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Behaviour/development

Sleep or lack of!

10 replies

caitlinmum · 20/12/2004 13:56

My little girl is almost 6 months old. When we started weaning at 4 months she slept through the night from 8pm to 7am for a week. Then she got a chest infection and everything has gone to pot. She loves food but her milk consumption has gone right down and she is waking again in the night. I feed her once and the rest of the time, try a dummy, picking up, patting etc. etc and she still wakes every hour or so.

Last night it was a 7pm feed and to bed, awake at 1am couldn't settle her so fed her 4-5 oz, then up again at 2.45, 3.40, 4.30, 5.00 and finally got up and brought her into our bed at 6am until we got up at 6.30.

I'm going back to work in the new year and am worried that I can't cope on this little sleep - I used to be a 10 hours a night sleeper but i'd settle for 6 or 7 uninterupted hours!

Can anyone offer any help at all?? I don't think I could cope with controlled crying and have tried a comforter instead of a dummy but she just waves it around her head.

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sleepdeprived · 20/12/2004 14:00

I didn't think I could cope with cc. Always been vehemently opposed to it, but got truly desperate. Tried the wimp's version recently and IT WORKS - DS now sleeping 12 hours. I am a new mummy. Read the Ferber book -- it's more flexible than you might think - I just left DS for 2, 3, 4, then 5 mins, and only had to do it once. This was preceded by about a week of Baby Whisperer-style pick-up-put-down, though, so I think he was getting used to the idea that he wasn't getting cuddled to sleep any more.

hth - good luck, I do sympathise

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sleepdeprived · 20/12/2004 14:01

PS I don't think cc is advised before 6 months though

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sleepdeprived · 20/12/2004 14:01

Maybe try PU/PD till your dd is old enough. It might work on its own.

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caitlinmum · 20/12/2004 15:11

How do I know that she's eaten enough during the day and isn't hungry? Am i being unreasonable to expect a baby to sleep for 11 hours solid?

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caitlinmum · 20/12/2004 15:17

Also what if she's not crying - sometimes when she wakes she's just "singing" or crying out but in a happy way. Either way we're all awake then.

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Frizbethereindeer · 20/12/2004 15:46

have you tried a dream feed, whilst shes asleep at 10pm, this may get her to go thru?

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aloha · 20/12/2004 15:47

If she's not actually crying reasonably hard, I'd leave her. CC doesn't have to be bad, honest. I did it with ds at 8months and we just got whinging-crying, not howling, and the longest period was 20 minutes. And it worked!

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sleepdeprived · 20/12/2004 19:55

Agree with both of these posts. We kept up the dream feed for quite a while. The Ferber book has stuff on nighttime hunger, how to phase out night feeds etc.

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Saker · 20/12/2004 20:24

I have tried controlled crying in desperation on a few occasions and found it really hard and in the end gave up, usually after about half an hour of solid crying actually becoming more hysterical if I went in at the prescribed intervals. I have also tried the more gentle method of sitting with them, not picking them up but patting them, then gradually moving further and further away until eventually you are out of the door. With ds2 I resigned myself to this even in the middle of the night and used to sit next to the crack of light through the door reading. I got through a few books that way . It does gradually work but takes longer I suspect.

However ds1 went through a similar sleep pattern to what you describe at a similar age and I resorted to just letting him sleep in bed with us. This just seemed to last for two or three months then he improved and combined with the gentle method above he went back to his own bed. He never has come and got in bed with us in the night since so it didn't have a long lasting effect. What I am trying to say is that I wouldn't rule this out as an option if you can stand it and it works - it doesn't necessarily mean that you will have a problem later and the way I look at it is that you have a problem now - if that solves it but causes a problem later then you won't be any worse off and you never know, you might get away with it. Also they are only little for such a short time and it's quite nice snuggling up to them while they are babies.

Having said all that ds2 would never settle in our bed either so it doesn't work for everyone .

Also agree with Aloha that I wouldn't react to anything that isn't proper crying for a few minutes at first.