11 month old wakes several times a night

[TalkToMeGoose]

Dear Mumsnetters,

I am normally a reader rather than a poster but things have got so desperate I wonder if there's anyone out there with any helpful suggestions?

My DD is 11m and has only ever slept through once - when she was 3m!! Since then things have got steadily worse and we have gone from her sleeping in her cot and waking 2 or 3 times a night to us co-sleeping (DH next door) and waking 6 or 7 times.

I am still BFing, and ashamed to say that BF is the only way I can get her to sleep - day or night. Planning to stop when she's one, so not sure how I'll get her off to sleep then! Thing is, when she wakes she's not rooting for the breast; she rubs her ears and/or eyes, writhes around and just seems really uncomfortable. Then the crying starts and the only thing that'll stop it is BF. She then drops off to sleep v quickly...but I don't!

I've kept a sleep diary, but there is no pattern, no rhyme or reason. The most she's ever done is a 3h stretch, but usually it's 1 or 2 hours. I am, needless to say, exhausted!

I bought the NCSS but there was nothing in there I hadn't tried already. I even tried CC (hideous) but it seemed to make things worse. To be honest I am more at the AP end of the spectrum but sometimes I do feel a little desperate. Once or twice a night I could handle, but this is killing me. I am also not able to leave her for the evening due to the BF to sleep issue.

Sorry this is off-puttingly long, but I needed to offload all the gory details in the fervent hope that there might be someone out there who has been through something similar and survived!

Thanks.

hello, we get DD to go to sleep in cot for naps, feed then put in cot awake, started with hand on chest and repeat 'go sleep' or 'shhh' occasionally, took a couple of hours first time, anyway she got used to it and i grad retreat and now sit on chair while she goes to sleep. anyway gonna nightwean her this weekend at 14m, i feed 3-8x a night, just gonna send dh in to repeat the settling process , expect it to be hellish till she gets the idea . if she kneels up she gets told to lie down and 'if u kneel up again i will go' then i go for a few mins, think she understood this at 12-13m, think her understanding helps, oh my dd fed to sleep till about 11-12m and then i thought i wanted to get her to settle awake so persevered with the put in cot awake business - so what i mean is cos she does it at nap and bedtime i hope shell know what to do in middle night
sorry garbled reply!

Hi

I got DH to go in when DS was about 11/12 months old each time he woke up. We had also ended up co-sleeping/ bfing every couple of hours or so and it was exhausting. Personally I think that is natural for a little baby but is something that they can be encouraged to grow out of. It was easier than we thought it would be and not too much crying - just lots of boring patting by DH. I had prepared the ground by starting to put him in his cot awake and shush/pat to sleep, rather than cuddle or feed to sleep and then put in cot awake.

After we did this for a few nights he began to sleep for much longer stretches and even go through sometimes. Having said that he is now 14 months and still wakes 2/3 times a night sometimes, like last night for example (tired..) Am going to start gradual withdrawal to try to wean him off my presence at bedtime (and therefore hopefully waking in the night time...)

best of luck

good luck

I hope you get something sorted
i have no advice I'm afraid as i am currentky co sleeping and feeding 5 to 8times a night a 3 year old

Thanks all for your responses. Just been to see our GP who said it sounds like she's just got into a habit and that CC was the only thing he could recommend... Grrrr.

The hand on chest/pat/shh suggestions sound good - I shall give that a go. Roughly how long did it take you with your LOs, and was there a gradual improvement over that time? I ask because among the many things I've tried was lying next to her and shhh-ing, which seemed to work OK the first night but then got progressively worse - not better - until I gave up!

TrinityRhino you deserve a medal!! You poor thing.

crikey Trinity, you are a saint

Talktome I started with naptime and i think it took a few hours the first time, i actually did it for a nightwaking and it took 2h then i gave in and fed and she took another hour to go to sleep so i decided just to start with naps and bedtime. i think get that sorted first cos u r not tired then and she'll get used to it, i think it only took a few days for naps and bedtime, altho sometimes it takes 40mins and i hand over to DH which she hates i say 'if u sit up again i will get daddy' 'thats it, daddys coming'

This book was a real help to me with helping my children into better sleep habits. Maybe worth a butchers?

Tracey Hogg's book has an ABC method to help break habits which isn't too bad and worked well with DD but didn't work with my son at all, so that's worth a thought. Sounds similar to the shush/ pat as she mentions that in her book as well.

it took about a week of DH going in instead of me to see a real improvement. It never worked when I tried to pat rather than feed before then. He used to lie next to me in bed and try to crawl over me all night! Do you have a partner you could send in instead of going yourself? Hated the thought of leaving DS to cry but so hard at 3 a.m. or whatever not to just give in and feed myself..

Trinity poor you!

