I am getting so over-fucking-whelmed. I can hardly stand it anymore. Every fucking night with my daughter, I have to fight to get her to go to sleep. It has been this way for most of her 11 months. It got better for a while then all of a sudden got really difficult again. I can not take it anymore. Every night too I'm up with her several times a night. Last night she was up forever and was inconsolable and just cried, rolling around on top of me. Long ago nursing was enough to put her to sleep, but its not anymore. Now she'll bite my nipples and kick me and bite my arm. Till I have to storm out of the room in anger and my partner takes over.
I bought the no-cry sleep solution and it was no help what so ever. Get your partner to help? Bullshit, he's gone 5 nights of the week, and when he is home he can't help anyway cause she only wants me.
She has been extremely difficult to handle her entire life. I'm sure this will not end. This is just the way it is, and to tell you the truth, I can't handle it. Every one we know tells us "our kids were never like her", "we never had that difficult of a time with our children" others assume its our bad parenting. I'm so fucking sick of it. I'm ready to just let her cry herself to sleep, but she's never successfully done it. My nerves can't handle her crying anyway. I go into fight or flight mode when she cries.
Why, why, why, couldn't she have been easier to handle. It pissing me off hearing other parents talk about how easy going their babies are.
Babies this age can be really hard, and it is normal for babies to wake a lot at night, mine certainly does. Have you tried cosleeping? That has really helped me with my kids.
yep, we co-sleep, bed-share. We first put her to sleep in her crib cause I don't sleep at 8pm. She would fall asleep no better if she was in bed with me while she fell asleep. She'd still just roll around and never actually wind down. Sometimes it seems as though she sleeps more soundly through the night when she's in the crib cause she's not always looking for me to nestle with. Thing is, nestling against me doesn't even calm her anymore. It just ends up being her kicking me during the night.
Sorry to hear. My first was like that, and is still a difficult child. My 2nd is very easygoing, it's like night and day between the 2 of them as babies, and I parented them pretty much the same way. It's nothing you did. Some children have very difficult temperaments.
I don't know if this will help at all, but it helped me to think about how she is such a feisty strong little person, she is a fighter, she knows what she wants, she will be a leader one day. All those qualities that you want in an adult are so challenging in a child. I remember going through awful nights and waking up the next morning feeling like we had been through something really hard together, and made it out together on the other side intact, ya know? Trial by fire. New motherhood can be fucking intense.
I'm pretty opposed to cry it out, but if your lack of sleep is effecting your daytime relationship with her that much, I can understand getting to that point. I would try to make the transition as easy as possible for both of you though. I know you said your partner is gone in the evenings, but is he gone all night? If not he could perhaps hold her while she cries at nighttime?
My issue isn't so much the night wakings, as I tend to her nearly my sleep. Its still frustrating, but not the main issue, its the fact that she has never been able to calm herself down. She's always going full throttle. When she starts yawning and rubbing her eyes around 8pm I'll nurse her. when nursing her she'll throw her arms around and jump and kick and bit. we swaddle her in a blanket and she still just kics and screams and arches her back. Essentially she always cries herself to sleep, its just in our arms.
I am positive that with both of my children that they can read my emotional energy while getting to sleep. Not in a flakey hippy aura reading way, but probably by sensing increasing heart beats or breathing differences or something. I am positive that the frustration and dread I have felt when having trouble putting them to sleep at times has further fed their having trouble falling asleep. I will sit there fighting the baby to sleep, then take a second and take a deep breath and try to clear my head, and baby quiets almost immediately. Do you think it's possible that this is happening with you 2, where each of your frustration sort of builds on the other's? Have you tried meditating? And obviously you don't have to answer this, but have you thought about whether you might be suffering from depression>
momnipotent, that is so refreshing to hear that you as well had similar difficulties. Also, its so funny, I call my daughter a feisty one. Its the most productive word I can come up with at times like these to describe her. I often feel like we go through difficult nights together as well. I just don't know how she can come out of them being as happy as she is.
I'm also opposed to crying it out. I can't do it. We tried once, but it never worked. The only other time I used it was a few times when I needed to center myself before I harmed her. When I've given myself a few mins to step outside I feel horrible, and often go to hold her in my arms while I'm crying myself as well. Its just so difficult to handle. I really want it to get easier.
I remember literally crying and begging Cae to go to sleep. Those times were so hard and dark but they did get easier.
I also found that calming my body down was a big step in getting Cae to calm down. Of course it meant I always passed out putting him to bed and didn't get homework done, but at least it wasn't a physical fight to get him to lay down.
i had to use cry it out too. when Dev was that age he woke up a lot at night and would NOT go back to sleep. After being up for hours, I would put him in his crib, turn off the speaker ( his room was next door so i could still hear just a little quieter) and cry myself. It is a wonder that I ever made it to school the next day after those nights. You say she revives after nursing her, have you thought of changing her schedule? Maybe nurse at like 7 and have some kind of calming routine. Books, baths, massages might relax her so that she feels sleepy. Also, having her nap earlier in the day might have a positive effect.
