Baby won't sleep day or night. Please help me.

[Vespar7]

Hi,

DD is 7 months and used to sleep really well at night. Recently though it has been taking an hour to get her down and then she wakes up basically every hour. I think she has gradually started need me to be holding her hand, stroking her head to fall asleep though I wasn't aware of this happening.

For the past few months we have also had a problem with daytime naps but when she was sleeping well at night it didn't bother me. On a very good day I will get two 20 minute naps out of her. Now that she is not sleeping day or night I am exhausted and feel like I am going crazy. She is constantly whining during the day but she will not sleep.

Any ideas of what I can try would be really appreciated!

Are you sure she's not teething? Makes them very irritable & hard to settle. Try running some teething gel along the gums & see if that makes any difference. They cause a lot of irritation even before they start to appear.

I was going to say teething or growth spurt maybe. Does she have a regular bedtime routine?

Yes teeth or could she be hungry? Does she need an extra milk feed in the evening if she's still hungry? Does she sleep in the car? I know you don't want to make a rod for your own back by taking her out in the car to get her to sleep, but you could try it and see if that stops the grizzling.

It could be teething or hunger but if she comes into bed with me then everything is forgotten and she sleeps like an angel. This makes me think she is after someone to be close to. She used to sleep well which makes me really annoyed at myself for ruining it all. Though how I did that I don't know.

wibblyjelly he routine for the past 3 or 4 months has been, bath, milk in a dark room with lullaby playing and then to bed. I guess I haven't been consistent with things after that point though. I remember be able to leave her awake and she would fall asleep herself. Now I sit there for 30 mins+.

Cant she just go back to sleeping in your bed?? Our LO goes through phases with this and is currently 14 months and has been sleeping in our bed for a while. Everyone gets a really good nights sleep so why not?

I guess I could just let her sleep in my bed but I'm worried I will never get her out. My brother was with my parents till he was about 8. I definitely do not want that. Am trying to sort out her daytime naps at the moment and when that is sorted I will see what I can do about the nights. Does that sound reasonable?

I do feel for you, I have a 13 month old poor sleeper.

For some babies its a stage and they just start to sleep better (eg when eating proper solids and moving independantly). But for some, it just gets worse. (My nephew co-slept with my sister in law until he was 4. Not what my brother wanted and it had a real impact on their relationship.)

Suggest you need to decide whether you're a) going to do whatevers easiest and involves the least amount of crying now and hope it improves in time; or b) bite the bullet, do controlled crying (or some other sleep training such as PUPD, gradual withdrawal etc) now before the nighttime waking becomes habitual. Whatever decision you make, you need to stick with it. (If your dd is ill you'd comfort her but generally you can tell if the crying is real discomfort).

Couple of things we found that helped: Dummy - its been a lifesaver for us. The older dd gets, the more she can find it herself during the night. A comforter - dd reaches for it as soon as she's put in the cot and holds it all night. Don't do what we did and get something thats now out of stock, a very specific fabric and irreplaceable!

On a positive note, my dd has finally started sleeping better during the day since crawling/cruising and since starting nursery (not at nursery though). We also did controlled crying and saw a significant improvement.
I've found the sleep deprivation very hard (we both work ft) so had to do something, dd is also a lot happier after an undisturbed night.