Categories
Baby (0-1yo) Blogging Life My Journey Tangents Toddler (1-2yo)

My 16 month old doesn’t sleep & other updates…

The past two weeks have been incredibly stressful and beyond exhausting. It began with me getting sick and then Charly got sick and then her teeth started forcing their way through the gums, leading to an entire week of hours of screaming at a time in the middle of the night. My poor angel has been suffering so much and nothing I have done has made it any better.

The tear

I am so far beyond finished I don’t even know how to restart. I have also been trying to maintain work and working flat out on the blog. On Sunday it all seemed to slam into me at once. I fell asleep with Charly at her nap time in the afternoon and I couldn’t quite wake up; even though I carried something heavy outside in the ice cold and stood there talking to somebody for 15 minutes. I came back to discover I had left the front door, gate and garden gate open. After a cup of coffee, I started coming out of the fog and realised I had big memory gaps from the entire day, and barely remembered the conversation with the visitors. All a little bit scary overall.

Of course this isn’t just from the past two weeks… For those of you who don’t know, our Charly girl has had sleep issues since she was 5 months old (this post mentions the week it started). Essentially, every night she wakes anywhere between every 45 minutes and every 90 minutes. She had one 6 hour stretch a few months ago, a handful of 3 & a half – 4 hour stretches; but generally there is one 2 hour “stretch” and the rest is wake ups every hour or so for up to around 5 minutes at a time. Every night. For almost 12 months.

Charly asleep

She has a solid routine, she has one decent nap in the day, she eats well, she runs around like a loon, she plays ball, she plays outside and inside, she watches educational tv, she reads books and does puzzles, she has attachment objects (from the Lily & Jack bunny to a Sleep Sense taglet, which she loves but don’t mean sleep to her, to favourite toys, to her cloth nappies) and she goes to sleep without a murmur. She is still breastfed and she won’t drink a bottle or any substantial amount of liquid in one go (she will drink plenty of water from her cup over the course of the day though).

She used to sleep in her cot but that became increasingly rare until she is now fully co-sleeping with me, so I at least don’t have to fully wake up and get up the 8-9 times a night she wakes. She is sadly an insanely restless sleeper like her mommy; talking, throwing herself over me, flipping herself upside down and kicking me in the face a lot. So even the sleep I am getting is not very rested.

Co-sleeping

I’ve tried everything short of CIO, which you KNOW how I feel about (and before anyone gets upset, I already apologised for offending anyone with my thoughts); and force weaning her from breastfeeding at night. I don’t have the physical or mental energy to force wean her, and I don’t believe in it either; though this past week has tested my limits in terms of what I believe in.

In spite of the broken sleep, Charly is 16 months old and thriving. She is scary smart, independent, beautiful, gorgeous, funny, full of sass, stubborn, impossible, “mommy-verskrik” little girl that fills my heart with so much pride, love, guilt and fear, and floods my Instagram feed with adorable daily photos. She is absorbing knowledge like a little sponge and she has become incredibly affectionate, throwing her arms around special people and giving them kisses… which I am 99% sure she has figured out gets her whatever she wants. She is the source of my inspiration; my motivation to be more and better and stronger.

Little miss sass

The big laugh

Gorgeous girl

Telling you with giggles

And in spite of all my sleep deprivation and frustration and pure and simple exhaustion, I have managed to keep working and taking on side projects. I have also relaunched our little corner of the Interwebs here, and have been working incredibly hard on trying to add new and interesting interviews and reviews and the like.

I am also going to be appearing in a few new places, which I will share when things are finalised. The goal is to reach more people and to bring them into our little community and share in the journey of parenthood. Making a difference in somebody’s day has become a bit of an obsession for me of late. And I have loved building new relationships with the mommies that have entered my orbit. And I am so incredibly excited and inspired and proud of the new upcoming interview series for July.

So yes; it’s been an incredibly tough couple of weeks and I have been MIA in terms of personal posts; but I am still working hard in the background on some special things for you.

Now, go enter my giveaway and get your 10% discount voucher!! It is the last day to enter. And if you are feeling down and need some inspiration, head over to my interview from yesterday.

Sending all the love xx

10 replies on “My 16 month old doesn’t sleep & other updates…”

Knox is almost three and still wakes up every night and joins us in our bed. I wish I could help but clearly, I don’t really have a clue what I’m doing ha ha.

LOL. My poor friend. I wouldn’t mind if she woke and came to us, if only she wouldn’t wake crying every hour :-/ You are doing amazingly well & raising the most awesome kids. It’s nice to know that even though your bub wakes at night too, he is an incredilbe happy healthy little man 🙂 xx

Oh its such a great relief to read that there’s someone else out there who feels the same as I do!

Josh is 21 months only and he is still breastfed (I do not see this ending anytime soon, both of us enjoy the bonding way too much), he wakes up every 2 – 3 hours (sometimes its 1 – 2 just to cuddle or call me or check that I’m still there or whatever it is. Thankfully he goes down into his cot at bedtime and gives me an hour in my own bed alone before waking up and joining us.

Never did I ever think I would be cosleeping with him for this long. Poor hubby wakes up with aching body parts every morning solely due to our acrobatic sleeper.

We have tried the CIO way and it failed BIG time, Josh seems to have been born with a VERY stubborn streak and crying can go on for HOURS. We have tried putting him down in a semi dozy state and he wakes up almost immediately. So for now I sit in the rocker while he climbs and crawls all over me until he passes out. Then I transfer him to the cot.

It is always a huge relief to me too to hear that I am not alone in this. It really does feel like I am 99% of the time. I keep hubby sane by co-sleeping with C in her room. He couldn’t do his job being woken as much as C is awake. I am just desperately hoping she outgrows it soon. Sending love mommy ❤️

Oh I know that feeling of sleep deprivation. I have a 10 month old and he stopped sleeping through in his 4th month. He still breastfeeds and wakes constantly at night. But really, it’s not the waking up that’s stressful and tiring (although it does play a HUGE role), it’s the screaming. I can’t handle the screaming. And then trying to keep his screaming from waking my 4 year old up just doubles all the stress. Good luck Mandy! Just know that you’re not alone. <3

Oh honey, I can’t even imagine having to deal with a second child like this. I really want another at some point but it seems like I would never sleep again if I did sending all the love xx

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.