Another suggestion would be to try to step back and think of why she is fighting sleep. Sometimes Devin gives me a hard time now (at 3 1/2) about staying in his room and going to sleep. I always get super frustrated, but after I calm down I think about why he is doing it. I know he is afraid of his closet, he doesn't want to miss whatever it is I am doing, he enjoys being sneaking and seeing how far he can get. So then I have to think of ways to eliminate these problems so he can't do them.
This is my last suggestion I swear. :-P I chose to have Devin always go to sleep in his crib or bed or whatever first. Then, if he wakes up at night he is allowed to go to sleep in my bed with me. So most nights I cosleep and bedshare for most of the night. I know you cosleep and bed share, but it might give you a break and her some independence to sleep in her crib. She will have reassurance that you are still there etc. when you allow her to come into your bed with you after she goes to sleep in her room.
Remember, whatever you try, you need to stick with it for a few days so a routine can be established. Don't expect something new to work immediately.
Good luck with everything, it is really really hard to deal with a child that won't go to sleep and even harder to keep your cool. I get soooo frustrated when I have to keep putting Devin in his bed for like 2 hours when I just want to be doing all the others things I need to get done. I hope something eventually works!
In regards to everyone's comments about calming yourself. I often check myself to make sure my frustration isn't feeding into the bedtime difficulties. Most of the time I do stay calm and she still acts just the same as I described before - kicking, flailing about. When I get upset it probably doesn't help, but it definitely isn't part of the cause.
I have come to realize after these comments that I am depressed. I have been alone with m 5 nights of the week alone since she was 4 months old (10pm-6am) and in Feb I started working full-time. Two nights ago we had a difficult time getting m to bed. When my partner was about to leave for work I lost it. I was crying, balling like I haven't done in a long time. I was so utterly exhausted and told him to stay tonight, to take a sick day. He said no, at which point, just as he was starting to bike away, I ran outside asking him to say, saying that I didn't trust myself with m that night. I told him I was calling out for help. Then I walked inside thinking I'd hear him coming up the stairs. I mean who wouldn't stay after hearing someone say "I don't trust myself tonight with out daughter"? He left. I was devastated.
Last night was an even harder night than the one I just talked about... I ended up letting her cry in her crib before I did something I would regret. She cried for an hour and a half while I banged on my desk in the other room in complete desperation. She can't cry it out and I can't handle doing such things to her... I called her father telling him that I couldn't take it. Told him that I hated him for leaving me alone with her the night before even though I told him I didn't trust myself. I told him I was depressed and that I couldn't do it anymore - that I felt like a hostage within my own life. I hung up on him cause I didn't even want to hear his voice anymore.
Yesterday we didn't even speak, not until this morning when he apologized saying that he had fucked up. I forgave him. I love him dearly. I just wish he understood what I've had to go through better. I'm still really hurt. How could he have done that.
oh mama. I wish I could come over and make you some tea. I can feel that kind of night, struggling with my partner, scared and alone. Parenting a little one can be so isolating.
Do you have friends you can reach out to for bedtime support? Have you tried things like going for walks at bedtime. Maybe your kiddo would fall asleep in a sling or stroller?
I'm sorry times are so hard.
I'm sorry things have been so rough for you. I was wondering if thing have improved?
I had an extremely difficult time surrounding sleep with my first child. Even now that she's four years old, I spend about an hour and a half each night putting her to sleep and she still wakes at night. I will say, though, things got much better sometime between the time she was two years old. It's not anything I did. She just got older, and it got easier.
Things that helped me:
I don't believe that a child under one can self-soothe. I don't think my fourteen month old can self-soothe.
We walked a lot for bedtime. While she always fell asleep in the carrier, I spent probably 4-6 hours every night at around a year to get my daughter to sleep where she was hysterical, obviously tired, but could not sleep. It just helped me feel more sane to be moving around outside. We'd walk for an hour. Hang out at home for a half an hour. Repeat. Eventually, she'd sleep. Being outside changed the quality of the sound in such a way that made it more bearable. I planned it into my routine to have things to do. I got a plot in a community garden half a mile from my house that I watered on these walks. I would walk to a bookstore near my home to look at book covers through the window. Things like that helped the whole ordeal seem more bearable.
I know Pantley would disapprove, but I found that night waking for my daughter decreased when I started taking her to the potty at night. My son does not like going to the potty at night, but he still sleeps better in a dry diaper, so I change him. (Though he still wakes at night, sometimes staying awake for an hour, my son is a better sleeper than my daughter was at this age by far.)