When they don’t sleep…

[Pim]

My oldest son, who’s now almost 5 years old was a terrible sleeper. He destroyed our sleep time for 3 years long sometimes crying full nights, waking up every hour to cry and if he did sleep he woke up at 4:30 am. I remember feeling quite desperate at times and was sometimes so tired at work that I had trouble keeping attention during meetings at work, losing focus while teaching. I was tired for 3 years. Now that he’s older everything got better. He did have night terrors once in a while but that seems get better as well. 

My youngest, he was a different story. He’s two years old now. We only had a little trouble a few times with sleeping with him and that was mostly when he was sick or when he got his teeth. But now for over a  month long now: hells back 😩😫 going to bed= crying for hours. Wake up time: 4:30 every morning and refusing to sleep any further. And now: waking up in the middle of the night….

I need your comfort guys. Please share your horror sleepless night stories. I don’t want to hear any succes stories, just people who felt a lot of pity for themselves, like I do. 
 

sleep is one underestimated pleasure.

[rostasi]

Fussy baby at night.

Quote

Tip

Check your baby’s fingers and toes. A surprisingly common reason for a fussy baby at night is a stray hair wound around a little finger or toe.

[Stompin at the Savoy]

I had that same problem.  Lack of sleep gets really rough. I found this book useful when a kid was waking us up ALL the time. 

[gvopedz]

No young children keeping me awake - but I did stay awake many nights listening to an elderly relative (who has dementia) yell or talk throughout the night.  There was always a young female nurse nearby, and I was there to help her lift the relative if necessary.  I did not feel pity for myself, but I did wonder when wilI I be in bed with dementia, yelling throughout the night.  By the way, there were also some brief occasional moments when the relative recognized me, and those moments were fantastic.

[ejp626]

My son wasn't too bad a sleeper when a baby, but he had the night terrors for probably close to six months, maybe even closer to a year when he was 3 or 4.  I usually had to lie on the floor near his bed -- for hours -- in order to get him calm enough to get back to sleep.  I don't miss those days... 

[Pim]

9 hours ago, rostasi said:

Fussy baby at night.

Haha thanks but no advice needed. After 4 years I know all the tips, advices, programs etc. It’s even more frustrating when people are giving you ‘good advice’ while you know that doesn’t work or you have tried it already ten times. Rostasi this not a sneer to you or anything I appreciate your reply. It’s just that we have tried everything and I am pretty sure I doesn’t really have to do anything with our approach as parents.

Kids could just be so different and with some of them nothing seem to work. Our 2 boys are so different and they get the same upbringing. My oldest nephew was a good sleeper, the other two terrible sleepers. My oldest niece was a bad sleeper, her sister never had problems. It’s the same with eating. My oldest didn’t want to eat vegetables but ate most kind of fruit. And my youngest eats almost all vegetables but bananas are the only fruit we could get him. Different personality

5 hours ago, ejp626 said:

My son wasn't too bad a sleeper when a baby, but he had the night terrors for probably close to six months, maybe even closer to a year when he was 3 or 4.  I usually had to lie on the floor near his bed -- for hours -- in order to get him calm enough to get back to sleep.  I don't miss those days... 

Oh yes night terrors. Such a weird phenomenon. It took a while before me and my wife knew he had them because he didn’t show one of the classic symptoms: sitting up straight in bed. I wondered why he was so upset, sometimes crying an hour long repeatingly trough the night. I woke him up and that’s the dumbest thing to do because it gets worse than. When I knew it was night terrors I just lied next to him in bed gently stroking his hair for 15 minutes and then he got out of it most of the times.

[Rabshakeh]

17 hours ago, Pim said:

My youngest, he was a different story. He’s two years old now. We only had a little trouble a few times with sleeping with him and that was mostly when he was sick or when he got his teeth. But now for over a  month long now: hells back 😩😫 going to bed= crying for hours. Wake up time: 4:30 every morning and refusing to sleep any further. And now: waking up in the middle of the night….

Hi Pim,

I feel your pain. We have kids around the same age. Mine are 5 1/2, 3 1/2 and 27 days old, so similar world.

Both of my kids are reasonable but not great sleepers. They'll both wake up 2-3 times a night. Unfortunately it isn't the same times, and my elder son is a very early riser (4am!). The bigger issue is that I have personally always had problems sleeping, so whilst it may only take five minutes to get my daughter back to sleep at 12:30, that is then me awake for three hours. Finally I'll get back to sleep just in time for my son to wake up and start turning the light on and off and explaining dinosaurs to me at length until I crack and start making the coffee.

