Killing Me While I Sleep

Help! Once again my daughter is killing me! With continuous nights of interrupted sleep!

Every night, 2-3 times throughout, my heart sinks as I hear the click of her door then the pitter patter of her little feet heading my way. Yes, even though Daddy is nearest the door she bypasses him and heads straight for me. Often it's because she can't find her dummy which will be on the well hidden out of reach place of RIGHT ON TOP OF HER PILLOW! But that's not always the excuse, like last night I nearly poked her eye out fumbling around her face checking to see if she still had it. Sometimes she just wants to be put back to bed. Then there are the times when she is insistent that 5.30 is the perfect time to get up, bored now of being put back to bed - usually she will make out she is going back to bed then grabs me and makes me lie down with her, which I do for a few minutes then head back to my own bed. Then she waits just long enough for me to start drifting off again and - click pitter patter pitter patter - and that's it, she is dragging me towards the stairs "wreckfas, wreckfas" (breakfast if you don't speak Millie). I can sometimes get away with putting the TV on in the playroom to be entertained by Milkshake on channel 5 but it's rarely for long as the next I hear is the chair in the kitchen being dragged towards the fridge where, if I didn't get down there in time, she would be helping herself to the chocolate drawer! I usually do get there and then she has a tantrum that I won't let her eat chocolate for breakfast, even though it's the same every morning! We compromise with a bowl of chocorice.

But back to the nighttimes. I'm exhausted!  If she has woken me up a couple of times I've no energy to get up early to exercise (I have to get up at 5.45 if I'm to go for a run and 6 for strength exercises) and even if I was up (because she has woken me most likely) I can't face it or she sits on me while I try to do stomach crunches. My diet suffers as who wants healthy salads when they are tired. I go for the comfort foods. Come dinner time, after putting the kids to bed, I go for the simplest quickest thing to cook... And we order pizza!

My job as a trainer requires me to be enthusiastic and energetic if I'm to keep my learners engaged which either wipes me out more or, if I decide I just don't have the enthusiasm and energy in me that day, I lose the learners, the sleepiness becomes infectious and I'm faced with a room of yawning lions and I watch them switch off one by one.

So what can I do? How do I get her to stay asleep or even in bed all night, preferably to 6.30 or later?

I've been recommended the gro-clock before which shows a night picture and a day picture and the child, in theory, doesn't get up until the sun comes up. I know this has been really successful for others but I'm not sure that Millie will have the level of understanding for it yet (she is currently 2, 3 in August). They aren't cheap and I don't want to spend out a lot of money for something that won't work. I'd be interested to hear from anyone who has had success with one for a child Millie's age.

The other idea is a reward chart but she doesn't really get those either. We have tried with potty training but, again, she is too young. If anyone else has any other suggestions or advice I'd love to hear it before she succeeds in killing me!

We have been here before with Millie as she has hit every sleep regression stage but this one seems harder to tackle.

The Last Regression

Once more I'm staggering round the house,

slurring my words and struggling to remember the day before but this time I can't blame the wine.

Nope! Millie has hit another period of sleep regression. The 2 year sleep regression! And hopefully the last. 

Millie usually wakes about twice a night. 

Now she will settle back again quickly once she is replugged with her dummy but a week ago on the second wake up, which could be anywhere between 5 and 6.30, she would come in to our room and look like she would settle but, instead, she would fidget and clamber all over me then eventually get out of bed trying to pull my hand demanding to go downstairs for breakfast. After a couple of nights of tough love and refusing to bring her into our room she started settling back down in her own room again. 

The constant cough and congestion can't be helping much either though neither of these appear to be the cause of her waking. 

I really hope we are near the end of the phase now otherwise the drunken stumbles will be the result of alcohol and not just the lack of sleep! 

Here we grow again! Sleep regression.

It takes me by surprise each time! But this time I recognised the warning signs from 8 months - the doubting my ability as a mum, comparing my parenting to when we had Callum. Hang on when I started doing this last time, I was reminded about the 8th month sleep regression so I googled & sure enough I'd hit the 12th month sleep regression phase.

Experience has taught me that to survive these phases I just need to ride it out. Go with it no matter how hard the sleep deprivation hits me. Acknowledge my emotional state is down to the sleep disturbance & trust that all will be right again in a week or 2. Stressing about it or trying to get Millie to continue sleeping through the night will actually just make everything 10 times more stressful & emotional for everyone.

This time I have 2 things to be thankful for: i) I at least get continuous sleep until between 5 and 6 which, compared to the previous sleep regression phases, really isn't that bad; and ii) I appear to be in sync with Millie & suffering from bouts of insomnia around the same time (maybe I'm growing or developing too!). I wake up just before Millie does so the actual sleep disturbance is a lot less...disturbing!

If I was going to add a 3rd advantage it would be that I recognised what it was early so when I do start to reach the emotionally unstable sleep deprived stage I'm more likely to keep my cool for longer...maybe...hopefully!

However, if you hear a crying banshee over the next few days it may well be me but rest assured it won't be for long!

8 Month Sleep Regression

How did I forget?

I was lulled in to the false sense of sleep – Millie’s sleep pattern was not perfect but was definitely bearable. Usually having a bottle between 10pm and 11pm and then waking between 6.30am and 7.30am with the very rare occasion of going longer or, even rarer, all night! I was getting a good many hours sleep! I was starting to feel human again.

Then WHAM!

It hit me!

Out of the blue!

The 8 month sleep regression!

I’d forgotten all about it and started to panic that she was on the start of some bad habits! Callum was regularly sleeping through from 6 months from 7-7. We are yet to get a regular routine of this with Millie. I started beating myself up, as us parents regularly do, about being tougher on Callum than on Millie and therefore paying the price!

I decided it was time I took control (having relinquished the control to Millie for most of her 8 month life, being led by her), time I got tough and denied her these silly snacking bottles she had started having in the night! Operation sleep through started last night. She had slept through before I knew she could do it – hell, she could regularly sleep 7 hours straight when she was a few weeks old.

Last night, she went to bed easily, as she usually does, at 7pm then the first grizzle came about 10.30pm. I let her grizzle for a bit then thought I was more likely to get her to sleep until 7am if I was to feed her then so about 11pm I dragged myself out of the slow descent into dreamland and I fed her – she took about 3oz of a 7oz bottle. Groan! She could’ve had more!!!

Then around 3am she grizzles again. Hang on its only 3am, you can do better than that Millie! I got up and tried the dummy! Twice! I stroked her! I shhhh patted her! Several times I made it back to the bedroom and a couple of times actually back into bed…even just starting to get warm again….before she started the grizzle once more. By 4.30am, I couldn’t take any more and gave in. I knew she would sleep as soon as she had the bottle so I gave her the bottle. I expected her to guzzle it up. She didn’t, she had 3.5oz of another 7oz bottle. Rah! But, back to sleep she went with just a couple of soft murmurs.

Then, as I was documenting on Twitter my early morning '#nightfeed updates, I awoke to lots of lovely support and was also reminded about the 8 month sleep regression!

Relief! Its temporary!

I can relax, let her do her thing and wait for her to get over it! I may have to feed her a couple of extra times a night for a week or 2 but stressing wont make it go any quicker and its only temporary. She will start sleeping through again. She will! Will!

*starts rocking staring into the distance as Callum wipes the dribble from my mouth*

ETA: Great article on the 8 Month Sleep Regression