My youngest daughter who is nine has a sleeping disorder which means she can only sleep for two hours at a time and suffers from sever self harm when she is awake.

(Just settled her for the third time tonight)

Cannot offer any advice as I know all children are different and some specific advice i could give would be good for some but not others.

Speak with your health visitor, chances are if you are lucky she has had multiple experience and might be able to come up with some good advice and help.

In my experience getting your partner who has different opinions to change is your hardest challenge and one of your most stressful things to overcome together.

Good luck

(5.30am here, going back to bed for hopefully 2 hours) 😉

Put ‘return to sender’ on it. If the supplier says it’s none returnable, state that the product is faulty and not what was stated in the offer.

Or exchange for a better model

Well, he is currently bouncing up and down in the jumperroo looking happy but you can tell he is knackered. Needed settling every 30mins last night, so actually worse than usual. Wife is hopefully getting some much needed rest despite the noise down here.

Our experience of health visitors has been mixed. All nice, but the advice is always. It’s a phase. It will pass. Which whilst maybe it is true doesn’t help much when you need something to help cope. We will try again. And the docs after.

Family aren’t really much help to be honest, too far away so it is just us.

Temperature is an interesting one. He seems fine, warm core but often cold hands as they are outside of the sleeping bag. May try turning the heating up a little. And definitely think the bored thing is right we take him out everyday but that doesn’t seem enough. I’m going to get a trailer for Xmas and cycle him around the park I reckon that would help him calm down and give my wife a break.

Really sucks at the moment. Last week was the first time if I’m honest I properly “enjoyed” being a dad, when I had him in his carrier on a swing and could hear him giggling away. Luckily we have a good photo, so I’m going to print it out to remind me it isn’t all rubbish.

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.

Our 2nd had a habit of falling asleep with his evening feed. Then being distressed when he woke in his cot. He would be unsettled through the night, waking frequently, crying out loudly. Two factors seemed to help, the first may not be relevant to you if exclusively breast feeding. Getting the right mix of formulas to agree with him. One scoop either way in the mix and he seemed to suffer. Secondly was to always wake him after the night feed before putting him to bed. This taught him to self settle when alone in his cot and removed any anxiety and disorientation when he woke in the cot during the night as he knew that was where he was when he went to sleep. This made a big difference for us. YMMV as said by SK above, every child is different and you have to find what works/what the issue is with yours.

my eldest used to sleep but once he woke that was it

Walks around town late at night to stop him waking the street and just to get a bit of peace

IME none of the methods worked and it was just very hard work to get through this- never really did he just became old enough to not have to get up with him at stupid o clock and he was less demanding when staying up
TBH he is not much better now but he does know how to turn the play station on and mute the tv so its much more managable

Last week was the first time if I’m honest I properly “enjoyed” being a dad, when I had him in his carrier on a swing and could hear him giggling away. Luckily we have a good photo, so I’m going to print it out to remind me it isn’t all rubbish.

Getting to the age now were you will get more and more of those rewarding times. Our youngest survived the hessian sack and canal stage (just) and it a right little character who is fun to have around (most of the time). He’s been building huge duplo towers this morning, I thinking lego technic for his 2nd birthday, and scalextric of course 😉

its true the early times you just have a thing that wants food and is incredibly demanding
you dont see any personality or any of them

This changes massively over time

Ok off to bleed brakes with the kids

Controlled crying – what’s that??? Also, what’s the advice these days re where baby sleeps?

Controlled Crying.
Well, with my 4yo Daughter, once she starts, it’s a threaten to put her in the cupboard, unless she stops.
It works.
To me, that’s controlled crying.

To add. When she starts, she just. Doesn’t. Stop.
And then everything is wrong.
We say the cupboard, she’s never been in there (when crying) but often goes in to play.

Have you tried different sleeping positions, our little dude was restless at three weeks old and wouldn’t settle in his moses basket, out of desperation one night I put him in his big cot, still wouldn’t settle and I flipped him onto his tum, and he’s slept like a log on his tum since.

In case anyone looks back on this… Last week he just seemed to suddenly start sleeping through. Seems to have coincided with him starting to crawl. Maybe he is tiring himself out. That and we now literally feed him from 5.30 to 6.30 so he is full. Still shouts his head off when he isn’t getting what he wants. But, it is all much easier when you’ve had a nights sleep. Fingers crossed this isn’t just a false alarm and we go back to waking every hour next week!

Hope it has got better for the others that responded to this thread who were having a tough time.

