What about a 9 MO who still wakes 3 times at night...

[pupuce]

Any idea... She has never slept through!!! (DS and DD slept through at 6 and 9 weeks old... guess I am paying the price for being smug then!!!)
This one is also fully BF.
She is on BLW... and finally eating decent amounts.
Two weeks ago she was on a series of only 1 waking... but for the past 3 nights we have 11, 2 and 4... don't tell me she is hungry at all 3 feeds ! And she cries... if you don't go to her she doesn't stop... well I haven't left her for longer than 10 mins (once 20 mins).

Any idea???

[tibsy]

hi, no advice i'm afraid as have a non sleeping 1 year old myself. i also had a sleeper first time around, from about 3 months, so this was a bit of a shock to the system for me too.
i have tried the gradual retreat methodwith some success, but a cold put the mockers on that and i havent had the energy to restart it to be honest

if you want to have a good sounding board or some more support, you could join us on 'sleep is for the weak'. i'm hoping you'll get a bit of respite soon tho. heres hoping for some for myself too

[pupuce]

Thanks Tibsy... just had a nap myself !!! Will look at your link!

[tibsy]

just in case.....sleep is for the weak!!

[pupuce]

The gradual mehod is not for us as DD can defintely settle well on her own... it's just that she wakes and cries... last night she woke at 11 and DH and I took turns to go and see her.... she cried on and off for 90 mins but I didn't feed her (which is where I need to work on!)... and she woke again at 4 AM which was better.. I then fed her (if only because I was full!)

[pupuce]

And this night she only woke at 2... I didn't feed her but went in twice to cuddle her.... she then slept until 6h30 so she didn't feed in 12 hour... we can do it ... she says on day 2 LOL

[pupuce]

Just in case anyone cares
I have found it (surprisingly) easy to stop BF at night... we went from 3 feeds/night to now in 1/night... we are on day 4(or night should I say) of not feeding her !
She only wakes once and requires only a couple pick ups... fingers cross this will stop soon.
So there is hope even when you thought ... where do I go from here ! Though I was quite detremined to make this work as I was getting very tired of 3 wakings/night.

[margosbeenplayingwithmynoonoo]

well done ( I care)

[biglips]

yes well done pupuce and hope this keeps it up

[tibsy]

well done,am really pleased for you!! i keep saying i'm going to cut down, but have very little willpower in the middle of the night

[pupuce]

Thanks
And this night she slept 11hours straight... never done that before !

[zeebee]

Sounds like good progress. Can I ask questions as have something similar going on, albeit with 7mo and desperately need a good night's sleep. When you say 'pick-ups' do you mean holding/cuddling til back to sleep and then put back in the cot? What's your secret? I'm sure something happened like this with DD2 too but too befuddled to remember how I solved it. Thanks.

[magnolia74]

Yep give us an exact run down of what you do?? ds1 is 9 months and still wakes up 2-3 times in the night and I b/f him back to sleep. With 4 other kids I really can't do anything that involves leaving them to cry
So pleased it's worked for you, now tell me how exactly???

[Jenfr23]

My ds is 9 months and was a great sleeper till he started teethin and i gave him medised when he stopped having it iv started to have your problems waking up at 9 then 12 then 1,2,4,5 then 7 for a month iv been picking him up everytime and cuddling him back to sleep its not getting easier at all i really want to give cc a go but everytime i try i give in because my dh hates it iv also tried some herbal alternatives such as valerian hop's but they have no effect at all. Let me know how u get on and any advice is much appreciated. Xx

[Jenfr23]

Forgot to mention he hasnt had a nightfeed since he was 3months and i wake him for a sleepy feed at 10.30 so he cant be hungry.

[Donk]

By the time DS as 2 1/2 he had slept through precisely twice!
Not for lack of trying.
It had improved over the early days - patient persistence with the gradual retreat method eventually paid off. He now sleeps through most nights (now 4.9) and has done for about a year, with occasional bouts of waking when he is tired/worried about something (like school....)
I used to comfort myself by saying that they nearly always sleep through by the time they are 18 - and if he didn't it wouldn't be my problem any more!
(By the way CC was an abject failure and made the whole thing worse!)