Strangely we seem to be working it out now just as the newborn arrived. I am quite well slept! The secret was to get a bunk bed. The bunk bed is blue and we have told the children that it is magic, because a wizard put a spell on it to help them sleep. Weirdly, this story was convincing, or the mere fact of being in a bunk bed means that they do both sleep. There is a spare bed in their room which I sometimes sleep on if I am feeling lazy and really want a full night's sleep (I am in charge of the older two children at night whereas my wife has the newborn). That's not good parenting but it has helped! The bunk / spare bed combination basically cut out most of the midnight wake ups. Then when my son starts on about vikings and football teams at 4am I just put my head between two pillows and try to zone it out. At some point he gives up and starts looking at picture books or hassling his sister.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Rabshakeh

[mjazzg]

22 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Hi Pim,

I feel your pain. We have kids around the same age. Mine are 5 1/2, 3 1/2 and 27 days old, so similar world.

Both of my kids are reasonable but not great sleepers. They'll both wake up 2-3 times a night. Unfortunately it isn't the same times, and my elder son is a very early riser (4am!). The bigger issue is that I have personally always had problems sleeping, so whilst it may only take five minutes to get my daughter back to sleep at 12:30, that is then me awake for three hours. Finally I'll get back to sleep just in time for my son to wake up and start turning the light on and off and explaining dinosaurs to me at length until I crack and start making the coffee.

Strangely we seem to be working it out now just as the newborn arrived. I am quite well slept! The secret was to get a bunk bed. The bunk bed is blue and we have told the children that it is magic, because a wizard put a spell on it to help them sleep. Weirdly, this story was convincing, or the mere fact of being in a bunk bed means that they do both sleep. There is a spare bed in their room which I sometimes sleep on if I am feeling lazy and really want a full night's sleep (I am in charge of the older two children at night whereas my wife has the newborn). That's not good parenting but it has helped! The bunk / spare bed combination basically cut out most of the midnight wake ups. Then when my son starts on about vikings and football teams at 4am I just put my head between two pillows and try to zone it out. At some point he gives up and starts looking at picture books or hassling his sister.

This description of the bunk bed solution made me laugh, I'm not sure it should have though. Well done for establishing it at least.

I hope the 4yo is talking about a decent football team alongside the vikings

And congratulations on the new arrival!

Full disclosure, never had kids so can't fully empathise...

Edited November 28, 2023 by mjazzg

[Rabshakeh]

1 hour ago, mjazzg said:

I hope the 4yo is talking about a decent football team alongside the vikings

Kids his age are pretty obsessive about football, who supports which team, who hates who, etc. None of them have ever watched a football match to my knowledge. 

it's all Arsenal chat over here, given where we live. Plus who supports Tottenham, Millwall, Chelsea or Cardiff, who have registered as the baddies.

[Pim]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

Hi Pim,

I feel your pain. We have kids around the same age. Mine are 5 1/2, 3 1/2 and 27 days old, so similar world.

Both of my kids are reasonable but not great sleepers. They'll both wake up 2-3 times a night. Unfortunately it isn't the same times, and my elder son is a very early riser (4am!). The bigger issue is that I have personally always had problems sleeping, so whilst it may only take five minutes to get my daughter back to sleep at 12:30, that is then me awake for three hours. Finally I'll get back to sleep just in time for my son to wake up and start turning the light on and off and explaining dinosaurs to me at length until I crack and start making the coffee.

Strangely we seem to be working it out now just as the newborn arrived. I am quite well slept! The secret was to get a bunk bed. The bunk bed is blue and we have told the children that it is magic, because a wizard put a spell on it to help them sleep. Weirdly, this story was convincing, or the mere fact of being in a bunk bed means that they do both sleep. There is a spare bed in their room which I sometimes sleep on if I am feeling lazy and really want a full night's sleep (I am in charge of the older two children at night whereas my wife has the newborn). That's not good parenting but it has helped! The bunk / spare bed combination basically cut out most of the midnight wake ups. Then when my son starts on about vikings and football teams at 4am I just put my head between two pillows and try to zone it out. At some point he gives up and starts looking at picture books or hassling his sister.

