HELP! 9 month old getting worse not better.

[AlCrowley]

DD has always been a terrible sleeper. I joked before she was born that I was due a non-sleeping baby this time after DS who slept through from 8 weeks and it really has come true.

After months of struggle, we'd finally gotten to the point where she was finally having 1 nap in the day then having a BF at 7pm and going to bed and waking at 1.30-ish for a feed then sleeping till 5.30-ish for a feed and being wide awake from then until her nap. We weaned at 5 months on the advice of the HV because she wasn't napping during the day at all! She now eats really well.

Again on the HV's advice, 4 days ago, I added a FF at bedtime along with her BF. She's never taken a bottle - just screams if you put one in her mouth - so we've been giving "bedtime milk" from a tippy cup. She maybe takes an ounce or two before she cries for boob at which point I BF her to sleep as normal. But since then, her sleep has gotten even worse. We now have the 7pm feed, an 11pm feed, then the 1am feed and an extra 3am feed before the 5.30 wake up. The only bonus is that her nap has extended to more like 90 mins most days.

So I'm giving up on the HV and asking MN - what do I do now? Do I ditch the FF or should I give it a few more days to see if she settles? Is there anything else i can do to encourage her to sleep through - or at least go back to just 2 wakes? DH, DS and I are all desperate for a full nights sleep now

Any advice would be appreciated

Right, well I stuck with feed before nap for this afternoon. She was asleep on the boob and after 3 attempts I managed to catch her just at the right time and she didn't relatch.

Needed some shushing as I laid her down but she's there now.

Now to see how long she stays asleep for!!

I'm wondering if it's the 9 month separation anxiety kicking in?

Looked in the book. He says to get nights sorted first then move on to either CC or I think it was shush patting. Need to re-read that part.

She napped for.......an hour and a half!!!

Whoo hoo

Yay!

Bedtime went well too. Started 15 minutes early which might have helped - book says getting a later wake in the morning can often be solved by an earlier bedtime.

She fed for quite a while and did fall asleep on the boob but it was so nice to not have tears for once.

Hoping for a good night now.

Great stuff

Well, we had 20 minutes of screaming at about 11.30 last night. No idea why. Then this morning, she woke at 5.40 like clockwork but by the time I had found my dressing gown and nipped to the loo, she'd put herself back to sleep again - but only till 6am.

She was wide awake after her feed so I've brought her downstairs so she doesn't disturb DS.

Soft play day today so I'm going to try to get her down for her nap (without a feed?) on time so she can have had that before we go. Fingers crossed.

Did feed and nap half an hour earlier today at the very first sign of eye rubbing.

I now have a sleeping baby in her cot

and she stayed asleep for an hour and 45 minutes!!!

Now to go to soft play (we're late now :) ) and tire them out again!

She did.

She's now fallen asleep on the way back from soft play. Fed her while we were there so she shouldn't be hungry. Not going to try moving her to the cot as that will just wake her. have put the seat in the quiet kitchen so she can nap in there.

DD woke at 4am this morning, screamed for 20 minutes, slept for 20 minutes, screamed for 20 minutes and then slept till 7am!

Nap today was late as a result. Not interested at 9.30am but down now at 10.45.

I wouldn't mind that as an everyday routine if we could ditch the screaming at 4am :)

I shush patted then left her to it both times so I guess there was an element of self settling.

Naps today have been a nightmare. Maybe 40 minutes max all day!!

She slept for about 20 minutes at 10.45 and then had another 20 or so at about 2.30.

Hope she makes up for it tonight.

Yey for your DH getting DS2 down for a nap. I would love it if my DH could do that. I ended up feeding her at both nap times today as she was getting so upset about being sleepy with no boob.

