Just teething pain or might I be missing something?

[joynovemberjoy]

Our nearly 10 month old daughter hasn't slept through for the last four months and things are definitely getting worse rather than better.

She wakes several times in the evening and sometimes we find it hard to console her. Rightly or wrongly we bring her into our bed in the night which used to ensure we did get some sleep (starts the evening in her cot). She has now started to wake even in our bed and arches her back or tries to get to sitting position. She is often better on her side but even that hasn't worked recently. I have had to rock her and pat her until she can't fight it any longer. We give Calpol in the night if all else fails as we can only assume that she is teething (no teeth yet). That doesn't always seem to do anything.

Would you take her to the doctors? Do controlled crying? Stick it out as we are and hope it's a phase? She seems fine during the day which is even more puzzling.

Sorry for the long post - please help! Thank you

Poor you. And your poor dd. It sounds like she is in a lot of discomfort.

Digestive system discomfort? Or perhaps nervous system? I'd try a reputed paediatric cranial chiropractor. If it's not anything in their remit at least they'll be able to tell you, but it might just be what's needed and they might find it's something nervous-system related, or digestive stuff (arching in younger babies is often a sign of reflux so maybe arching in a 10 month old has a similar meaning?), or musculo-skeletal. It's very gentle treatment and very good stuff. I swear by it for my two dd's.

Find one in your local area and call them up and ask them lots of Q's first if you're not sure. Here's an example of the type of person/clinic I mean : www.barnes-chiropractic.co.uk Julian Keel is great with little ones. If he's not anywhere near you, it might be worth emailing his clinic and asking if he knows of anyone good in your area.

Best wishes for getting things resolved. It can't be fun for any of you and so exhausting too. And it would be great to be able to knock the Calpol on the head. Not to mention the lack of sleep too I imagine!

I would go to the doctors just to get things checked out so that you can then see what you can do next. It does sound as though she may be in some discomfort though. You say she is ten months and has been like this for 4 months did it coincide with you weaning her? Could be food related. Good luck

Thank you for your replies. Trouble is that a few things happened at 6 months and things may be confused! The night waking started whilst she was ill with a severe urine infection (2 courses of antibiotics required) at 6 months. She arched her back quite a bit and was only happy on her side then. We did wonder if she is suffering from one again but she doesn't appear to be ill at all during the day which she clearly was before and doesn't have a high temperature. Add to that the fact that lots of babies become clingy at this sort of age.

I started weaning a couple of weeks after that. Did wonder about it being food related.

My friend has used a cranial osteopath locally for her son (is that the same thing?)

All a bit of a shock to the system as our 2 year old son has always been pretty good at night! I've just realised, as I'm typing, that she hasn't woken up once this evening.

Sounds like it would really be worth getting some treatment. It could pretty feasible that it's digestive system related (arching is a common sign), especially as there have also been antibiotics which can exacerbate digestive issues (all those friendly bacteria that killed off when you take antibiotics can have a real impact on what's going on in the gut). Maybe repeated Calpol might be overloading the system too? Is it poss to stop it maybe? And if she doesn't already have probiotics it would be worth getting a really good brand - such as Biocare. Any good independent health shop should know that make.

As for the cranial osteo rather than a cranial chiro, I'd opt for a chiro over an osteo but if you don't have a cranial chiro nearby then a cranial osteo is definitely better than nothing. (I hope that rambling sentence made sense!). It's so worth giving it a go as whatever the prob it can hopefully get resolved rather than always being there as an underlying issue even if the symptoms get adapted around and start to show less. Good luck and I hope all gets sorted speedily.

My toddler DD was arching her back and really crying some nights and it took ages before we worked out it happened whenever she ate mango.But she wakes a lot at night still (just 22m) and a lot of the time it is teething related.My DD1 didn't sleep all night until she had all her teeth.Also it started at about six months too.One thing I just thought of-if she had a lot of anti-biotics then her gut flora may be disrupted and she could need some probiotics.Does she seem windy?

Wanted to add it also really common for sleep to go a bit pear shaped at six months.