End of my rope

[judecorp]

I don't know what to do.

Punk has never been a good sleeper but she has always gone down fairly easily with the occasional exception. Yes, she will wake up a number of times through the night but she could always be counted on to go to bed at bedtime and stay asleep for a while so things like dinner and chores could happen.

Not so anymore. Now she is absolutely refusing to go to sleep. If I do any of the usual things I would do to parent her to sleep (swaddle, rock, cuddle), she freaks out and squirms and yells and cries and only wants to do one thing: stand on my lap on the rocking chair so that she can try to grab things or look at things. If I put her down on the floor, she howls. If I put her in the crib and say night-night, she howls. If I walk out of the room, she will howl for as long as two hours.

The last couple of days, the only thing that will get her calm enough to sleep is if I give her milk in a bottle. We have not done milk in a bottle at bedtime for quite a while now and I /really/ don't want to backtrack, but the last couple of days I have not had an option. I work 9.5-10 hour days and I don't have the stamina to listen to hours of crying and I also do not want to be a jungle gym for hours for an exhausted baby who does not want to go to sleep.

I am so frustrated and spent. I really feel like whenever I think it can't get any worse, it does. Also, I feel like a major failure as a mama. I am just at the end of my rope.

Comments

[ladygreyy.livejournal.com]

*hugs you tight* I can't even imagine how frustrated you are. But asking her logically, is a bottle of milk at night THAT bad a thing? I mean, if it calms her, then maybe she really does need it. If it makes that much of a difference to the night schedule, do it. It's obviously not benefiting ANYONE for her to not have it.

*hugs you tight*

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

It's just odd because she has gone to bed without a bottle of milk for a while now... and all of a sudden she is going berzerk at bedtime. I don't get it.

[ladygreyy.livejournal.com]

One thing I've learned for sure. Babies are contrary.

[skatured.livejournal.com]

What a rough time August is giving you -- I can only hope that later on she will be the ideal kid and great teenager having gotten all her angst out of the way.

Maybe the reason she wants to stay awake is because you are the awesomest Mom and she doesn't want to a miss a second of you. :)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Heh. But she doesn't want to be with me... she just wants to stand on me so she can do god knows what.

[fleur.livejournal.com]

Maybe she's readjusting to needing different amounts of sleep as she grows?

Does she nap a lot during the day? She might just not be tired at night then?

Hang in there, you're a lovely mama!

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

Oh no, she is DEFINITELY tired. It's not that she is not tired. One time I tried taking her back out in the living room to play and she just cried and cried and rubbed her eyes and looked at me pitifully.

She takes two naps during the day from one to one and a half hours. Same as always. She doesn't nap too late so as to mess with bedtime. And she is definitely tired. Very tired.

[heartspunmom.livejournal.com]

Car trick?

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

She doesn't sleep in the car. Unless the ride is longer than an hour, she won't fall asleep. She is TERRIBLE at falling asleep, hence all of the parenting to sleep.

Also, if she does fall asleep in the car, she wakes up when you try to get her out.

[yip95.livejournal.com]

Poor Jude! Man, it does suck when your kid is a crap sleeper and then they go and take away the one non-crappy thing they do... makes you wonder if they actually have survival instincts or not...?

I know you don't like the milk, but, hey, if it works, right? At least you found something that works...

I hope she's in a short, short phase of some sort and she passes through it sooooon.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I don't mind her drinking milk, I mind the bottle. I really don't want her back on bottles. It was a lot of work to get her off bottles and she was doing fine having some milk in a sippy before bed.

I just see so many kids who are older when their families try to take away the bottles and they go crazy.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

oh man, do i ever feel your pain. i'm no help though, because the only thing that worked for me was something i know you're not willing to do. i just thank GOD tate is an awesome sleeper, because i'm not sure i would have survived that again.

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I have even broken down and let her cry. But after two hours, I couldn't take it any more.