[pupuce]

Sorry just seen this.
I pick her up (she is obviously crying), I do not turn the light on, I sing to her (usually that makes her cry harder LOL). To begin with I held her for about a minute... and I put her down crying but in my mind I had shown her

1. I know you are awake
   
2. Everything is fine, mummy loves you
   
3. This is thight, we're not eating
   
   I would then leave (giving her the night cuddly toy she loves), she carries on crying QUITE hard! I close the door (we have thin doors and our house is small so it's more symbolic than anyhing else!) and I go to bed.... At the worst she cried hard for another 5 mins, at best it lasts 30 seconds and suddenly stops. The cry is not pain or hunger it's more like "I am not sleeping so deal with me" (well that's how I read it).
   
   Last night she woke at 5h30... so 8 days on we are having 11h uninterrupted sleep with no feeds.... As I mentioned below... 8 days ago I was up and feeding 3 times a night. I have to say I was determined to make it work... I am now aiming for a whole 12hours....

[magnolia74]

Oh I can't do anything that involves crying hard The 4 other kids would then all wake up. Maybe I can wait till half term and shove the kids off to their nans for a couple of days and try it then.

[zeebee]

Cheers, pupuce. Glad it's going so well, you must be feeling like a new person. Thanks for reminding me it is possible. DS still in our room so may have to cuddle him back to sleep til he moves out as he can see us. I think your way was along the lines of dealing with DD2, certainly when she was older and awoke would be content to go back awake after a cuddle which was great. Will give it a go as fed up feeling like I'm wading through treacle!

[doublethelovedoublethekisses]

magnolia i have the same thing... i have 1 year old twins. my ds has slept thru since 3 months old but my dd still wakes up twice a night and they still share a room so leaving her to cry is not an option. I have started to feed her in her room so as to disturb her as little as possible but this hasn't helped at all!

[pupuce]

Can I just point out that I too have other kids and they don't wake up through her cry and they can hear her as much as me... DS woke up once out of the 8 days and he went right back to sleep.
The reason I waited so long was fear she'd wake the other two... well clearly she isn't.

I should also point out as an aside that I work as a birth doula. And I have been hired twice by women wanting home births but needed a doula because their toddler were poor sleepers, ALWAYS woke up at the slightest noise... so they wanted a doula so that their DH could sort things out with the toddler when he woke.
Neither births were quiet (and certainly not towards the end)... and neither times did the toddlers wake.... AT ALL! Both mums were gobsmacked one even said her son had never slept through before, it was his first night doing it... good timing .
Of course besides labour noises there are also newborn cries... and even that didn't wake the toddlers.

[Singapore]

Have read this thread with great interest and am delighted to see that there may be light at the end of the tunnel... 10.5 month ds is getting worse as he gets older and I t fell into the habit of feeding him back to sleep now he is up three times a night, he is still in the room with us so will move him out and hopefully begin to settle him without feeding because it is driving me nuts and i am exhausted.

[wibbleweed]

I'm reading this with interest too and glad to hear that there just could be some light at the end of the tunnel.

We're in a similar situation with our 8mo, but with a wee twist - he goes to sleep beautifully at bedtime then wakes any time btn 10.30 and 12.30 and that's that. He cries and cries until he comes into our bed and then he sleeps. Dumped the night feeds last month - maybe this is a reaction to this - and nightmare - last night he didn't even settle in our bed (though he is cutting his top teeth at present). And we've had banging on the walls from the neighbours which justs adds to the stress. Have saved the info on gradual retreat - wondering if it works for getting them back into their own cot too? Maybe I need to join sleep is for the weak too??

[doublethelovedoublethekisses]

I'm still feeding dd back to sleep... should I not be? on reading this thread i see most of you seem to have stopped this but she's a nightmare to settle otherwise, maybe I ought to just persevere with cuddles??!!

[JodieG1]

My ds2 sounds like yours. He is 8 months BLW, BF and still wakes 4-5 times a night, sometimes more. We co-slept until he fell out of the bed twice and he now goes in a cotbed at first and when he wakes comes in with me in the spare room and sleeps there the rest of the night, usually from 11pmish anyway lol. The cotbed is pushed up against the bed so he can't fall out in there.

I believe they can be hungry as I know my ds2 takes milk, they're all different and I'm not forcing anything on him, he'll stop when he's ready to.

[doublethelovedoublethekisses]

we were taking her to bed with us also when she woke for the first time but it just seemed to get earlier every night and she didn't settle there either so we stopped doing it! Am still not convinced she's hungry as she rarely takes any more than 3-4 oz, I'm inclined to think it's the comfort of the bottle that she wants