Our Sleeping Beauty

As I’ve mentioned in my last post, we’d started a habit of rocking Charlie to sleep in the pram, Davy would then lift him into bed and then we would deal with however many night wakening’s each night with yoghurt. Charlie’s bedtime routine and environment had also changed multiple times over the last few months.

Around the time of weaning Charlie, we decided to get him a single bed instead of the mattress on the floor. The mattress on the floor had worked for a few weeks at most, so we got the bed when Charlie was around 18-19months. He loved it and we still put the cot bed mattress on the floor in case he rolls off during the night, but so far, he hasn’t!

As the sleepless nights rolled on, sleep deprivation was now plaguing us both. Although I wasn’t getting up with Charlie anymore to ensure he was over breastfeeding, I would still waken every time. I would lie in bed and feel incredible guilt of not going in to try and settle him. We had also decided we needed to cut the yoghurts out as it was a bad habit. Davy was just having to sit and shhh him and rub his back and eventually Charlie would settle. However, Davy was getting fed up of being the only one to go into Charlie and of how long it would take Charlie to settle off to sleep, so he started to bring Charlie into our bed.

I was not best pleased as in my mind, we were trying to eliminate one bad habit of yoghurt feeding and starting another with sharing our bed. Charlie had also decided that when he came into our bed, he no longer wanted his daddy, and that I was the comfiest thing to sleep on. He would literally lie on top of my neck and chest to fall asleep and scream blue murder if I didn't let him or tried to move him.

Davy would slip off back to sleep, Charlie would fall asleep, and then I would try to work out how I was getting him off me. Many a night when I would get out from underneath him, he would be horizontal, taking up the majority of the king-size bed. So I started to escape into his single bed. The strange thing was that when Charlie came into our bed, he would then sleep the rest of the night and I would sleep the rest of the night in his bed. It wasn’t ideal but I ignored the negative thoughts in my head of this new habit we were starting, and for a few weeks we just went with it, desperate for some sleep! 

However, we knew things couldn’t continue how they were so we made a few more changes. We stopped playing relaxing music to Charlie and we tried to stop bringing him into our bed every night. I started to get back up to Charlie and would lie with him on his bed, then when he would be asleep, I would sneak out and go back to my own bed. Things weren’t perfect but I felt better that we were trying to eliminate the bed sharing habit we had started to create!

Eventually after a few more weeks of unsettled sleep, I cracked and reached out to a sleep specialist, Susan from Settled Petals. From speaking to Susan about our situation and Charlie’s HD, she asked about food intolerance's and reflux, two things I hadn't considered. She spoke about his bowel condition and how this can sometimes cause secondary reflux and from discussing symptoms, I became convinced Charlie had reflux.

With a few more weeks of no sleep, and no conclusive results on if Charlie had reflux or not, I reached out again to Susan and booked her to help us. We decided to wait about 3 weeks from booking Susan to her actually coming out as we had a short break booked and I knew it might not be ideal trying to sleep train whilst away in an unfamiliar setting.

 

When we got home, I decided to try getting into Charlie's bed and letting him lie beside me on the pillow holding my top to see if he would continue this new sleep routine. Thankfully it seemed to be working and so we decided to ditch the rocking to sleep in the pram. Within the first week of trying this, Charlie slept four nights in a row the whole night!! We couldn’t believe we were getting so much sleep and we had managed to ditch the yoghurt eating, sharing our bed and the pram rocking within a three-week period!

I booked him an appointment with the GP thinking this would be the cause of it all and we would then be able to rectify it and finally get some sleep. Unfortunately, I got a GP who totally dismissed any symptoms I mentioned with regards to reflux. Susan had mentioned to speak to the GP first before booking her just in case if it was a medical reason that was preventing Charlie from sleeping, as it might impact on how much Susan could help us.

Even though I had to wait a few weeks, I instantly felt relieved, we were finally getting help with sleep. Susan also advised she would keep an eye on our records of his sleep and temperament and if she thought he had reflux etc. she would help us with speaking to our GP again.

Anyway for a few weeks we continued on with the sleepless nights. I had decided to just go with the flow of getting Charlie to sleep in the hotel in Kilkenny, knowing that we would have more regimented plans in place with Susan soon.

In the hotel, we had a family room with a double and a single bed, so we moved them together to make one massive bed. On the first night, we decided to try not rocking Charlie to sleep and just had him in the middle of the bed between us. Charlie lay beside me holding onto my bra and top, which was a fairly new thing, and I’m not sure if it is a reference to him once breastfeeding or he just likes to hold onto me, but it worked. He settled off to sleep and slept fairly well, only wakening once or twice both nights we were there.  

Our new routine was now that I lay beside Charlie and he would hold my top or bra, I would Shh him and rub his back. When he would fall asleep, I make my great escape as quickly and quietly as I could! I would still waken at every noise he made and jump out of bed, standing outside his room, waiting to go in, then realise he must have settled off to sleep again and then I’d go back to my own bed.

I was delighted that Charlie seemed to be sleeping better but I was still glad that we had Susan coming to see us. We needed help with techniques to get Charlie back to sleep if he wakens through the night. I also wanted to stop the top grabbing as at times, it was relentless pulling at my bra, rummaging around and then crying that he needed both hands to hold my bra or top! I also wanted Charlie to accept his daddy putting him to sleep as the night times were back to just me, which is exhausting in its own right.

We are now nearly finished our sleep plan with Susan and it has been interesting seeing the improvements in Charlies sleep in a short period of time. We’ve just taken it slowly and gently with Charlie, due to his HD and also because I think there has been so much change in his routine lately that I didn’t want to do anything too suddenly. We’ve moved his bedtime forward, stopped lying on the bed beside him and reduced night wakening to once a night. I’m still too scared to believe that we’ll actually start getting some sleep so keep waiting for the night when he kicks off and wakes 5-6 times again! 

Hopefully though that doesn’t happen and things only continue to improve for Charlie and us!

Xx