[thatpatti.livejournal.com]

oy. well, i personally respect you for giving it a shot, because it's HARD. but i know i got to a point where letting fisher cry didn't seem any worse than having him not get sleep, which is no good for growing baby brains!

but two hours, ugh. i'm not sure i would have even lasted that long. the longest i ever went was an hour, and that was with me going out on a long walk because i couldn't stand it.

sucks so bad, i'm really sorry :(

[marlatiara.livejournal.com]

The only way Roo will sleep is in bed with me. End of story. She'll go down in her crib if Lance walks around with her for 20 minutes or more (and she may be skinny, but she's still getting heavy) - then she'll wake up about an hour later and yeah, co-sleeping. Which I DID NOT plan nor do I really want to keep doing. But do I shall. You are not a failure as a mama, it's just we gots these needy kids. I hear you. I have no answers. Bleh.

[marlatiara.livejournal.com]

PS I understand your issue with the bottle, but if I'm still nursing Roo then why can't you still give Punk a bottle? It's sort of the same thing, isn't it? (You can yell at me a lot if I'm off base with that statement...)

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I don't really know if bottles and nursing are the same. I don't think they are. I mean, they serve a similar purpose but I never really hear about the benefits of "extended bottle use," KWIM?

[marlatiara.livejournal.com]

Totally understand - I also cut out bottles at a year (when I'm away now Roo gets a sippy cup with whole milk in it) so I get it. But I also think that if it is what works at night right now, then it is what works and you are a tired mama who needs her sleep. *hug*

[judecorp.livejournal.com]

I'm cool with the co-sleeping but she still wakes up a lot even with the co-sleeping. (It just involves less hassle to get her back to sleep, heh.) I just can't handle the two hours to get her to sleep business, because I /need/ that time in the evenings.

[marlatiara.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm starting to have lots of people telling me that I need evening time too. I have never had it and it's like this mythical thing - Roo has never gone to sleep fully and completely for the night without me going to bed too. And Lance hates the extended singing/rocking time. I hear you. I have no answers. It's so hard.

[cider.livejournal.com]

I'm in your camp. Accidental cosleeper here, too. Argh.

[sassywoman.livejournal.com]

Just to throw something out there ... could it be that maybe she's overtired when you put her down and maybe she needs to go in the crib let's say 20-30 minutes sooner? We put Emma to bed every night at 7 pretty religiously and she will talk and play in there for up to an hour some nights before falling asleep. She has a few little stuffed animals and she just babbles/talks to them. It's kind of her way of winding down. Maybe you could try a few little stuffed animals or a favorite blanket to see if the crib might be a bit more inviting?

I know you are against CIO and I read where you said it's not working with Gus but if you read Dr. Ferber's book (and really it is not the anti-christ that people may have you thinking it is) he explains how consistency is the key with CIO and that it may take a long time the first few nights - even up to two hours - but from many people I know who did CIO the first few nights were the hardest and then all of the sudden the times just decrease and then they are putting themselves to sleep. Babies really need to "learn" how to self soothe and get adjusted on their own to be able to fall asleep and stay asleep (or get themselves back to sleep) according to Ferber. He really is quite an intelligent man who has some very smart things to say about infant/toddler sleep patterns IMO.

Just wanted you to know I'm thinking about you and I don't care if you never open the book honestly but I think it might help if you are at the end of your rope. *hugs*

[estrange.livejournal.com]

Don't feel bad at all. Kids go through stages where they sleep fine and then they don't sleep - it's normal - both my kids went through it. What about trying a pacifier?

[estrange.livejournal.com]

Oh I kept both kids on a bottle until 18month so don't feel bad about it - at all! I used CIO to get my kids to sleep - I see the person above mentioned it. It was hard but in the end worth it.

[mayna.livejournal.com]

It could be teething. Maylie would go from being angel baby to nightmare baby when she was teething.

Or, it could be allergies. Greg has always been a poor sleeper, we think because of allergies. He didn't sleep through the night ever until almost 2. And he's almost 4 and still wakes up. The thing is, a lot of times he wakes up and he's totally irrational. He just does not think straight, so even though he's hot or thirsty or whatever, he just sits there and screams. He's starting to get better, but it still irritates Bill. I think Greg can't breathe well so he breathes through his mouth, which dries out his mouth, which makes him get thirsty. He wasn't always like that, but he was still a very poor sleeper so it could've been something related back then.