Well first of all: congrats with the youngest addition to your family. Those first months are exciting and terrifying all at the same time. It’s very fun to read how all things go so similar between a British and a Dutch a family and that we have to deal with the same kind of things. It’s also comforting to know that another Organissimo member is suffering from the same kind of sleepless nights as me

The magic bed: similar story here just slightly different. There was a time when I ‘closed of all walls and windows’ with my magic hands’ so the room was safe and no bad men could enter. I could just see me oldest sons face go from tense to relaxed. It’s funny how kids could believe in that kind of stuff is blindly. Me and my wife also ‘divided the burden’. I did the first part of the night, my wife the second. I took care of the oldest while my wife took care of the baby. The only thing we don’t have is that spare bed in their room because there’s not enough space but I understand your choice. I do sleep on a mattress next to my oldest when he is sick (I was never, never sick until we had kids since when I had stomach flu 4 times!!!)

And of course the fact that on a certain moment in the middle of the night your kids are back asleep again while you’re looking at the ceiling till the sun comes up. Morning time of the youngest is now 4:30 am. But I am in more luck with my oldest who mostly wakes up around 6:30. And then the endless talking haha very recognizable again. Fortunately they fully accept when we put off Paw Patrol and put on a John Coltrane record.

They are the most cherished little things I have. But man I miss my full sleeping nights!

[mjazzg]

23 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Kids his age are pretty obsessive about football, who supports which team, who hates who, etc. None of them have ever watched a football match to my knowledge. 

it's all Arsenal chat over here, given where we live. Plus who supports Tottenham, Millwall, Chelsea or Cardiff, who have registered as the baddies.

That's tough on Cardiff

[Rabshakeh]

24 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

That's tough on Cardiff

Due to some terrible crime committed in a past life, my team is downwardly mobile QPR. I can't convince my son to be sensible and just follow Arsenal, so he is a QPR supporter too, at least for now. Cardiff and Chelsea had (now very much historic) rivalries with QPR. There's a QPR song he learned which starts with "We are the pride of West London, the Blue and the White. We hate Cardiff City and Chelsea are tight" (one of those words may not be in the original). So for him Cardiff is on the list of baddie teams, along with the likes of Millwall and Chelsea. 

[mjazzg]

2 minutes ago, Rabshakeh said:

Due to some terrible crime committed in a past life, my team is downwardly mobile QPR. I can't convince my son to be sensible and just follow Arsenal, so he is a QPR supporter too, at least for now. Cardiff and Chelsea had (now very much historic) rivalries with QPR. There's a QPR song he learned which starts with "We are the pride of West London, the Blue and the White. We hate Cardiff City and Chelsea are tight" (one of those words may not be in the original). So for him Cardiff is on the list of baddie teams, along with the likes of Millwall and Chelsea. 

That explains it. English football chants, folk music!

That's how it should be, support Dad's team until you're old enough to see reason.

Coincidentally I'm a supporter of the real and oldest blue and white hoops, currently propping up League 1 and heading for administration so you have no worries. 

[Rabshakeh]

49 minutes ago, Pim said:

Fortunately they fully accept when we put off Paw Patrol and put on a John Coltrane record.

I've trained mine to put on records, which is fun, even if it leads to a bit of repetition. Agharta seems to be the favourite at the moment. 

2 minutes ago, mjazzg said:

Coincidentally I'm a supporter of the real and oldest blue and white hoops, currently propping up League 1 and heading for administration so you have no worries. 

I think I'd picked that up somewhere. I guess there's the oldest and there's the most consistent.

Hope League 1 is okay. We'll be there next season.

1 hour ago, Pim said:

It’s very fun to read how all things go so similar between a British and a Dutch a family and that we have to deal with the same kind of things. It’s also comforting to know that another Organissimo member is suffering from the same kind of sleepless nights as me

I think it is true of almost all parents. When we were starting out a lot of parents professed to having kids who slept through the night. 3/4 years later, it is clear that none of them did and they were just trying to save face. No sleep and dealing with the Pazuzu-esque temper tantrums is pretty universal.

By the way, I don't think the bunk bed thing is just about the magic. Quite a few of our friends have also had very good results with bunk beds. Something about it does have an effect.

[Gheorghe]

It´s so long time ago, they are 37 and 35... Well one thing is sure: I have two " boys" and there age difference is 1,5 years, my former wife and me wanted to have ´em with not much age difference so we might don´t have get back to that sleepless hours much later. So it was quite slick. When that marriage broke up after just 2,5 or 3 years, it was my then wife who started to wander around and I stayed quite much with the kids, which was cool enough allthough I ´m  not sure if  I was the most ideal father if it comes to "education". 

