pastor_rob
New member
Hey fellow mums and moms. A desperate rant and question about terrible toddler sleep. Thank you in advance.
My incredible girl is 18 months old. She’s never been great at sleeping. I breastfed on demand at night and co slept since she was about 4 months. It was ROUGH. Eventually, around the year mark, we put her bed in our room and started putting her to sleep in there. She got very used to it and got great at putting herself to sleep. She’d wake up in the night and we’d let her come in to bed with us as I didn’t have the energy to keep BFing and resettling. Then, around 15 months, I night weaned.
Dreams can come true! She’d start the night in her bed at 7pm, wake up between 11-3am, come in to our bed and sleep through until 6. Amazing. But then…
We moved house. The clocks changed. Shit hit the fan. For about a month she wouldn’t go down until 8pm and would wake up about 5am. I’m a morning person but like, 7am. 5am is criminal. She’d spend all night wriggling around in our bed, unsettled, restless. With an 8pm bed time that leaves an 1 hour of downtime. On top of that, she obviously wasn’t getting enough sleep and that impacted her mood, my mood, our day etc.
I’ve managed to get her down earlier for the last couple of weeks, between 7-7.30pm. But she’s still waking up way to early - today was 3.30am. I waited until 6 o clock in the goddam morning trying to get her back to sleep. It’s just soul destroying. She slept or maybe 20/30 minutes more. I also don’t know why she’s very very wriggly in bed at the moment, like super unsettled and it’s really disrupting the short amount of sleep we get.
My question is, is she old enough to do some kind of controlled crying without it having a hugely negative impact on her in the future? Or what else can I do? Currently when my husband tries to attend to her or we try to resettle in her room, she just screams for me. I didn’t want to push it as we only moved house 6 weeks ago but I feel she should be pretty settled by now.
It’s been 18 months of terrible sleep and I’m at breaking point. It’s making me hate everything, dread the day ahead, loose my patience, cause huge fights between me and my husband. I just want to sleep. She must know she’s safe by now and that we’re always there for her, why does she feel like she has to be literally glued to my side throughout the night. Have I done something wrong? Is this insecure attachment? She must not feel safe, right?
Other things worth mentioning - our rooms are dark, not totally black out but I’m going to try make it so. I try to wear her out in the day but that’s hard when you’re so tired right. I try to make sure she’s full before bed, like offer her a banana or something. I’m going to start not taking her downstairs to start the day or have her first breastfeed until 6am. Even if it means spending 2.5 relentless hours lying in bed screaming inside.
I’d love some tips/experience from fellow mothers of unsettled sleepers. I also wanna give everyone that’s been through similar a huge hug cause this is fucking HARD.
My incredible girl is 18 months old. She’s never been great at sleeping. I breastfed on demand at night and co slept since she was about 4 months. It was ROUGH. Eventually, around the year mark, we put her bed in our room and started putting her to sleep in there. She got very used to it and got great at putting herself to sleep. She’d wake up in the night and we’d let her come in to bed with us as I didn’t have the energy to keep BFing and resettling. Then, around 15 months, I night weaned.
Dreams can come true! She’d start the night in her bed at 7pm, wake up between 11-3am, come in to our bed and sleep through until 6. Amazing. But then…
We moved house. The clocks changed. Shit hit the fan. For about a month she wouldn’t go down until 8pm and would wake up about 5am. I’m a morning person but like, 7am. 5am is criminal. She’d spend all night wriggling around in our bed, unsettled, restless. With an 8pm bed time that leaves an 1 hour of downtime. On top of that, she obviously wasn’t getting enough sleep and that impacted her mood, my mood, our day etc.
I’ve managed to get her down earlier for the last couple of weeks, between 7-7.30pm. But she’s still waking up way to early - today was 3.30am. I waited until 6 o clock in the goddam morning trying to get her back to sleep. It’s just soul destroying. She slept or maybe 20/30 minutes more. I also don’t know why she’s very very wriggly in bed at the moment, like super unsettled and it’s really disrupting the short amount of sleep we get.
My question is, is she old enough to do some kind of controlled crying without it having a hugely negative impact on her in the future? Or what else can I do? Currently when my husband tries to attend to her or we try to resettle in her room, she just screams for me. I didn’t want to push it as we only moved house 6 weeks ago but I feel she should be pretty settled by now.
It’s been 18 months of terrible sleep and I’m at breaking point. It’s making me hate everything, dread the day ahead, loose my patience, cause huge fights between me and my husband. I just want to sleep. She must know she’s safe by now and that we’re always there for her, why does she feel like she has to be literally glued to my side throughout the night. Have I done something wrong? Is this insecure attachment? She must not feel safe, right?
Other things worth mentioning - our rooms are dark, not totally black out but I’m going to try make it so. I try to wear her out in the day but that’s hard when you’re so tired right. I try to make sure she’s full before bed, like offer her a banana or something. I’m going to start not taking her downstairs to start the day or have her first breastfeed until 6am. Even if it means spending 2.5 relentless hours lying in bed screaming inside.
I’d love some tips/experience from fellow mothers of unsettled sleepers. I also wanna give everyone that’s been through similar a huge hug cause this is fucking HARD.
haha
, plus we have to potty train him…and he is going to have a new brother in 2 weeks. All these changes are most likely going to affect his sleep. Can’t wait haha