Good job

sleepless nights suck…
Glad things are getting better for you. We had two years of canal wavering!
Just having another week of disrupted nights due to his highness moving to his own bedroom!AAAGHHHHH.

In case anyone looks back on this… Last week he just seemed to suddenly start sleeping through.

Glad to hear it. Certainly with my eldest, there was no rhyme or reason as to why she went from a little angel to a foul-tempered non-sleeping horror, then back to an angel again. At least with no.2 we knew that it would pass.

Mine are 4 & 2 now, and it’s way easier than looking after a young baby.

We’re finding the threenager quite a bit more difficult than the terrible two-er.

Either that or he’s a late developer. 🙂

EDIT: glad the OP’s life is getting a bit easier. As much as it’s not very helpful at the time, most of the difficult stuff is a phase. It passes. You (hopefully) forget about it and then move on to the next thing. Love it all really. 😀

Our lad was similar – we went to a cranial osteopath and he was fantastic; almost overnight transformation. Do your research and find one that is recommended as some friends have been to awful ones (when they went to ours their kids were better too).

Also, a God send to us was white noise. We downloaded an app onto an old iPhone and put on in his room if he woke during the night. Did two things; helped him back to sleep and also stopped him from waking again.

He’s now 2 weeks shy of 12 months and sleeps from 7pm through to 7am 🙂

I never believed it at your stage, but it does get better.

Has anyone mentioned teething yet? I can just about remember rubbing teething powder (baby coke) into gums and trying expensive teething necklaces in desperation!!

I remember that our first (November 2009) slept for “enough” time from about 10 weeks, but I’m not sure how reliable my memory is… I think that, as a parent, you tend to forget the worst recollections of losing sleep etc!

Rather than just look at the OP’s core issue, it may be helpful to also focus on the little things to help you feel more relaxed as parents. Unlike a baby, you can control these things… and every little helps!

Try:

– Classic FM / Radio 3 on the whole time;
– No telly / screens in bedrooms;
– Minimal / lights off when it’s dark outside;
– Sunday papers in bed (last the whole week);
– A good book at your bedside;
– Mint / herbal tea;
– Keeping your own bedding, beds and night clothes comfortable and fresh;
– Good, healthy food;
– Online food shopping (Ocado etc);
– Keeping the house tidy, bins emptied, washing done etc;
– Short (30-60 minute) bike rides.

You’ll have your own idea of the small things that are important to you around the house. Do them. 🙂

Regarding cranial osteopathy, I’m not aware of any independent evidence that it works.

We went from this to a full nights sleep after one night of controlled crying with our first kid. Formula before bed to stodge up a bit. Ours was 9 months old at the time.

For our kid controlled crying worked but it was hard and you really need both parents to be 100% on board with it as it is a test of wills. If your Mrs isn’t up for it she will either hate you or give in, probably both.

Regarding cranial osteopathy, I’m not aware of any independent evidence that it works.

+1

Same goes for a lot of colic “remedies”…infacol, etc. From the various reading I did about these things, lots of them are described as placebo for parents.

My oldest was like the guinea pig kids that you describe, he used to make a cute ribbetting noise when he was hungry and the rest of the time was just chuckles and gurgles..

Our second son had an ear splitting wail that was constant when he was awake, which like yourselves was most of the time.. It was a total shock and unbearable..
I was the main childcare provider, and dealt with the problem 24/7 so that my wife could sleep and work..

The mechanics st important thing you can do here is offer support and relief for each other.. Get family and friends to offer respite..

It destroyed our relationship.. The outlandish behaviour didn’t stop, it was just in his nature..
He is still making constant noise during every waking moment, but he has a very advanced vocabulary, a wicked sense of humour and is very cute and loving so at just approaching 4 years old his character is more entertaining than torturous..

His mum held me responsible, threw herself into her work to the extent that she was not at home whilst he was awake, and refused to acknowledge that I was on the point of a nervous breakdown after nearly two years with no sleep and extreme noise terror.. It was hard for her to imagine, with her relatively good sleep pattern and 14 hours per day peace and quiet at work.. She refused to accept that I was struggling, and refused to consider changing her work commitments to prioritise the disaster that was happening at home.. It was not doing our oldest son much good either..
We separated permanently which was a great move as we now split responsibility for the children equally with three days respite in between

I don’t know what to suggest, but rest assured that these kids develop an enormous fun personality, if you don’t kill them first

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

My son is 85th centile and very very active (crawling at 5 months, from 7 months walking along furniture) so its actually pretty tough to get enough food into him, we have been advised to feed him 5 times a day and each sitting should be ~ 45minutes to get enough food into him… which as I’m sure people can imagine is tough (he is breastfed + weaning)

Controlled crying seems tough at 6 months as I’m not sure they can rationalize at that age; as aren’t babies still learning about cause and effect.

