Independent Sleeping/ Sleep Training

I need help with independent sleeping. My little one is 9 nearly 10 months now and I’m considering teaching her to fall asleep on her own but I’m not sure where to start. I know a lot of people do the crying it out method but idk if I want to jump right into that 🤧. Right now I usually rock her to sleep or she’ll fall asleep on the bottle or occasionally if she’s really exhausted and can’t switch off, I soothe her after she cries a little. But I can see that she’s starting to get frustrated at she can’t fall asleep on her own and trying to close her eyes and lay down to sleep but she’s struggling. So any tips on how to start or what helped other mums would be much appreciated. 💕

in our community

Hello everyone

Hey guys, I really don't want to be judged but could anyone help until the 2nd of September until I'm back at work? I feel horrible but I'm really struggling. I fully understand if not possible, it's noones problem but mine. Thank you ❤️

Spilt Milk

I know how the saying goes, but I am absolutely sobbing.
The jar had around 34 to 36 ounces..
my daughter is going to stay with her father tonight so I worked so hard yesterday to make sure I filled it up and then some, so that she would have what she needed.
We didn’t get good sleep last night. Half asleep this morning I go to fill up a bottle and this happens…
We have some frozen stock but this broke my heart.

Would you correct someone else’s pronunciation for your child? How do you feel about regional/international accents?

I bumped into a mother I know at a coffee shop. I have an unusual accent, because I’m ESL and I immigrated to the UK when I was 14 so I picked up a lot of london pronunciations but I don’t generally have trouble being understood.

Her son doesn’t have any speech issues or anything, he’s got a great vocabulary for 4. He is very friendly so he talks to me when we see them at the park or soft play, and he always seems to understand me.

I was speaking to my child in English and then suddenly I realised the other mother was correcting words I said for her son? I asked my daughter “do you want some water?” which I guess is like dyu wan some wata if I just say it quickly without thinking, and she said quite loudly “we would say WA-TER, do you WANT some WATER” and made him repeat it back twice.

Other words I heard her correct were cloth and cheeky girl, then I started to get self conscious and making an effort to enunciate better. I was so embarrassed, she was speaking quite loudly so she must have known I could hear her. But I like my accent, it still sounds a bit like where I come from. I don’t mind if my daughter hears it and learns it, my heritage is her heritage. We only see this woman occasionally (she’s a bit condescending so I try to avoid play dates) so I doubt my accent is rubbing off on her son.

It’s been a couple days and this is still sitting with me. It feels so out of line to do that in front of the person unprompted. As long as people understand each other, does it matter?

Unused Diapers

What can be done with unused diapers??
I have like ten boxes from my baby shower of various sizes that are still taped in the box

How do I go out with my 11 week old?

Everyday I try to go out and there’s always something that stops me. For instance he didn’t sleep well at night or early morning today. He was awake for a couple of hours, so overtired. My mum came to go out but then he finally went to sleep, so we waited for that. He woke up after 30 mins. Then I fed him and he was a bit fussy. He has reflux so needed to burp and hold for 20 mins. Then I went to change his nappy and get him changed into going out clothes. He then brought up all his milk and was crying his eyes out. I couldn’t settle him, by this time it had already been over 2 hours and my mum had to leave. I could only settle him by feeding and now he’s fallen asleep again.

His wake windows are fairly short after I’ve fed for around 30-40mins. I need to burp in between.

Do I just take a crying baby out? He hates the car seat and the pram.
Do you miss naps? I thought an overtired baby doesn’t sleep well at night and that’s already bad.

What do you do? Any advice or tips?

Sleep problems

Bit of a vulnerable post, and a long one so please bare with me.

I have a 9 month old now and for the past 5? ish months weve been having problems with napping. This has got steadily worse to the point now that it is just so so bad that my mental health cannot take it anymore and I now have ppd from the stress😒.

When I say we have tried everything, I mean absolutely everything. He will only sleep in mine and my partners bed with curtains drawn, some form of physical contact (usually hand on waist), fan on and shh'ing.

At night time he will sleep in his cot, however we have to get him to sleep in our bed and transfer after 20mins once hes in a deep enough sleep. Then one night feed. Maybe a few cries for the dummy but generally does stay asleep.

The daytime naps however are HELL. It used to be a regular ish wake window time that he would last but nap time would vary everyday, anywhere from 35mins to 2hrs. Suddenly in the past couple months he could start getting tired just 1hr after waking, whining like crazy, rubbing eyes etc. all his usual cues. Then on other days it could be 3hrs before you see those signs. Nap lengths have become more regular though, for around a month weve had 2x 1.5hr-2hr naps.

The problem is that he will absolutely fight to the death to avoid the nap. Once he crosses overtired territory, which happens fast, he just will not sleep. He also has this constant need to self regulate which stops him from sleeping rather than soothing himself. He wants to play with his feet, if hes not doing that he wants to play with his hands, if not that then playing with my hands, or flapping and hitting himself, or ripping my top, or clawing at my face.. you get the idea. This will go on from as long as 20mins to an hour and a half of trying to get him to sleep.

Weve tried everything from sticking to wake windows, to wake windows and capping naps, to putting him to sleep as soon as he shows a cue, to adjusting how long we send him to sleep after a cue, to sending him before he shows anything, to trying to tire him out. Absolutely nothing works. He is just in a constant state of overtiredness and irritability, even if we put him to sleep an hour and a half after waking.

The one thing I can say is we use a baby tracker app and he does sleep 12-14hrs a day, so he is getting enough sleep. The problem is getting him to sleep without wasting half of the day and not being able to make plans or do things without worrying if hes going to get overtired. We have no routine, nothing, and at 9 months surely that's not normal.

I am a student and going back to studying in September, which my parents will be looking after him 3 days a week. But how could i possibly leave him with them and trust that he will nap if even I cant get him to sleep most days??

Open to any suggestions, even though I've probably done it already. Or even someone to say theyve been through this would mean a lot.

If you got this far thanks for reading💕

- a stressed and depressed mummy🥺