[indigodove.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[violane.livejournal.com]

I'm so sorry you/Punk are having to go through this. It sucks. Sleep is important!

[cider.livejournal.com]

FWIW, Lily has always, always been a reluctant sleeper. She despises going to bed. We tried CIO once and I'm all wusspants, so now we cosleep and lie there with her. I nurse before bed EVERY night and we still have issues. Last night? She was up until midnight, dude. MIDNIGHT. I wish I had some good advice. Rely on your instinct. Barring that, rely on Benadryl. ;)

Kidding on the Benadryl thing. Whiskey works much better. HAR HAR.

[artemis44.livejournal.com]

pssst: I'm still giving Stuart a bottle at night, with singing and rocking. Every time we go to change the routine, he's either sick or we're traveling or whatever. So here we are, 26 months, and still on the bottle - but only at night, only in my arms, and yeah, I do think it's the same as nursing to sleep *in this context*. We've started telling him about the bottle fairy (and the paci fairy) that comes to take the bottles from big boys so they can be given to new babies who need them, and leaves a prize behind. This seems to be the more popular way to deal with kids who are using bottles (or pacis) and are old enough to really pitch a fit when it's taken away.

Also, and you KNOW this, you are NOT a bad mama - you just have a very troubling situation. Babies can pick up on our stress, which stresses them out, and then there's developmental leaps, teething, allergies, separation anxiety, even night terrors - lots of things to throw them off their sleep patterns.

How old is Gus again? I wonder if you might try just one nap, instead of two? Just a thought... also, I definitely endorse the idea of moving up bedtime by 20/30 minutes (maybe 2 times even), to see if that helps. We find that if we get him down by 9, we're golden, after that and it's a bit of a crap shoot. Also, we can't let him sleep past 5 anymore, where before he could nap till 6 or later and still be mostly fine. It's always a period of adjustment with that one!

Good luck mama!

[kathrynt.livejournal.com]

OK. I know, know, know that this is probably assvice. But apparently I'm going to say it anyway. . .

Lillian has similarly always been just a crap sleeper. Terrible. When she was 13 months old, I ended up in the emergency room having a psych evaluation, because I had become willing to hurt myself if necessary to get a bed in a room with no baby in it. They diagnosed me with military-grade sleep deprivation, and told me that I basically had to let Lillian CIO, or else hire a night nanny, or else check myself into a mental institution to catch up on my sleep.

We let her CIO. It was fucking awful. Everyone says "Oh, no, it's only a few days," bullshit. When you have a kid as stubborn as mine and, I suspect, as yours, it goes on for weeks. The first week it was three hours in the middle of every night; my husband slept on the guest bed in her room and dealt with it while I slept in our room with earplugs we'd picked up at a shooting range in. It tapered to about 45 minutes within another two weeks, but that continued for three weeks or so after that. Had I not been distinctly aware that she was not despondent but rather was furious, I wouldn't have been able to do it.

She's still a terrible sleeper. She still wakes up once or twice a week. But most nights, she goes down at eight or nine and sleeps until six or seven. It's not good, but it's good enough to let me hold onto my sanity, and more importantly, SHE'S clearly happier during the day. I mean a lot happier.

I wish with every cell in my body that it hadn't been necessary? but it really, really, really was. She simply wouldn't accept that she was exhausted until she was left alone to figure it out. I've noticed this in other things, too -- she values the direct experience above all others, and attempting to shield it from her results in horrible frustration. This was not the parenting experience I thought I was going to have, but apparently it is the one that I get, and I have to say, the kid who comes along with it is worth it a million times over.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi, You don't know me, but I read you all the time. I started from way back on fertility friend, because we had nearly the same duedate, and I got hooked on you're cutie-pie. My baby, Calvin, was due 7/1 and born 6/30, so very close to your August.

Anyhow, Cal still gets a pre-bed bottle of milk most nights too. I feel like I should be working on getting him off of it, but it's just so soothing. We use the slowest-flowing nipple (size 1) so the process takes a while and by the time he's worked through 6 ounces, he's pretty much toast.