Sleep wise, some seem to sleep others don’t in my NCT group, only the small 5->12th centile babies sleep through most of the time and the big active boys are still horrors (mine goes to bed at 7pm, wakes at 9pm, feed at 11pm, wakes at 2am, feed at 5am, wakes and up at 7am)

Same goes for a lot of colic “remedies”…infacol, etc. From the various reading I did about these things, lots of them are described as placebo for parents.

It makes me quite angry actually – peddling snake oil to people who will try anything because they’re at their wits’ end.

If baby is moving onto some foods, try replacing the last pre-bedtime feed with rusk or baby porridge. Helps baby stay full and satisfied. That way you may get at least 4-5 hours of undisturbed sleep.

It makes me quite angry actually

Infacol is the one that really pisses me off. It does nothing. But it gets pushed on everybody and nobody stops to have a think about whether it works or not. And I see it in home after home with babies. We even bought it ourselves…wit’s end…turned out what we thought was wind ended up with 2 weeks in hospital with serious condition but that’s another story…

If you have a minute or two…have a read of this blog.

In terms of teething we also found that rubbing (under the recommended dose) of calpol into the area around emerging teeth had a really positive effect. Only did this when it was particularly uncomfortable for baby though.

It makes me quite angry actually – peddling snake oil to people who will try anything because they’re at their wits’ end.

You are not alone!

Calpol and Brufen got us through teething. Dosed to the max. 😀 At least we know those two things work.

(To be fair, when he was in hospital at 7-9 weeks, it was quite frightening how much pain medication they could actually give.)

One thing which may be stating the obvious is are you taking the baby off your other half for a few hours a day so she can get away from the noise/constant demands?

Also are you keeping an eye on her for postnatal depression, as if its doing your head in and you aren’t hiding it, then it will be putting more pressure on her, which may cause her to feel she is failing in some way or another as a mother.

This won’t help with the crying but will help with rational discussion, and will give her a break, plus you might find the baby acts very differently when away from his mother and you will be able to enjoy spending time with your child a bit more.

Infacol is the one that really pisses me off. It does nothing. But it gets pushed on everybody

This.

My wife was recommended Infacol…had no effect and it was actually our doctor who said not to bother with it as the “active ingredient” had been removed in 2005 IIRC. The active ingredient being alcohol! She said it’s essentially just water.

I guess knackered and desperate parents are easy targets 😥

Shit Son, ours didn’t sleep for more than 3 hours for 5 months and I thought that was bad, I was day dreaming about beds high in Alpine forests by the end of it and frankly shouldn’t have been driving.

Controlled crying was the only thing that worked for us, we had this crazy sleeping schedule that could only the product of sleep deprivation because it would never pass any sort of sanity check – we’d take her up to bed for her last bottle, then my wife would cradle her for get this – 45 mins! until she was properly asleep, then put her down – if she woke putting her down we’d start all over again! All being well she’d sleep for 2 or 3 hours and we’d start again -it was crazy but my Wife had lost her mind, so paranoid about sleep that she became completely obsessed with an increasingly complex procedure and it was verging on OCD, if we missed a tiny detail then something “terrible” would happen – it’s still there too, me when it’s bed time we watch a bit of night garden, have a sing song on the way up the stairs, give her a kiss and off to sleep she goes. Mrs J though, it’s a 25 step drill and she has to go to bed at the EXACT same time, she’s 18 months now and I’ve seen her banging on the baby gate begging to go to bed because she’s knackered from play school or whatever but it’s not 18:38 yet… nuts.
Anyway, just before Xmas 2014 we broke, I’d been killing myself in work, My Wife was just about to go back to work – 14 hour shifts Nursing and there was nothing left to give, I’d had no sleep for 2 days, so I gave her a kiss and put her down awake – she screamed, but I had a quick Goggle, frankly 90% of “experts” online are snake oil sellers out to feed you bullshit via a £30 paperback, but I just wanted a plan, any plan, because I’ve always believed a bad plan is better than no plan – anyway I found one, the writer was 1) British (the Yanks are three times as nuts as the Brits and four times the snake oil sellers 2) a Doctors, not some feng sway bullshit merchant – it was basically:

First night – if they cry for 5 mins straight – you go in, calm them DO NOT PICK THEM UP for 30 seconds, whether they’ve stopped or not, leave, if they don’t stop for 10 mins go back and repeat, then 30 mins.