Anyway I love them and they give me the feeling that they love me just because I was the "dad" I was.......

But honestly, I never had the urge to get back into that routine again. If another woman would have wanted a kid with me, I might have quitted. I have two , and that´s it. 

[JSngry]

Our daughter didn't sleep much, period. Not through the night, and definitely not for daytime naps. This was the complete opposite of our son (four years older), who slept according to schedule almost every day and every night.

We all survived, but not without some frayed nerves along the way. She never did nap, but she did grow into a better nighttime sleep regimen.

Catnaps are your friend. 

[Teasing the Korean]

Since our Siamese cat crossed over, our Maine Coon cat has been crying at night.  He has begun sleeping with us through the whole night, something he never used to do.

[Ken Dryden]

Cats react to things in different ways, but it is often fascinating. When I had my knee replacement earlier this year, my wife took over my care of the cats in the basement. Two days after surgery, my wife called from the basement and told me our oldest cat (Zeitlin) barely touched his canned food and went over to the door looking for me. I grabbed the walker, folded it to use as a crutch and made my way downstairs and assured him that I was still okay. I give him partial credit for encouraging me to take the stairs regularly during my recovery, it is fifteen steps to the basement and sixteen to the top floor (HutchFan has been in our home to climb them). Fifteen days after surgery, my PT measured my range of motion at 110 degrees and said 90 was the expected result. So Zeitlin gets credit with getting me moving a lot.

Edited December 2, 2023 by Ken Dryden

[Teasing the Korean]

6 minutes ago, Ken Dryden said:

Cats react to things in different ways, but it is often fascinating. When I had my knee replacement earlier this year, my wife took over my care of the cats in the basement. Two days after surgery, my wife called from the basement and told me our oldest cat (Zeitlin) barely touched his canned food and went over to the door looking for me. I grabbed the walker, folded it to use as a crutch and make my way downstairs and assure him that I was still okay. I give him partial credit for encouraing me to take the stairs regularly during my recovery, it is fifteen steps to the basement and sixteen to the top floor (HutchFan has been in our home to climb them). Fifteen days after surgery, my PT measured my range of motion at 110 degrees and said 90 was the expected result. So Zeitlin gets credit with getting me moving a lot.

😺 👍

[soulpope]

In his earlier youth our son didn't want to go to bed before a certain time, even when being "dead on his feat" .... as his main orientation was our kitchen clock one day we decided to set the clock forward for one hour .... worked wonders 😁😇 ....

[Pim]

9 hours ago, soulpope said:

In his earlier youth our son didn't want to go to bed before a certain time, even when being "dead on his feat" .... as his main orientation was our kitchen clock one day we decided to set the clock forward for one hour .... worked wonders 😁😇 ....

Haha that’s clever 😂

[Rabshakeh]

I don't know how it is in the Netherlands but in the UK this has been one of the worst winter virus seasons in memory. The kids keep bringing illnesses back from school, giving the illnesses to each other, then us, then getting them again. We've had flu twice (maybe one was COVID), vomiting bug and colds. Since late November it has just been only sickness.

[Niko]

It's exactly the same in the Netherlands, we had a rare healthy week the last few days but now "the maestro" as we affectionately call her has again brought back something from daycare... She's still too young to tell us much about the symptoms... Can't wait to check them out myself....

Edited January 6 by Niko

[Teasing the Korean]

Since our Siamese cat sadly crossed over about two months ago, our male Maine Coon cat has really bonded with us, and he is sleeping with us through the night, something he never typically used to do.

[Pim]

On 1/6/2024 at 10:24 PM, Niko said:

It's exactly the same in the Netherlands, we had a rare healthy week the last few days but now "the maestro" as we affectionately call her has again brought back something from daycare... She's still too young to tell us much about the symptoms... Can't wait to check them out myself....

I could only confirm Niko. Same here. Lot of my students and collegues are sick too. We've had worse here at home. 2022 was the year we got stomach flu (is that what you call vomit bug?) three times which is medically seen almost impossible. First time it was me, my eldest and my youngest. My wife was safe. Second time it was my wife and my eldest and the third time it was me, my wife and my youngest.... plus my parents in law! They all started with one of the kids. Nice present from day care....

Edited January 14 by Pim