tried controlled crying and after a week or so it worked a treat and she got into a nice routine with sleep. Doesn’t work for everyone, you have to be disciplined and it upset my wife initially, but worth a go.

Ours falls asleep while he’s feeding, as soon as he stirs and realises that he’s not on the boob any more then he’s awake and screaming the house down.

The solution thus far is to wake him up before we put him down to sleep, it then takes 5-10 mins (now, when we started it was 30-60) of me sitting next to his cot trying to soothe him without picking him up.

Then it’s a dream feed when we go to bed and generally that’ll see him go from 11 to 6-7am.

THankfully my 5 year old sleeps like the dead and no amount of her brother screaming will wake her up

He is in his own room, from 4 months. I spent the first 3 months on the sofa. He can be heard through ear plugs (and my noise cancelling headphones) even if we are downstairs. It is even worse for my wife she hasnt had more than 3hrs in a row since birth but i cant get her to do anything different and it just ends up getting close to a row. Nearly walked out a couple of times now and just got a bb. Selfish i know but it really is getting to that stage.

It passes. Our first went 8 months. Number 2 is 7 months in and not there yet, but were coup ng better.

You’re not alone.

but were coup ng better.

Couping better – dinnae do that you’ll have another one. 😉

Our first (now 2yrs) was pretty bad with sleep, at about 6/7 months she learnt to sleep from about 7pm till 2am, then up again at 7am
She was seriously tricky to get to sleep from birth until about a year, she would scream and scream for anything up to 90minutes , regardless of whether she was held or put into cot

Thankfully she now sleeps through 6.30 till 6.30 and won’t wake up for anything before 6am, dead to the world
As others have said, it isn’t much help to say it but it will get better
If you’re that concerned, speak to your health visitor or even the GP

We’ve just started round 2, with a newborn currently 4 weeks old. Sleep is pretty irregular, she’s pretty hard to put down, and likes to scream in your face when you try and help :/

Our little dude started to sleep through quite early, then at about six months started to get restless, as we were bottle feeding we upped his food and it settled him, I know it’s not easy if breastfeeding but it might be worth adding a little more with a bottle to get them.to settle.

I don’t want to worry you, but you may want to think about getting the child’s hearing tested.

+ 1, you need to rule out pain and/or discomfort as well. Perhaps see the GP?

I’m going through a bit of the same thing. Mines 10 months old. Has slept badly from 6 months. Getting very tiresome waking every hour or hour and a half from midnight. I look like a zombie a lot of the time. Going to look into sleep training but gf is adamant we aren’t going down the controlled crying route

Have you been through the possible health issues is reflux / hearing etc etc.

Are you both too soft ? Ie when Jnr starts crying does one of you go to Jnr straight away and Jnr stops crying ?

Why don’t you get your wife to express so she can get some decent sleep ?

Controlled crying and start weaning. You need to start ignoring him a bit.
If teething dentinox is your friend.

We suffered this for some time with #2 as he was demand feeding and mum didn’t want to do controlled crying this time around. Eventually I put my foot down and insisted that we did. A solid stint of rigid routine did the trick with him and after a week or so he was sleeping much better.

Edit – of course, all babies are not equal. Good luck.

Sorry to labour the point, but please have your child tested for possible deafness as soon as you can. There are other things, as CG says, but extremely loud crying is an early sign.

Six months is still very young. In our experience it can take up to eighteen months for things to properly settle down..not what you to hear I’m sure.

If things get really rough, stick locks on the windows..so you cannot throw him/her out when you go really doolally from sleep deprivation… 😀

Problem isn’t going to sleep, its staying asleep – all of the methods I’ve read focus on getting them to sleep not keeping them there. We had to use a dummy early on (cracked after 4 days off constant crying). Dummy comes out, he wakes screaming the house down, virtually instant sleep once it is returned within 30seconds or so, any later melt down so my wife now launches herself out of bed to get to him in time…. Generally he has 3-4 feeds a night. Started weaning and he is happy eating 3 icecubes of stuff twice a day but still wants the night food.

