My baby won’t sleep and I’m at the end of my rope
- Thread starter pz128
- Start date
@crossroad77 Any tips on how to cap her nap?! I feel bad waking her up when I spend all my time trying to get her to sleep lol!
crossroad77
New member
@pz128 Yeah so you can try just being loud around the room like closing a door or opening drawers etc to naturally rouse her. Or you can pick her up and hold her and slowly walk out of the room and go straight to a window to cheer her up 
with my 18mo I have to wake him up by asking him if he wants an apple or to play with water lol. That gets him up really fast and perky.
with my 18mo I have to wake him up by asking him if he wants an apple or to play with water lol. That gets him up really fast and perky.@pz128 Is she significantly undertired? I might be doing the math wrong but you are trying for 15 hours of sleep. The range of normal sleep in 24 hours is 12 to 15 hours. Perhaps she won’t sleep because she isn’t tired?
https://www.thensf.org/how-many-hours-of-sleep-do-you-really-need/
https://www.thensf.org/how-many-hours-of-sleep-do-you-really-need/
katrina2017
New member
@pz128 I will be blunt. You are making your journey into motherhood way harder. Nursing to sleep is absolutely normal and crucual. Kids need proximity and connection. The more you refuse it in a way that is biologically normal (nursing to sleep, cosleeping and contact naps) the more they will wake up to seek it.
Nurse your baby to sleep. No baby gets spoilt by being loved. So do it. Do contact naps and co sleep(her mattress next to yours) and her sleep will improve.
Nurse your baby to sleep. No baby gets spoilt by being loved. So do it. Do contact naps and co sleep(her mattress next to yours) and her sleep will improve.
@pz128 I could have written this post 2 months ago when my daughter was 6 months old! She slept fairly well until around 5.5 months and then she started going through phases of 1-2 weeks of horrible sleep, then it’d get better for a few days, then bad again. It’s slowly getting better.
I tried shortening her nap length to 30 min for each of her 3 naps (she was sleeping around 3+ hours during the day) and that helped. Now she’s doing 2 naps of about an hour each. She still wakes up a lot but it’s not every 30 min anymore and she’s not doing split nights hardly anymore.
My husband also works 12 hrs/day. There’s only one hour he’s home when LO is awake during the week. So I totally understand how hard and lonely it is. Sleep deprivation is horrible. It’s so hard to function.
On the weekend, my husband takes the baby and lets me sleep in. We cosleep, so he sleeps with her 3 nights a week to give me a break from 8-10pm. At that point she’s usually hungry (EBF) so I switch and sleep with her the rest of the night. Maybe you could work out something with your husband to give you a break?
I feel for you! It’s so hard. You are not alone.
I tried shortening her nap length to 30 min for each of her 3 naps (she was sleeping around 3+ hours during the day) and that helped. Now she’s doing 2 naps of about an hour each. She still wakes up a lot but it’s not every 30 min anymore and she’s not doing split nights hardly anymore.
My husband also works 12 hrs/day. There’s only one hour he’s home when LO is awake during the week. So I totally understand how hard and lonely it is. Sleep deprivation is horrible. It’s so hard to function.
On the weekend, my husband takes the baby and lets me sleep in. We cosleep, so he sleeps with her 3 nights a week to give me a break from 8-10pm. At that point she’s usually hungry (EBF) so I switch and sleep with her the rest of the night. Maybe you could work out something with your husband to give you a break?
I feel for you! It’s so hard. You are not alone.
@pz128 If there are no medical issues, it might be that you’ll just have to ride this one out, I’m afraid. Like others have suggested, consider nursing to sleep and bed sharing to make things easier for the both of you. Some babies are just crappy sleepers but very slowly they’ll get better at it. Mine was also waking up every 45-60 mins at night for months until she started getting longer stretches of 1.5-2 hrs around 10 months or so. She’s 2 years old now and still waking up at night a couple of times. We still nurse to sleep and bed share. I’m pretty sure I’ve lost some of my mind along the way but it brings me joy seeing what a happy, loving and bright little person she is.
heretoeternity1
New member
@heretoeternity1 I think she just said...
Like nursing to sleep is the only way baby falls back asleep and she's doing it every 45 min overnight
Like nursing to sleep is the only way baby falls back asleep and she's doing it every 45 min overnight
@heretoeternity1 There’s absolutely nothing wrong with nursing to sleep as long as it’s working for baby. It worked for my baby for a long time but now it doesn’t. She can’t connect sleep cycles without nursing and that’s just not sustainable
sancurry93
New member
@pz128 Nursing to sleep is probably not your problem. Believe me, our little one has always been a bad sleeper, he's 21 months now and when we night weaned absolutely NOTHING changed EXCEPT it took LONGER to get him to sleep at night. Do not night wean because you think it will help because it most likely will not and you will instead be stuck rocking your LO to sleep instead.