Roaring baby sleeping toddler....

[snowboarder]

Agh. 6m old is waking a LOT at night atm. I am totally paranoid about him waking his older brother, so have been feeding him back to sleep (I know...). I am at the point I need to do something about this, but he is seriously LOUD. He settles himself for naps so isn't totally reliant on milk for sleep, but at night I just give in and feed because of the noise.

We had to get fairly tough with our toddler when he was about 1, so I am fairly ok with a bit of tough love, but not if it's going result in both children awake! What to do....I am starting to lose the will to live....He has already woken once tonight....

[Ruth_Baldock]

Blind leading the blind: haven't a clue. At some point, The Cheeky Baldock Babies will be sharing a room. Since it took an hour to feed Lex down to sleep and Seb was up till TEN shouting in his cot and playing, I dunno how I'll retain my sanity.

[snowboarder]

Quite. It's still taking me an hour to settle baby 2, and then he was awake an hour later ROARING. I can't even face moving him out of my room yet as whilst he's with me I don't actually have to get up all night.

Maybe the siblings just don't wake? Oldest hasn't so far but am sure he will then all will go v wrong!

[mummynegin]

I wouldn't count on the older siblings not waking up. If I let my little one cry, my 2.5 year old usually wakes up and starts shouting "baby crying" - as if I didn't know! That's in spite of the fact that my 2 have bedrooms on different floors of the house.

My little one settles well to sleep, but still often wakes up once during the night and I always immediately feed her back to sleep so as not to wake up my son and husband. She's 11 months old now and I'm trying to cut out all but her morning and evening breastfeeds in preparation for going back to work, so I'm just going to have to go through the pain of everyone being woken up and let her cry to see if she'll settle back to sleep without a feed. I'll wait until next week though as my husband has a week off work, so can have a lie in if his sleep is interrupted and can help if my son wakes up too.

My son was about 18 months old when he stopped waking up in the night. I stopped breastfeeding him at age one, but then he got into a habit of wanting a yoghurt in the middle of night and I would just give it to him as it was easier to do that than have a sleepless night and work the next day. I did eventually let him cry it out at around 18 months though, mainly because I was 6 months pregnant and just too tired to get out of bed to deal with him.

Neither of my 2 were frequent night wakers though, so I just had/have one waking a night to deal with. I think maybe for both of mine, the waking and feed/yoghurt became a habit rather than being anything to do with hunger or not being able to settle to sleep.

[Pickle]

At 6 months I wouldn't worry about feeding to sleep - if that's what works, stick with it for your sanity :)

[Moos]

I agree with Pickle. Am bracing myself for the battle to drop the middle-of-the-night breastfeed in a week or so, with Twosling 10 months by then.

[snowboarder]

Don't actually mind the odd night feed to sleep but it's been 4/5 wakes a night recently, and feeding is the only way to settle him quietly. Can't even pop out in the evening really - last night woke 1 hr after going to sleep, last week 3 wakes before I went to bed. Am zombie :-(

[Yak]

Agh how horrible! You have my sympathies. How long did it take from applying a bit of tough love with toddler sb for his sleep to improve? Are there grandparents / friends who could have him to stay for a couple of nights so you can focus on getting baby sb's sleep better, if that's what you want to do, without fear of toddler sb getting involved in the act too?

[Moos]

Sb, poor you. Ow, ow, ow - it's just so demoralising to be that tired. I was in a similar position when 2 was the same age, and I did sleep training with the help of Millpond, as I decided the baby's rights and needs didn't include a miserable, exhausted mother and neglected brother. Whatever course you decide on, best of luck. x

[snowboarder]

The most annoying thing about all of this is that he was amazing at sleep - has slept through till 5am before. And I was determined not to get into the pattern we developed with his brother, so I've really worked hard on settling for naps etc. And now nights have slowly got worse and here we are! We got tough with no. 1 at 11m and I was ok with it as I felt he had a level of understanding of what was going on - that a 6m old definitely has not. I'm happy to sit and soothe and try to settle but he just SHOUTS!!

I thought self settling was the holy grail of sleep. Oh no.

Oh and it's not hunger. Really. He does have distracted feeding in the day and prob doesn't take enough, but not to the extreme that he would need to wake 1 hr after an hour long night feed. Starting weaning this weekend!

[alieh]

Ah, Snowboarder....it probably doesn't help but your DS2's twin is up to exactly the same antics over here! Not as bad maybe for me because he never slept well, so going from 2-3 wakings at night to 5-6 isn't as bad as 0 to 5-6. Too tired to do anything about it. Also had the same experience with DS1 where he self settled well at naps and bedtime but continued to wake loads at night. Can't be bothered to tackle any kind of sleep training at the moment because I know it will be de-railed by teeth, etc. Speaking of which, we have two teeth and I think some more are about to emerge on top. Could it be something like that for you?