The daytime screaming / shouting has been the last 3 weeks, so now you get 3-4 hours broken sleep and then have to deal with shouting (not crying) all day.

Hearing wise, he was checked when first born and I’ve checked using rattles and the like and he turns his head to the side of the noise without any bother
, so I am confident thats okay. He seems happy, smiles, plays, getting bigger etc… been checked and weighed every month.

Someone has suggested a cranial osteopath (or something like that) not sure how that could help, but at this point worth giving it a try.

Re express, we tried that, caused issues to start with, he will on occasion take it. Basically our routine is now he goes down (absolutely fine) after bathtime around 7. Wife goes to bed around 8. I do the dummy runs 7 – 11ish. Generally he feeds at 9ish and 11ish. From the 11 feed wife takes over. I then pick him up in the morning from 6.30-7 till 8.30 so she can get some sleep. Typically I’ll get 4-5 hrs, wife will get 3-4.

Calpol

My professional view is that babies are shits sent to try us…
Yet we keep on having them..odd isn’t it!

Both our kids (5 and nearly 1) were for want of a better word, awful.
Like, really horrible.

Up until about 7 months old.

Then they become lovely.
Really lovely.
(then teeth come through…but don’t read that bit)

It’ll get better. Don’t shake the thing. Walk away (probably NOT to a B+B, but just walk away from the devil child) to calm yourself down. The urge to wrap the thing in a hessian sack and find a canal has been present in all of us at some point…

Speak with people, moan, winge – it all helps..

DrP

Someone has suggested a cranial osteopath (or something like that) not sure how that could help, but at this point worth giving it a try.

Seriously?

Like others have said..see the GP if you wish or the cranial person.
Have to say though..seems that many people kinda forget the early period once they’ve been through it and it’s not discussed much.

It really is a difficult time..I hated it. Really tough on all concerned. But, it does get better. Just not as quickly as you’ll want unfortunately…good luck to you…

Hearing wise, he was checked when first born and I’ve checked using rattles and the like and he turns his head to the side of the noise without any bother

Ah, good stuff then, glad to hear it.

It’s hard – The hardest thing you’ll ever do I believe.
It all sounds very familiar (the crying, the 3/4 hours of broken sleep per night) and you’re probably sick of hearing it but it *does* get better.
As they get older they change – Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse.
I found at 10 months ours started to get better and start going through the night. We’d solve one “problem” for it only to be replaced with another. Little Chojin is coming up for his second birthday and his current “challenge” is he just refuses to eat anything other than plain pasta!

Kids. They constantly keep you on your toes and they constantly keep you guessing.

Bear with it, they become *immense* amounts of fun (whilst still retaining that ability to push your buttons!).

+ 1, you need to rule out pain and/or discomfort as well. Perhaps see the GP?

+2

Acid reflux, for example, will cause pain/discomfort and can affect their feeding meaning they don’t take enough and get hungry again quickly.

6 months is weaning time, try loading the nipper up with baby porridge before bedtime, then maybe a bottle of night time formula.

New born checks and indeed later checks do not necessarily rule out poor hearing. My son from a very young age had ENT problems and this included regular ear infections, swollen tonsils and inflamed adenoids. It was not picked up by the health visitor, we pushed for investigation and it was actually a child psychologist who diagnosed him as soon as she walked into the room.

Please do not ignore it.