Will try again tomorrow

I'd like to recommend a website called Babysleepanswers.co.uk. The lady who runs it has basically amalgamated all the main sleep methods (baby whisperer/ controlled crying/ etc etc) and also provides a forum for you to ask questions for real life situations that don't match the books! After buying the book for £10 you can post questions on their forum and a sleep mentor will reply with some suggestions. We paid £25 for a specialist consultation and 3 days of support and it solved our problem within a week or two. Worth every penny. We even went on to use it again to solve early wake-ups. Quite a luxury when you have got used to being up several times a night!
we now have a good night's sleep without fail every night.

I'll have a look, thank you wloo.

DD got woken at 4.55am this morning by DH's phone when work called him! I spent an hour trying to get her back to sleep with no luck so I ended up feeding her. She wasn't sleepy then though so we have all been up since then really!

Oh, and she has really bad diarrohea which has made her bottom really, really sore(keeping an eye, will take her to doctors in the morning if no better) Think it's teeth as she has a big blister on her lower gum where a tooth has been waiting for months now.

She seems fine other than the runs though and is eating well and happy - just a bit clingy. Clingy is working well for naps though. This morning I was cudding her and she fell asleep on my shoulder. I put her to bed and she slept for an hour. I fed her when she woke :)

This afternoon she fell asleep in the car so I put her in her room in her carseat to sleep and she had another 40 mins. She went to bed with no problems tonight!

Not DS though, he's still getting out of bed at 10pm! He's at pre-school tomorrow as we've added an extra day. He's going to be a monster!

Poor thing my two always had very sore bottoms when the teething really got bad. I've heard that when the teeth are growing in the gums it can hurt more The teetha sachets are quite good with the chamomile to calm them, as well as my old favourite LOL

Long day for you then, hope you get a reasonably early night. Can't believe your DH's work called him at that time

DH is the team leader. Even if he's not on call, he's the person who gets rung if a)the person who is on call can't fix it or b) and this happens more than you'd think - the person on call switches their phone off/refuses to answer their phone/can't fix it.

We were still building flat pack last night but I managed to get into bed for 10pm.

Good job as she woke at 4.15am this morning. I changed nappy and applied Bonjela which was more than I would usually do but with her sore bottom and sore gums, I had to really, then shush/patted her back to being calm and left. I was going backwards and forwards for 2 hours!!! She finally fell asleep around 6.30am and DS got up at 7!

No lazy morning either as we've upped DS's days at Pre-school so he's there on a Monday now too.

Good news though about this morning's nap. She didn't fall asleep in the buggy like I hoped she would and was really rooting when we got home so I caved and fed her...but, she didn't fall asleep on the boob. I sat her up and cuddled her and she fell asleep on my shoulder. Not ideal but not feeding to sleep either. She's been down for about 15 minutes so far so it's looking good.

I was known when teething was bad to offer my DS a bottle of warm milk mixed with calpol! LOL. They do learn to sleep through teething in the end. Both mine did, it just took a few more teeth popping through before they got used to it at night.

You must be shattered today, hope she sleeps well now for you. Can you have a kip yourself?

She had 45 mins which is OK. I tend to avoid napping in the day myself as it just makes me groggier.

I've been painting instead :)

Fingers crossed for your Blatherskite. We are still on antibiotics for the ear infection, but he managed to do 8pm (with calpol) to midnight, feed, then didn't hear anything till 7am, when he was sitting quietly in his cot playing with his toys.

Encore!

We got another 45 minutes this afternoon and an easy bedtime.

Off to bed now just in case she wakes up at 4am again! Hoping not as the tooth we were waiting for came through last night but I'm sure there are others close behind!

Good luck for a good nights sleep for you too Blue. And you, teaandcake...:)

I was feeling confident but the last few days have knocked that.

She's started waking at 11pm for a screaming session which can last usually around an hour and is then getting up anywhere between 4 and 6am

Naps are shot again too. I put her down this morning and she lasted maybe 5 minutes before the screaming started.

She had 50 minutes sleep all day yesterday!

She's demanding to feed to sleep again too.

Feeling quite down about it this morning tbh