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What are the alternatives to controlled crying?

8 replies

NoPainNoGain · 25/08/2008 19:23

DD, almost 10 months, has been waking up in the night for the last 3 weeks. For the first week I settled her quickly with a bottle, then decided to give this up, not being strictly necessary. For the last 2 weeks she´s been awake, normally for around 2 hours at any time between around 1.30 and 5.30am. None of our efforts to help seem to help her and DP and I are completely exhausted. What can we try? She settles herself to sleep at all other times.

OP posts:
StarlightMcKenzie · 25/08/2008 19:29

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StarlightMcKenzie · 25/08/2008 19:31

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NoPainNoGain · 25/08/2008 19:37

Eats wells, drinks well, falls asleep in evening and at nap times no problem... Have offered water in the night (to her absolute disgust).. and she isn´t interested in milk until she´s been up for a good while in the morning. So it´s not a hunger thing. But for some reason she´s been awake for hours in the night for around 3 weeks now... There´s no ignoring 2 hours worth of noises and ultimately crying...

OP posts:
posieflump · 25/08/2008 19:38

have you tried pick up put down?
Maybe she just nees the reassuarance that you are there to get her back to sleep

NoPainNoGain · 25/08/2008 19:40

yes, tried the pick up and down thing, co-sleeping, but it is just unwelcome. Really, unwelcome... DD is pretty unconsolable.

OP posts:
Slureel · 25/08/2008 19:43

A couple of things you can try.

Having a plan is a very good start and an aim (or at least a goal that is reasonable)

It might be to get 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 hours straight through, whatever you think is an acceptable compromise for you and her.

Then the plan.

You can choose what you want, a couple of suggestions are this one..
here

or elizabeth pantley who suggests things like gradual withdrawal and ways to stop feeding to sleep.

-------------
Basically, decide what the problem is.
Decide where you want to end up.
Come up with a plan.

NoPainNoGain · 25/08/2008 19:53

thanks for that.. The ep link looks interesting!

Just to clarify, DD hasn´t taken a bottle in the night since she was 6 months old, so it´s not like I´m trying to get her to sleep through for the first time. And she´s not an early riser.. This morning she was awake at 5am (and this was such a good day, really!!) but she is more typically awake from 1.30 - 3.30 or 2 - 4 am..

It just seems incredible that the 6 months of waking to feed her in teh night were actually much easier than the last 3 weeks of being awake for hours and hours for no obvious reason. Why have things gone from bad to worse?

OP posts:
Slureel · 25/08/2008 19:59

well, could be lots of reasons. has she or she about to start crawling? I found this disrupted sleep for my dd. I think that maybe when they are learning new things their minds get very busy.. even in the night.

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