To wonder why babies sleep is getting worse

[Pondlife87]

My LG will be 11 months next week. She's never been a great sleeper with 6 hour stretches being the absolute max. But it's just getting worse.
Our routine is roughly this:
Awake at 6 30 (although recently we've been getting 5.30 wakes).
Nap around 9.30 (sleeps for between 30 to 80 mins)
Nap around 2 (sleeps for between 30 to 80 mins)
Bedtime at 6.30/7

She's not too bad being put down but then she wakes up every 30-45 minutes until around 10. Then she will do a 2/3/4 hour stretch. Then she's up again every hour. It's normally for boob and she's breastfed so it's all on me.
Will this ever end 😭?

It's because you haven't taught her to self settle during the night.

You need to gradually reduce the bf at night if you want unbroken sleep. She will cry.

It isn't because you haven't taught her anything. It isn't your fault. It is because she's a baby and their development is not linear. Sleeping through the night is a developmental milestone that some reach earlier than others. One of my kids was sleeping through at 6 months. He other was 2 years and 6 months before he could go through without a wake up and was easily as wakeful as your baby is now at 11 months.

It could be she is learning a new skill (walking?) , Could be teething. We often just don't know.

It could also be that you are over estimating the amount of sleep that your baby needs and you could get some results from adjusting her routine/ moving bedtime to consolidate the sleep. I really recommend a FB group called 'desperately seeking sleep'. The lady who runs it has a good free educational video about this.

You could do as pp suggested and leave her to cry. It may work. It may not work. It will be unpleasant either way. It certainly isn't a necessary part of parenting and isn't something that has ever been done to any of the babies in my family (all of whom are happy healthy young children who now sleep)

I've been where you are and it's tough. Hang in there.

Yep. You are expecting a baby to have a routine. The majority don't. Added to this it is lighter both ends of the day and everyone is a awake more in summer.

If you want her to sleep later in the early morning put her to bed an hour later at night.

Get her to eat more during the day particularly for an evening meal.

Finally don't stress. She will get there.

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
Any ideas how i can do this without letting her CIO? I introduced a comforter last month, but she prefers to bite it and throw it around haha.

I would personally cut out the afternoon nap. Have you considered night weaning? I say this as someone still breastfeeding my 2 year old who I night weaned at around 1 and half because I could not cope with the constant wakings. She screamed for a couple of nights (whilst I was holding her, I didn't leave her alone at all) and then slept a lot better. If it's not bothering you too much though it will get better gradually on its own. You might just need to wait a bit. I have had two bad sleepers and they are both pretty good now at 2 and 4.

Ps, the longer you leave it, the more the baby will resist the change. Unless you just accept it and wait for her to get there on her own, which could be age 3 or 4

I did not suggest leaving the baby to cry.

I suggesting gradually reducing bf at night and said "She will cry". She will, babies dobt like change. I didn't say don't comfort her I said don't feed her.

1. Send in someone with no boobs. Is dad around?

1. I always think there's a hierarchy in terms of comforting for sleep, as to how hard it is to reduce it. E.g. feeding is the hardest, patting imho the easiest.

I would start by feeding less eg 1 side instead of 2.

Then try letting her suck a finger instead of boob.

Then try rocking/cuddling.

Then reduce to patting/shhing

Then try just a hand on tummy etc.

Do you breast feed her to sleep each time? Or does she feed and get put down awake? Either way I think I fall between the previous posters, yes it's developmental but there's tweaks you could make to improve things. Make sure she is eating loads in the day (and has a good tea), so you are sure she isn't hungry. Try settling her in different ways in the night that isn't BF, even if it's just for one of the wakings - and gradually build up to weaning off BF completely. There will be some tears as it's a change but make sure you are there with her physically the whole time - comforting her etc.

Ps you also need to allow her time to transition to getting all her calorie needs in the day, and let her feed plenty in the day.

Yes, what Loveisland said. Waking every 45/1 hour is waking every sleep cycle as she can't settle without boob. How does she get to sleep for naps and sleep? If you want her to sleep you need to break the association between boob and sleep. You've had great advice regarding alternative settling methods. I also second the advice that the longer you leave it the harder it will be (and I say that from experience) Good luck!

You don’t need to let her CIO if you don’t want to. I had a crap sleeper and I never to CIO because it never felt right to me. I do think in general breast fed babies do wake up more (always exceptions to this but on the whole). My daughter only started sleeping in much longer chunks when I completely stopped bf at 18 months. Now nearly 2 she sleeps through most nights. I cosleep with her and have done since she was about 4 months. That helps hugely especially if breastfeeding. I couldn’t imagine lugging myself up every few hours to feed her. I am lucky in that I was a sahm until very recently which meant I always slept when she slept. Your baby will learn to sleep through without you doing any kind of sleep training but it’s up to you if you can wait that long. I know at the time it seems like forever but honestly looking back it really wasn’t that long. Also we definitely had a regression round about 1 which was the last one to be honest. Kept getting better from then on.

@upthewolves thank you. She has just started crawling so maybe this is it? I will def join that group thank you. I'm not willing to let her CIO as i don't think the research is clear enough to take the risk.

@LittleLittleLittle I know deep down it's normal. I think I just hope someone will come along with a pearl of wisdom haha.
Unfortunately I've had no luck with altering her sleep patterns. She just adapts the same pattern to the new times and gets up at the same time regardless haha. I feed her dinner at about 5 where she does BLW and I give her up to an hour to graze. Then she breastfeed for about 40 minutes before she falls asleep. Maybe I'm feedimg her too close to bedtime (food?) What do you think?