[new mother]

Surely could still be hunger, even after a bm feed? It just isn't satisfying the baby perhaps?

Separately these stories shock me. How on earth do you cope/function/live with the sleep deprivation? My ch were formula fed from the start and slept at eight weeks roughly from 11 to 7am. That eight week period exhausted me beyond belief. I could not speak properly or collect my thoughts when I had to get up at eg 4am (which is a hideous hour which should never be experienced). I really do not know how women- for it is mostly mothers not fathers - cope.

[buggie]

I didn't find distracted br/feeds led to disturbed nights but definitely affected Bugglet's daytime naps. I switched to formula for the afternoon feed (where she was most distracted) and found her daytime naps were easier & I had a happy rested baby when awake as opposed to the grumbly whingey baby I'd become use to.

Know this isn't a solution for everyone, but might be worth making sure baby snowborder gets his milk in in daytime hours to allow you all the rest you need. Hope weaning goes well & helps too x

[anna_r]

I just fed our second to stop her screaming and waking up my eldest. It was usually 2 feeds a night, although sometimes more, and sometimes awake for extended periods, settles for 15 mins, then scramming again.

She just turned one so we have spent the last week sleep training and (I don't want to jinx anything!) she has started sleeping through from 8 til 5am. The last three nights have been bliss. I was on the verge of phoning millpond but then we decided to try ourselves so my husband went in and sat with her for several hours at a time the first 3 nights. We just cut out the breastfeeds and break the wake to feed association. She wasn't eting much by then, just comfort food, but whenever I went in she would expect food, so I couldn't do the training!! She would just scream, relentlessly if I tried not feeding her. And her screaming was so loud, far louder than my first daughters.

New Mother - I think prolonged sleep deprivation is something you just learn to live with. I have actually been more tired during the days recently that she has been sleeping through as I think my body is starting to return to normal. I have been working three days a week on broken nights and expressing at work and exclusively breastfeeding but although I have felt like a zombie I have been a reasonably functional one. Hopefully after my body adjusts back I will have become so used to operating on not much sleep that I will be able to function like a machine on full sleep!!

[Smiler]

I just feed in the night (and co-sleep), little one is about to turn one. Her sleep isn't ideal, but she rarely cries (just feeds) except when teething.

But her 3 1/2 year old sister would sleep through anything, after almost 2 years of being a dreadful sleeper! So we are assuming that it could be another year before the little one sleeps, after which it'll be lovely.

Quite like Elizabeth Pantley, also this article (not tried yet though):

http://drjaygordon.com/attachment/sleeppattern.html

[anna_r]

Dr Jay gordan is the approach we took for sleep training. Have followed pantley ideas since daughter was quite small and was good for naps but just could not get her to stop night wakings. If we had been able to cosleep I think I would have found the wakings less obtrusive but daughter just would not settle with us. Good luck snowboarder you will get there xx

[JessB]

Hi snowboarder

We're having sleep issues all round at the moment - toddler wakes most nights screaming I think because molars are growing, and that wakes baby. Baby has cough and that wakes toddler. Grrrr.

i stopped feeding baby (6.5months) after his dreamfeed and only feed him once it is vaguely daylight hours (any time between 4.30am and 6.30am at the moment). However, he always wakes during the night and is quite quickly settled on our bed once he's ...erm....released quite a lot of wind. He has taken to solids really well but that hasn't unfortunately altered his sleeping much and in fact I think it is causing more windy problems. Hey ho.

Toddler sleep is another matter and will be tackled which I have the energy quite frankly.

Perhaps your toddler won't wake if you try not feeding baby but perhaps he will.......but if you try it, say, this weekend when perhaps Mr snowboarder doesn't have work in the morning then he can deal with toddler while you whip baby into shape?? Or at least try to cut one of the feeding to sleeps out as I think just that gives you the confidence that they really aren't hungry. that is assuming he isn't hungry! Perhaps he's ready for some solids so good luck with that!

All the best

[MrsLL2b]

Could be the 26 week wonder week? My daughter got much worse for a few weeks,just after she had started doing better like yours. But then she came out the other side and out of nowhere started sleeping 7-7. I always find that if it seems like a regression it's usually developmental rather than hunger.

[snowboarder]

MrsLL2B I will hang onto the hope that it is indeed wonder week-itis. Though tbh it is really a looong time ago that he was sleeping through - was prob at about 12 weeks!! I am convinced it is not hunger, with my older son weaning and food consumption had no relationship with sleep at all.

Sigh. You'd think after one bad sleep baby you would know how to deal with the next, eh?

[Moos]

Ha. You would, wouldn't you? But Twosling is worse than Moosling was (although now he sleeps quite well when he doesn't have bad dreams), so I guess if I was incompetent then, I'm even more so now. :)