Sleep problems
I have a 13 month old who hasn’t slept well since 8/9 months old. She cannot self settle at all, wakes up continuously throughout the night, will only be rocked to sleep and I’ve gotten to the point now where I end up putting her in bed with me, I know the latter two problems have made a rod for my own back.
I put her to bed around 7pm after bedtime routine. She normally feeds to sleep, she then goes in her cot. Between then and 9pm I can go into her 3-4 times to resettle. Then throughout the night she has around 3 hours stretch between wakings. I try milk, teething medicine, even food because she is hysterical. She hates snuggles so I cannot just sit and cuddle her to sleep. I get zero time for myself including showering, washing hair or any other activity. She also will not settle for dad, she screams until I come back for her. I just dread nighttime. There seems to be nothing that works.
I’ve tried gentle sleep training but she gets herself worked up she is up for hours after it, k also have a 4 year old who has school so screaming until she falls to sleep isn’t an option ( not that I want to do that anyway). I feel it’s more than just a phase I feel it’s our way of life on a nighttime now and my mental heath is taking a hit from it.
Anyone else’s night this bad?
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Could you try a later bedtime to see if that helps avoid those false starts in the first 1-2 hours after going to bed? I always feel like if I can at least get 1-2 hours peace Im in a much better place to deal with wake ups and for us I just accept this as having a later bed time which isnt ideal but its the lesser of two evils kinda thing (dramatic word choice lol)
I could have wrote this myself ! 😩
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Yes- but I think my mindset is what helps it to feel more manageable. I feed or cuddle to sleep and cosleep with my baby, but I don’t see that as a rod for my own back. I did exactly the same with my first child, and better sleep came when he was ready. Don’t get me wrong, it’s tiring, I feel touched out, but I know these days are short. However- if it’s affecting your MH, that’s different. If you’re seeing lots of wakes at the start of the night, is sleep pressure high enough? I’d explore daytime routine tweaks and daytime sleep totals to see if that has any bearing on it. If she can do 3h blocks of sleep at night, she can self settle between sleep cycles. I follow lots of great sleep consultants on Instagram that have lots of brilliant advice on introducing new settling methods, secondary settlers, stopping feeding to sleep etc. So you could try tackling one aspect at a time to see if it helps?