@geojojo - she's not long dropped her third nap. Would you still do this and what if she only has a 30 minute nap in the morning? I'm willing to try anything though. I've read up on night weaning but i have failed miserably. If I refuse to breastfeed her she just keeps waking up every 10 minutes until I give in. I've tried giving water but she just clamps her mouth and full on refuses and gets very distressed. How did you find success?

She used to have her last feed at 10 and then wake around 3 for a feed. I never expect her to sleep through and the above routine I could handle easily. But now when I wake up with her I can't get back to sleep as I'm on edge she's going to wake up again any second. Ironically this is when she does her long stretches haha.

Also. She will cry. Feeding to sleep is what she wants when she wakes at night, it's not going to be a change she will just happily accept. If you do it gradually with a lot of other comforting, it may take a few weeks for sleep to improve. If you do it in a less gentle way (like cry and console, which does involve leaving the baby crying for brief stretches, you would probably have a lot of improvement in 1 week and sleeping through in 2. In either case you need to reduce the feeds one by one tho, you can't go cold turkey without giving her time to switch to getting her calories in the day.

Oh and I did actually night wean probably around 13 months which does help massively but it’s a very personal decision about when you want to do this.

Night weaning works to an extent but be warned that the first few nights will be knackering and until you give up bf completely it’s very easy to slip back if they are ill or if you are just too knackered to do anything else.

I found AHA parenting web site really helpful for the whole weaning process if you are slightly crunchy but don’t want to be breastfeeding a 10 year old.

If I refuse to breastfeed her she just keeps waking up every 10 minutes until I give in.

Send her dad in if he is around. Even just for the first 3 nights to get her used to the idea that boob is not available at night.

You can night wean and have a baby sleeo through and still bf. I bf the first til age 1, he slept through 11 hours a night from 18 weeks. The second was bf until 6m then fed EBM (complicated health reasons) Slept through around at around 5m for 7-8hour stretches, from about 7m for 11.5 hours.

@Ohwhatbliss
For naps she gets cuddled to sleep. Until about 2 months ago she was contact napping and breastfeeding for each nap. I posted on here and got some great advice and it changed things hugely.
She often falls asleep whilst having her evening boob, which I admit is in part me falling off the wagon, as i know she can fall asleep without it (but onlt by being cuddled). She never enters that "drowsy but awake period" To put her down like that. If I put her down she just starts crawling around her cot and standing up then crying hysterically. I will start getting my husband to put her to sleep each night to try and break the cycle. Thanks for your advice. This is the stuff I know but need reminding of - especially from people it's worked for x

Defo send in someone without boobs.

She doesn't want water, she isn't thirsty every 45 mins.. she wants the comfort of being held and feeling secure. Just a normal instinct not to be alone at night!

Is DH around? Time for him to step in

I apologise to you @idontwatchloveisland for misunderstanding your post. Yes reducing night feeds may help but in my experience they do resist that strongly and there was a LOT of crying! With both of mine I got an improvement in sleep when I completely stopped breastfeeding feeding but just cutting down was horrible because they knew it was available and were being denied it. There's a dr online who had a plan for reducing feeds think it's Jay Gordon? Anyway I found it impossible but might just be my kids.

My DS was an interesting one because he has needed less sleep than expected his whole life. So I was always taking advice on naps and routines for the 'average' child but he needed a less than average amount of sleep so I was always failing.

Currently he is coming up to 3 and he sleeps 8pm to 5am. He sleeps well and goes to bed happily, wakes up in a good mood and has enough energy throughout the day. But it's not as much sleep as most children his age. So I only saw a real improvement in sleep once I understood this and started doing later bedtime, cutting out naps etc. I think a lot of the problem is the advice/ research is based on the average baby but most people don't have the exact average baby because that's how averages work!

Night weaning won’t magically make your baby sleep. We might weaned at 12 months and our son didn’t sleep through the night until he was over 2 years old.

Also, you can’t “teach” self settling. It’s something children develop in their own time.

I know the feeling well... My DD who is 19 months now only stopped waking in the night when I weaned her off the boob at 15 months. The turning point was dropping the bedtime feed (I fed her to sleep) and put her down awake instead. I would offer her water if she woke in the night. This greatly improved her sleep. But don't beat yourself up. It will happen. And don't wean your baby off the breast before you're/baby is ready.

Perhaps she's getting too much sleep during the day?

I would probably try and move her to one nap at around 11/12 if she can wait that long.. I always found my two were bad sleepers when they were still having late afternoon naps.

In regard to night weaning, I literally just stopped. So one night, instead of feeding to sleep I fed her before cleaning teeth/stories and then refused to do so again until after breakfast. I held her, rocked her, cuddled her etc and knew she would be fine, I mean, my son was completely weaned at 1 so I knew she didn't need it, but she was absolutely furious the first night. The second night she was a lot better and by the third she had accepted it and was sleeping through most of the time. I have fallen back into feeding during the night when she has been ill but she always adapts well to not feeding again very quickly and I never feed to sleep anymore. I am going to try to wean completely soon... not sure she'll like that!

@NoIDontWatchLoveIsland
Sorry i wasn't implying you were suggesting I let her cry it out. It's just the only suggestion I've ever been given so I wondered if you knew of anything else.
It's really tough to know which feed to cut out as it's so variable how many times she wakes at night. Any suggestions where to start? At the beginning of the night? Or the end?
She feeds a lot during the day. She had about 8 feeds, 3 fill meals and 1 snack. I very much suspect the night feeds are comfort rather than calorie (other then the 3am one as that has been around consistently)

Unfortunately most people who bf leave it until bf to sleep no longer works/results in loads of waking, before encouraging good sleep habits or properly trying settling in other ways. The older they are the more the feed to sleep habit is entrenched and the won't accept anything else without a LOT of crying. I found the best time to try and introduce alternatives is around 4 months, their sleep is crap anyway then and you see results very fast with very little crying.