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desperatley shattered mummy needs advice!

Hi,



I hope someone can advise.



my ds is 14 months and has become a sleep thief. He wakes at around 4 am most morning and simply crys and crys.



I have tried CC but it doesnt work. I used the babysleep answers website but it just makes me feel like i am doing it wrong rather than it not working.



I am up at the minute on the 2nd 15 minute cycle and he is not giving in. He has had a little dose of calpol as I first thought it may be teething but dont think that he can wake with teething at the same time nearly every night??





I work full time and am often up at 5.30 to go to work. This is killiny me as I havent had more than 4 hours solid sleep in what seems like months. DH is as shattered.



There is such a bad temper on ds when I go in to do the visit he screams at me in such a high pitched way and then just carries on.



I am at my wits end and dont know what to do.



We have neverbrought him to bed with us and he settles himself fine at nap time so this is not the prob.



Any advice greatly appreciated x

Replies

  • Hi



    I would say it is one of 3 things, teeth, overtired at bedtime or development related.



    First thing to check is your lo having enough daytime sleep? has he dropped to one nap and maybe not enough? i would say at this age at least 2 hours in the day.



    Secondly is he close to walking or has he recently started walking? if so might just be a development thing, in which case it is just a phase.



    Thirdly maybe try putting teething gel on before bed and when he wakes just in case.



    It could well be a combo of all three!



    HTH xx
  • Thanks baby crazy,



    He always has one long nap of about an hour and a half in the morning time no problems. In the afternoon he will sometimes want one but others not. I tend to go with whether or not he is tired. If he is I put him down but this is only ever really a short nap. I could try and be more consistant with this.



    He is close to walking but not walking yet.



    I was wondering could he be hungry? I know all the advice is at this age he doesnt need a dream feed but sometimes I do think this may be it.



    The other thing is early hours this morning I eventually gave in after an hour of CC ( i know no consistancy) and gave him a cuddle where he promplty stopped crying and snuggled in. When I puthim down again he started to cry again but then settled himself back to sleep.



    I just dont uinderstand his sleep pattern of late. Esp when he was a good sleeper.



    Will try cahnging a few things around because ~CC is not working at the moment .



    Thanks x
  • This doesnt help but just to let you know you arent alone. My LO is also 14 months and has NEVER slept the magical 7pm-7am......or 6am.

    He has woken at least once a night since birth, he wakes between 4am-5am every single night. Easy to settle as we givehim a bottle but we have tried EVERYTHING. I have tried cc many times....he would cry from 4am-7am until we got up. Or falls alseep from exhaustion and then its back to normal the next night.

    Longer naps, shorter naps, more carbs at dinner, less carbs at dinner, earlier bath, later bath, blackout blinds, more bumpers in cot, less teddies, more teddies, nightlight, no nightlight, more activities during the day etc etc etc

    My LO is advanced (I feel very cringeworthy saying that but he crawled, walked, talked v early and is extremely active) and I am convinced this is part of it. (I know alllll mothers think thier LO's are clever etc, but I think my LO is physically advanced, I have no idea about puzzles etc yet so I think a lot of the sleep problems are related to this)

    Also teething, he teethed early, had nearly all his teeth bar the incisors by 11/12 months so we were never able to establish a good sleep routine before we encounted teething. He also has reoccurring croup so every 6-8 weeks or so we have a bout. So any cc we do try then cant be used as he is poorly etc



    Sooooo so sorry for hijacking your thread but it was therapy for me also to know someone else is going through it!!!



    It will end but I have given up fighting it and generally go to bed at 8.30 now humf
  • Hiya,



    Don't know if this helps but our lo goes through these phases and we didn't have a 7pm til 7am sleep until around 17 months but he was then very consistent with that until about a week ago (he's 19months now) but we know he is teething as there's half a molar through but the rest seems very stubborn!



    I am also up at 5am for work so totally understand how painful this is. All I can say (and I know the great and good would say it was wrong) is that if he's awake and we think a bottle will settle him then that's what we do. We figure that sometimes we wake up thirsty or hungry and no-one says we have to lie there and suck it up! Just because lo can't get out of his cot and go make a drink doesn't mean he has to lie there and cry - besides he has a delightful technique of crying himself sick and I would much rather he had some milk than go through that trauma!



    He has often had phases of waking up at certain times (currently 3am and 6am) but once the niggle has stopped it's pesky niggling then he's gone back to a much better sleep pattern. They're processing so much information at this age that they must get occassionally overwhelmed by it all. Add teething and growing into the mix and it's not surprising they wake up a bit grumbly image



    Try a bit of teething gel or anbasol when they wake up (oh, and my lo used to scream blue murder at me too when I went in to settle him but he seems to have come round now and snuggles in so persevere with that) the first time and then maybe a bottle if that doesn't settle them.



    It'll get better I promise just give it time!



    Good luck x
  • Thanks for your replys,

    It really does help that I am not the only one with this problem if you know what I mean.



    Over Christmas he was up a little later and ate a rice pudding after milk before sleep and... slept through! Yey we thought we had it cracked. Last night was the first he went to bed on time in 3 days, only wanted half the rice pud and woke at about 3 for 45 min or so and just jay haveing a cry. I gave him calpol, and for thefirst time his arms didnt automatically get thrown up to me for me to pick him up. I just sat with him for 10 min or so and stroked his head and back, he was chomping like crazy on dummy so prob teething. He niggled for about half an hour but did go back to sleep without being lifted or cuddled or more importantly without wanting it ( coz I would give in!)



    akaladyK- its good to know I am not the only one who thinks CC is not for everyone and doesnt always work . If he stayed like this as he did last night I could happily cope so fingers crossed.



    clare-be - i think what you said about lo being thristy / hungry is a good point. My mum and dad keep saying that it never did us any harm as kids and if we woke up unsettled in the night and it wasnt the obvious they would often soothe with some warm milk or even a biscuit! It did occur to me that perhaps I was getting too caught up in the shoulds and shouldnts of modern child rearing. Thanks for your support





    xx
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