After than you’re not meant to go back until you reach the 30 min mark.

She was asleep after one visit and 9 mins and sleep for 9 hours.

Aside from a few bouts of sickness and coughing etc she’s slept from 18:38 to at least 18:30 for 14 months!

The science behind it is pretty simple – once babies get to about 5-6 months they switch to an adult sleeping pattern, we’re designed to half-wake every 45 mins, check our surroundings (hearing, smell, maybe turn over) and drop back off again – we don’t notice, but it’s said we do. It’s almost a cruel to be kind type of thing – won’t work for everyone of course.

Aside from a few bouts of sickness and coughing etc she’s slept from 18:38 to at least 18:30 for 14 months!

Crikey, that is some sleep pattern. How do you fit everything into the 8 minutes per day that she is awake?

The controlled crying that worked for us like reverse pyramids. I cant remember the exact detail but after putting her in her cot awake it was leave for 1 minute, go in dummy in mouth, no cuddles, then leave for 2 minutes, then 3, then four etc etc. It took about 45 minutes in total before she cried herself to sleep then slept through the whole night.

It was tough hearing her so distressed but it totally worked.

Earplugs and take turns with your partner to get an entire night’s sleep. Or if your partner is off work then offer to do the weekend stuff while she catches up on the zzz’s.

That and plenty of exercise helped me. I took up running for a quick fix that didn’t involve a four hour ride. It really helped with the lack of sleep. And meant i didn’t get too unfit for riding when i had the chance.

Good luck!

Dance round room to Killing in the Name (Yes the Rage ATM one) while cuddling son to shoulder.

Result – sleeping son.

Then wedge myself into the sofa so I couldn’t move with son on chest. (You don’t want to roll over and drop him or squash him).

Don’t bother trying to put him down – he’d wake up every time.

Fun times

His younger brother was a breeze by comparison.

Roll on a few years and the elder son’s sleeping patterns were far better than the younger one’s at the same age.

These things are not linear.

PS elder son still into RATM – also ACDC, Led Zep, Nirvana, Pixies…

Every time my wife brings up the subject of a third child, and I start to think that it might be a good idea, I read threads like this 🙂 Our second is just over two now, but since he was born its been the toughest two years of my life, his sleeping habits have been horrendous. Things are starting to settle down nicely now though, and he is such an awesome little chap I wouldn’t have things any other way. However, never ever again.

Having got seemingly lucky so far with our 6 month old i am already on the side of no more when i read these threads.
He is 95th centile, has been on purees since 3 months (he saw a friends daughter eating and decided he wanted some of that), and has been sleeping through from 4 months.
The only thing we have that seems to be different to most is that he sleeps in a poco baby hammock. It seems to work as when he stirs it rocks and bounces and this seems to put him back into a proper sleep.
He is a chatty s soul though so consequently both his mum and new do wake in the night only to find the little git fast asleep and enjoying himself.

I will just say i have deep sympathy with those who’s babies don’t sleep. But Def make sure one of you gets sleep one night. We made sure if that from very early when he was walking up every 2 hours.

Tips for coping with the sleep refusal?

– Suggest to your partner that they get some rest during the day while you take the baby out.
– Get some family help so you can get some rest.
– Is the baby sleeping during the day? Maybe try shortening the naps. They usually don’t want to sleep at night if they have 2 x 90 minute plus sleeps during the day.
– Sleep regression happens around 6 months. If this is it then it should pass and you should be ok. Don’t form any unsustainable sleep associations during this time like taking them for a drive, or doing handstands until they go to sleep.

The shouting, I’ve got no idea on how to cope if they are just shouty. I know hearing is tested when they’re born, but some children can get severe “glue ear” that affects their hearing even if they’re all clear on their newborn test. It’s worth getting it done again to rule it out. Trust me. I’ve seen children who’ve gone undiagnosed and the behaviours they learn to cope with it are heartbreaking.

Baby size/centile doesn’t seem to have much to do with how well they sleep. Centile measurements if done correctly are good to track growth and take action if they start gaining/losing weight at an alarming rate. I’ve seen babies at the 0.4th wake every hour, and the opposite. Same for babies at/above 90th centile. How well your baby sleeps is more to do with their sleep associations, how comfortable they are (hunger, relatively unsoiled/wet nappies, teething, sickness, room warmth).

And sometimes they just cry. It does get better, as long as you don’t start doing unsustainable things to get them to sleep. Talk things through with your partner, and try to avoid conflict. Even if it means holding your tongue when they lash out at you. This is not them at their best. Always remember that.