Exhausted Mum & Baby

S

shirley.adien

New member
Hi

I am a mother of a 14 months baby boy. I have not sleeping through the night since my baby was born. I tried many many methods as suggested, like:
1) feeding the baby late say 11 or 12 pm
2) letting him cry at mid night
3) do not feed him at mid night until 7 am
4) checking his body temperate

None of these methods work well for my baby. He still cries in the mid night. His sleeping pattern now is set like this, he sleeps late at 10:30pm, then cries in 2 or 3 am. When he cries, he will crawl in the bed and pump his head against the bed. It takes 30mins to an hour to settle him down (sometimes 2 hours). He does not need to be cuddled or padded but just cry. And then, he needs milk at 5 or 6am. After the milk, he can sleep till 8am, he cries again. He can quickly settle down if I feed him again. (If I don't feed him, he will cry in every 30 mins.) After I feed him some more, he can sleep another 2 hours until 10am. He then totally wakes up. In the afternoon, he takes the nap from 2/3pm till 4/5pm. During the nap, he might cry / yell. After the nap, he will play until 10:30pm and then go to sleep.

Some people told me that when the baby grows bigger say 1 or 2 year old, he must be able to sleep through the night, is it ture?? I am really looking forward to that date to come.

At the moment, both my boy and I are really exhausted. Can anyone help me out??
 
My son is 10 months now and he's been a very good sleeper since birth. However, now that he's older, it's harder for him to fall asleep, he's always very energetic and even if he has panda eyes, he still tries to hold out as long as possible. We've decided to just let him play, even past his bedtime and let him be the boss to when he wants to sleep. This method although not so healthy, seems to work for us, as now he is guaranteed to fall asleep naturally when he just can't hold out any longer and becoz he's so tired, he's able to sleep through the night. I feed my son formula around 11pm every night and he sleeps till 8/9am every morning. I don't think it gets any easier as they grow older, there's so many things that will interfere with their routines. Maybe some other moms will have better advice/suggestions for you, meanwhile...hang in there and let us know if there's any improvement. Goodluck!
 
My baby is a difficult sleeper too.
Some things that help her sleep better are a pacifier and white noise.
She sometimes wakes up abruptly from her naps and nighttime sleep. If I catch her in time (i.e. before she's sufficiently alert/awake) and give her the pacifier and/or pat her, she usually settles back very quickly.

I also leave the bathroom exhaust fan running while she's napping. The hum is kind of comforting for her and she stays asleep for longer.

She also doesnt sleep through the night. So I am experimenting with different kinds of foods to see if it helps her sleep longer at night. My theory is that she's waking up because she's digested her last meal of the day and she's hungry again. I could be wrong. I am just trying to identify and eliminate the causes one by one.
 
so your baby cries for 1-2 hours even if you attend to him? if he does not need any kind of soothing, that means he just tires himself out crying and goes back to sleep? my 1 yr old has gotten smarter since the nice days when she used to sleep 7pm-7am, and now would wake up crying once in the middle of the night, basically just wanting company, no rocking, feed or cuddling. If this happens before I went to bed, I would just go in and tuck her into her cot again and stay for 5-10 mins with my hand resting on her and she would most likely go back to sleep again. If this happened like 3am in the morning, am afraid I do the bad thing and take her out of her cot and have her sleep next to me till morning. I just have no energy to sit next to the cot in the middle of the night to try to soothe her back to sleep. I have found that tucking her in securely in her cot with a sheet helps her sleeping, cos she cannot kick about and wake herself up when just rousing. Has your baby got some kind of security blanket or toy which would help him feel more secure and go back to bed quicker?
 
Hi Sharky Li
My 9 month old bub also doesnt sleep through the night and I usually BF or rock back to sleep roughly 5 times during the night, we co-sleep with our baby to make this easier. I believe all babies are different and have different activity and sleep paterns and yes it does eventually get better with time. But in the mean time it can be very exhausting for the parents and often other members of the family. I do not believe in allowing baby to cry themselves to sleep, I recon its very traumatic for them and has lasting affects. I am reading a great book at the moment and has some great tips that could proberly help you:
THE NO-CRY SLEEP SOLUTION by ELIZABETH PANTLEY
Good Luck
 
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My first two babies both became unsettled sleepers at 14/15 months.My mom told me that I hated my cot and was in a bed early.I decided to give it a try and put them on a mattress on the floor.Instant change in both cases.They both remained on the mattress on the floor until 2.5-3years old when we purchased proper beds.

Another bonus of this I noted is that we never experieinced that toddler phase of kids not wanting to stay in bed at bedtime.I can only assume its because they have been able to move around their own room from a year and a half.Worked wonders for us.Good Luck!
 
If your son has been like this from birth, it doesn't sound like a developmental phase. Well done for coping for so long.

Annerley Midwives have a sleep clinic. I haven't tried it myself, but sounds like you need some professional help.

http://www.annerley.com.hk/
 
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