You have my sympathy, it’s really hard- but does get easier.
My eldest screamed literally all night through from 7 pm to 6 am until he was 3 months old, and then things started improving. I took him for cranial osteopathy and it seemed to work (either that or huge coincidence), but he had a difficult birth (spine to spine position) and was born with a slightly mis-shaped head with a massive bruise. The osteopath very gently manipulated his head, the idea being that if the bones of the cranium haven’t quite settled back into position it can cause pain.
Also, hearing your own child crying gets to you much more than someone else’s. My sister’s little boy is 18 months old and a terrible sleeper. They tried controlled crying but said it didn’t work and he was getting too upset. Mr pea and I visited recently and did controlled crying on him. It involved 4 visits to his room each to reassure him over half an hour and then he was sound asleep- and went straight to bed no problem the next night. Interestingly, while Mr Pea and I heard a tired grumpy boy, my sister heard a very distressed child.

acidchunks – Member
+2

Acid reflux, for example, will cause pain/discomfort and can affect their feeding meaning they don’t take enough and get hungry again quickly.

I would imagine he is getting enough grub if he’s 92nd percentile!

Crap innit?

I’m with the docs opinion up there – they are hard wired to sit twanging the last nerve you had left to get focus on them, from the day they are born.

You are not alone, it does end.

(Our eldest took two and a half years of less than an hours sleep at a time….)

Sleep training – it sounds mean and harsh but many little babies need to be taught how to go to sleep. You can either wait till it happens or teach it. Mums find it hard. Takes up to three days and six months is perfect time to start. We had to do it, we have twins and somebody would have died if we didn’t. We spent the money and got Alison Scott Wright in. It cost a fortune but when she left our girls we sleeping 11-12 hours each night!!!!! Just do it!

if part of the issue is him waking if the room he is in warm enough? our little dude tends to have bad nights when its cooler in our room.

not sure it explains all the loud crying but it might be worth ruling out, good luck!

Speak to the health visitor double quick. They can get the experts in to help. We had a child psychiatrist help and she was great. The long and short of it was if you go in to your child every time they cry then they think something must be wrong with themselves.

Remember to look after yourself and share each of you getting a decent nights sleep.

perhaps he’s feeding off his parents anxiety because of the sleep deprivation and whilst you appear calm you’re not which he’s picking up on !

this went on in our household and the minute the said person rolled with it the baby also became calmer…

it was me by the way and was with our second child.

A. Controlled crying and the disappearing chair routine. It broke our baby quick. Went from no sleep and bed sharing for 8 months to a baby who settles without a whimper in his own room in seconds. Self soothes if he wakes. Now sleeps in til 0630-0700 aged one. Literally a kiss goodnight and door closed until morning.

B. Our son is loud and demanding if indoors all day. Sounds daft but a trip out in the car or pushchair makes him happy. If he’s in the lounge all day he gets bored and creates noise and tears. Loves being out and about.

The first 8 months killed me. Now it’s a doddle in comparison.

Eat
Activity
Sleep
Your time (when he/she sleeps)

No baby is the same, but we (humans) do like routine.

Don’t let them sleep straight after eating, keep them active a little while (may only be a short time) before they go to sleep.
I’m sure you are doing all the right things, as the Doc says, they are sent to try us, and push us to our limits, but it does get easier (sort of) and may even tempt you to have another! (probably something you couldn’t even think of now)

The problem with kids is everyones a **** expert.

Whilst I appreciate that every single person here is speaking from experience the thing is every child is different. And they go through phases. Oh the phases. Controlled crying did sod all for ours. As did a lot of the fads. We just let her get on with things and she sorted herself out. Do I think this will work for you? Bugger knows.

Sadly this is your reality and you need to find your own way. It might be something you read here, and I sincerely hope so, but equally it might be something else.

What I can comfort you with is that it WILL get better. It may take a long time but it will all be worth it. I have been there and got the t-shirt, just make sure you are there for each other(and family too for both your sakes) and you will get past it. All the best…

Can’t really add much except to say that sweajnr was a nightmare until probably 9 months. At about 6 months  controlled crying really helped but was very tough on sweamrs. Even at 18 months routine is key.

And as per the above it does get better and baby chuckles at 18 months make it all much better (although not enough yet to think about a 2nd)