My dd2 was exactly the same at 11 months except that we weren't co-sleeping so I was dragging my sorry a**e into the next room 5-7 times a night to feed her off to sleep! (we tried co-sleeping but I didn't sleep at all, I'm such a light sleeper). Cc failed (worked like a dream with dd1) as did introducing a 10pm formula feed but we kept on with it because at least it was one feed I didn't have to do. I can't for sure say what the solution was but we did the following; move the ff to bedtime (7pm) after which she cut down the waking to 3-4 times per night (as your dd is 11 months you could wait to use cows milk if you don't want to go to formula). Stopped feeding her to sleep at bed time, but kept doing it during the night, gradually stopped feeding her at night (did 'pick up put down' instead). Eventually now at 16 months she is down to one waking a night, which is bliss! I think being in a different room helps because we had her in with us recently when staying at my parents & we were back to square 1 for a week.

Hth, I feel your pain, honestly!

This is all really good advice - thank you! I feel so much more positive now. Also, we had quite a good night last night, i.e. 'only' 4 wakings instead of the usual 6 or 7!!! It might have helped that I dosed her up with Teetha on her first waking...hohoho!

Pooky, I shall start with naps also, it's so easy to give in and BF in the middle of the night when half asleep! And I think putting DD in her own room might well help as sometimes I wake her by turning over, which is a real pain. She used to be in her own room but I was running back and forth so often it was easier just to co-sleep.

Once I am no longer feeding to sleep I shall ask DH to help with some of the night wakings. Feel a bit bad though, because he has to get up early for work and at least I can catch up during the day, unlike him....

Fowl - I tried PUPD in the past but it just seemed to wind her up each time I put her back down. Did you find it difficult at first?

hi

best of luck. I felt bad about DH as well because he works long hours but then I figured that I had done nearly a year of it and he was only doing one week... And somehow when I didn't feed him DS got hysterical, but he was ok with DH just shush/patting him. Think it was partly because he was ready, but also due to the different relationship with DH. Definitely worth changing the pattern with the day time sleeps first, and also how you put him to bed: if you still feed to sleep at bedtime definitely try to stop that before tackling the night wakings.

I used PUPD down with DD, she was very cross when I first did it of course. Took 70 odd times before she went to sleep, but next time it was less and the next time less, took about 3 days but was worth it. Felt terribly guilty at the time, but it was so so worth. But you have to be consistent and not give in. Do not leave the room with them whilst doing it etc.

Oops typos

Well dd2 responded pretty well to pupd, but then I started off by only doing it at night when she was pretty tired anyway, and we did a lot of singing (London bridge is falling down for some reason!) and stroking her back, in fact even just resting your hand on their back helps them to know that you are there. Daytime naps were a whole other struggle, which I've only really got sorted in the last few weeks, I suppose I thought that if she established strong sleep patterns & associations when she was really tired then we could replicate that in the daytime.

I think (stating the bleedin' obvious here) that no two children are the same & having a go at lots of different things is your best way to finding what works for your dd. You need to givethings like pupd a good few nights to work though, as they need to go through the learning process. Dd2 was a shock though! After 6 months of no sleep with dd1 we did controlled crying which wasn't very traumatic as we never let her cry for more than 5 mins & she dropped off really quickly. Within a week she was sleeping through & 4 hours of naps. After which I recommended cc left right & centre only to have dd2 come along & prove me wrong.

I agree with Pussy. PUPD didn't work with DS my second child but CC did instead. Goes to show doesn't it

I do honestly think that without any effort as such on your part babies do gradually improve when it comes to sleep. They just don't have the same sleeping patterns as adults.

It's really hard I know. My 10mth old is co-sleeping and wakes between 2 and 3 times a night, milk settles him far faster than anything else. He gets up quite early too- around 6am usually.

My toddler goes to bed lovely now, he still has milk to settle but he doesn't need me to stay with him anymore which is lovely for me because I can finally, hallelujah, put him to bed at 7pm, read him a quick story and leave him to it. He still has the odd restless night.

By all means try the sleep methods mentioned but I think that it's just a case of getting through it until they are older and their sleep patterns will become more like an adult's naturally.

I'm sure SuperCherry though am no expert as only have one young DC however there is a lady on this thread who is up feeding a 3 year old 5 - 8 times a night...which is a bit scary...obviously some take longer than others! TrinityRhino have you tried any sleep training?

I have friends who didn't sleep train their DCs and hoped it would get better and still barely get any sleep and are up constantly at night with 2.5 yr olds or older depending on the friend. It wasn't a risk I was prepared to take, so I went for sleep training, as sleep is too important to me

But different strokes for different folks and all that x x x

I would imagine Trinityrhino's case is an exception to the norm and I don't mean any offence with that comment :)

I doubt very much, sleep training or not, that a child would continue through to adulthood still wanting the breast in the night .