Help with sleep and frustration
Bit of a long post but I have a problem with baby'sleep which is also causing me to have no sleep and kinda losing my patience/temper with her in the night and I think my partner is starting to get worried I'd harm her (I wouldn't). I have a 6 month baby girl, breastfed. She slept through the night until around 4 months old, now she is awake 3-7 times. Her wake windows are usually 1.5-2 hours, I get her to nap when I start to see her rub eyes etc is that too late? (if I can get her to nap- if im out sometimes she just wont nap and gets very overtired) the naps only last 30-40 minutes, maybe an hour if she's contact napping which I try not to do. The nights seem to be getting worse. Sometimes she will do a 3-5 hour stretch but the past week she hasn't and will wake every 1.5-2 hours or like sleep for half an hour then want feeding /settling again. She will frequently (not every night) wake up for around 2 hours or more in the night wide awake just babbling etc. and when I rock her to sleep, sometimes she'll just wakes up when I put her down, even when I wait a while. I used to feed to sleep but I stopped this by using a dummy instead and rocking her to sleep/ nap, she occasionally will feed to sleep as sometimes that's all that settles her. I kinda wanna stop the rocking to sleep but I don't know how and she is reliant on dummy to sleep now, she won't use it any other time. She won't really nap in the car unless I can get a dummy in and going down a motorway and will occasionally sleep in a carrier/pram but usually when she gets overtired. Bedtime - She goes to sleep around 6 pm usually, sometimes her naps make it earlier or a bit later. When I change her at bed time she is usually overtired as crying etc. rubbing eyes so I'm trying to do it earlier to see if overtiredness is the issue. I wanted her to get to bed a bit later like at 7pm, I need to experiment what she is like if I nap her again around 430/5pm but if not will have to stick to 6pm, bedtime feels like it is just rushed as sometimes I go out for the day. So because of the lack of sleep, I'm getting so frustrated with her and my partner thinks I'm losing my temper a bit and being too rough which I do agree with and sometimes he worries about it. Sometimes I have to put her down and walk out to take a breather. Yesterday I spent a lot of the day in tears. My partner cannot currently help me due to an operation but hopefully can in the next few weeks, so I'm literally doing everything with baby, dog, house even looking after him which is wearing me down. I'm not sure if I need to seek professional help but I just know I need sleep and that is the issue really, it's not her fault I know. I try to nap when she does but I just can't seem to switch off.😭. I really need a break too but she won't accept a bottle, we have reintroduced it yesterday (tried different teats) and going to keep trying as I need someone else to be able to feed her. Hope this makes sense and hope someone has some tips or advice. It could just be another growth spurt and regression but feels like it's been like this for 2 months, or maybe she just wont sleep well until she's older 🤷🏼♀️🤦🏼♀️
My baby has never ever slept a night untill he hit 1 and half years old now so I have never experienced a good sleep I was fustrated everyday I hated it but he was breastfed and I switched to bottle it was very very hard so I know how u feel but being consistent and not giving up u need to cut the boob out cold turkey if u wanted him to take the bottle I had to cut the boob only for night times and then he transitioned it took 3 weeks for everything to work properly but he did sleep quiet better when I switched to the bottle way better than boob longer stretches it was better than nothing x