He uses Nuby brand soft spout sippies for the rest of the day. I was thinking about trying to settle him with milk in the Nuby for a while and see how that goes.

Good luck! Try not to feel so guilty!
Sue
www.noisyboys.blogspot.com

[whuffle.livejournal.com]

*I haven't read any of the other comments so forgive me if I'm repeating something here*

From an objective standpoint, I see two things:

1: She's backtracking a little bit with the need for a bottle. It's probably due to feeling emotional and a little insecure due to some recent change in her environment or her family's life and the whole things will disappear in a couple weeks with patient love and gentle encouragement of the "big girl" activities she normally does.

2: The standing up and insistence on milk sounds suspiciously like bouts of acid reflux we've dealt with. When Caleb's reflux med doseage needed adjusting, the big clue was that he didn't want to lay down to sleep because he'd get a surge of acid in his throat that was painful. He'd also refuse to go to sleep without nursing first because the fats in the milk offered his throat some protection from the acids he was experiencing. Any chance you can get a doctor to take a look and see if Punk is having reflux problems again? For the short term, to test out the theory you can try putting her in a bouncy or something that allows her to fall asleep in an upright position.

[(Anonymous)]

Hi,
You don't know me either, but I found your journal when we both had SCHs. I've been reading it off and on since then. Our girls are much the same: that intoxicating personality type we're calling "zesty."
At any rate, my kid has also always been a crappy go-to-sleeper. We nursed her down until she was weaned and now we give her a bottle at bed time. (She's 18 months) It's the /only thing/ that works. I know modern moms are supposed to trash the bottle at a year, but I see kids with pacis who are in frickity frick kindergarten and I wonder why that's OK but a bedtime bottle for a toddler isn't. At any rate, she is slowly growing less and less interested in her bed time bottle. We're hoping one day she wont' want it all. (My naivete never ceases to amaze me.) But even if we do have to wrest it from her fingers, we have a system that meets all our needs now and I feel no shame.
Also, I've been reading your journals since you were preggers and you are not a mama failure. These are not the disposable words of a friend trying to cheer you up. I don't even know you.
So there.

Sorry Jude

[(Anonymous)]

This is minirottie...came trolling over here to see new pics of Punk, and saw this...I wish I could give some advice on the sleep thing. I did like one of the other responders suggestion that MAYBE she's overtired by the time you try bedtime, so perhaps a little earlier to test may be good. We still nurse to sleep every night, and if it was just DH, it'd be bottle...and while we're trying to move to sippies, we're still bottling it and I don't see it ending anytime soon.

[sareste.livejournal.com]

It's so, so hard.

We have had to change up our damn sleeping arrangements/bedtime routine so many times because things just *stop* working for Mara...after they have consistently been working for a month or so. We're working moms. No, we're HARD WORKING moms. We don't have time or energy enough to spend four hours trying something new that may not work. It's exhausting.

I am in this boat with you, my dear.

[spacecadetjen.livejournal.com]

Not to be insensitive as I CANNOT imagine how tough it is to be a momma and working like you do... but I'd seriously give a thought to...

EARPLUGS.

I'm not a big fan of letting them cry it out, but it worked for my dogs. ;-)

Anyway, do what works and I'm sure it's just a phase. *hug*

[(Anonymous)]

Me again! So Finn started doing this EXACT same thing and since I'm bedtime mommy, it made me CRAZY. It was awful awful awful, especially since Finn had always been a crappy sleeper but fantastic at going to bed. He had all this frantic energy and was practically crawling out of his skin because he couldn't settle.

It did get better, and so will August.

I think it started around walking. I also figured out that Finn was actually overtired BUT earlier bed time wasn't what worked. I've discovered that it's Finn being tired but still having way too much energy, so if we give him enough activity during the day he'll fall asleep better - I know that's hard with August in day care.

And I'm REALLY bad - we're still nursing to sleep so sometimes I hold him in a manner that prevents him from doing his acrobatics and it PISSES him off but then he gets that energy out with a few minutes of crying and he can focus on going to sleep. Megs HATES that I do this but I can't spend hours with Mr. Squirrel.

M. says you should just check in with us any time Gus is making you crazy :)

~S.