And I thought it couldn't get worse

[belindarose]

I've posted about DD (15mo) and her sleep many times. I've read about sleep regressions (thanks, AngelDog) which make a lot of sense, although DD has never come out of the first one. Just wondered if anyone had new light to shed on our problem as last night was horrendous.

About 4 or 5 nights a week she will be awake for around 2 hours in the middle of the night. Last night was a record 3 1/4. She has wide open eyes but mostly wants to sleep, just can't. Any thought of me leaving her at this time leads to violent crying (last night I went to get her a cup of water and she was so upset).

On top of this, she wakes 2 or 3 times and wants BF. I am happy enough with this, as it gets her back to sleep reasonably quickly, just can't cope with the epic awake session.

She wakes for the day between 5.30 and 6.30 am.

At bedtime she falls asleep in her cot (have been using NCSS methods of gradual withdrawal since August) with some help and certainly with me in the room. Can take 2 hours, but improving and sometimes only 20 mins. Occasionally she'll accept DH putting her to sleep as long as he does the whole bedtime routine. No chopping and changing.

She's an erratic napper - I do the best I can to give her daytime naps. Sometimes she's happier in a sling or the car, other times she'll sleep in the pram. Occasionally in her cot.

Walking, very active, very happy and sociable.

She has never really tolerated co-sleeping. When I've tried, she spends just as long awake, rolling around and trying to get comfortable. If she doesn't feel like sleeping she'd be off the bed and away now.

So, what should we try? Thanks.

she needs to learn how to fall asleep without any help or props. have you read the baby whisperer? i know some people will disagree but i thnk it is your best bet. imo all of your issues stem from the fact that she has not yey learnt to settle herself, so until she does, naps and nighttimes are going to be difficult. wel done that she settles herself in the vening; now you need her to do this without you in the room - it will be a gradual process and basically as i see it the only options are: cry it out, controlled crying, or pick up/put down.
if someone else can help further i hope they'll suggest something you are happier with.
fwiw i did CIO and do not regret it at all - it was SO hard but a short term pain for both of us, for a very long term, truly fantastic gain.
good luck

Thanks for taking the time to reply. How do the methods you've suggested actually help them learn to go to sleep by themselves? I really can't see them working with DD (don't want to sound defeatist).

My god - she sounds like ds. Have to say that I don't think that crying methods are the only ones (and ds way too heavy for PU/PD). We're sticking to working on gradual withdrawal - ds gets hysterical if left to cry, and I've never believed in it, so it's not for us. Also it's not fair on dd, who'd be woken by the crying.

Good luck - if you find anything magical, let me know!

There's definitely a magic wand on my Christmas list. You can share it if I get one, Habbibu!

Actually, dd (now 4) was a bit like this - up 2-3 hours every night (having fooled us by consistent 9 hours stretches when she was little). Gradual withdrawal took a long time, but worked very very well, and she's only just dropping her afternoon nap now. I think I'm finding GW harder with ds as I can't just crash when he's asleep, because I have dd to deal with. ds is also more of a livewire than his sister, but I do have faith it will get better, and that persisting with GW is the key. I just don't know how long it will take!

My non-sleeping child turned out to have a retained moro reflex so had too much adrenalin to sleep or actually feel sleepy IYSWIM........I didn't seek treatment until she was 4 though

belinda, that sounds truly horrible.

There are developmental spurts at 64 and 75 weeks, and I wonder whether either of these are having an effect? Certainly being up for long periods in the night is what my DS does when he's working on a new developmental spurt.

The new edition of The Wonder Weeks explains more - you can follow the links to one of the chapters on the web.

Apparently many babies start a 90 min 'activity cycle' once they wake properly. Certainly my DS is usually up for 1.5 hours once he's wide awake in the night. That means that after 90 mins is often a good point to try to get them back to sleep.

I think gradual withdrawal suits babies who increase tension by crying. 'Crying' methods like CC suit babies who release tension by crying (but usually isn't too traumatic for them). There's more on the difference here.

I think PUPD just annoys tension releasers, but helped my tension increasing DS - but I only did it for wakings, not at bedtime, as I think doing it at bedtime would involve too much crying.

Can someone go through how you actually do gradual withdrawal?? How long it took at each stage etc??

How did you get that diagnosed, CarGirl? Did you use sensory integration therapy to treat? I've just looked up symptoms, and fortunately DD doesn't have any of them.

AngelDog - I'll look up the developmental spurts. She's probably on the verge of talking - uses over 70 signs so communicates well. Regarding the 'activity cycles', I've always found her to be harder to get to sleep when she really wakes up. So if I've been in a lovely deep sleep and she's properly wailing when I hear her, I can guarantee it taking ages to get her back to sleep. For this reason (and others!) I've never left her to cry (deliberately) and try to get to her as soon as possible. She's definitely a tension increaser and we realise instantly whether DH is going to be successful on a particular night from her first reaction. If she cries, he might as well abandon all attempts and cut his losses. There is no way she'll stop till she gets me.

Sometimes I feel fine about it all. I want to feed her in the night and am happy to spend time helping her to sleep. Unfortunately, that makes me feel I have no right to complain if we're up for hours at a time!

I think I do PUPD, in a fashion, anyway. I lay her in her cot and leave my hand on her (she usually grabs it and insists anyway). As soon as I sense she'll let me, I move away. If she sits/ stands up I pick her up and do it again. She doesn't cry. Eventually, the time she stays lying down lengthens and she falls asleep.

If I'm feeling positive, I can see that we've made lots of progress in some ways. Managed to move the bedtime feed and she cleans her teeth after it. She lies quietly (usually!) in her cot for stories. DH is sometimes allowed to settle her. She's waking much less in the evening (had been every 20 mins - hour for a while). So some good stuff.

It's weird - up until 2-3 am you'd say ds was an ok sleeper - goes down with my hand on his back, and we're trying to reduce that, and easily settled after wakings. But from 2-4, 5 he's a different beast - you can settle him back to sleep without much argument, you'd swear he was deeply asleep (deep slow breathing, floppy arms, the works) - 2-5 mins after leaving the room he's screaming the place down. Even if you stay with him, with your arms on him (and when he co-slept in sidecar), he's twitchy and fitful, and finds it difficult even sleeping in my arms.

The test for too much adrenalin is easy, it's the way your pupils dilate when a light is shone on them - like the dr does, they contract as they should under the light and then dilate absolutely huge.

Looking at the list from this site webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:6T04XaRzDawJ:www.metabolics.com.au/phs/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D19%26Itemid%3D39+retained+moro+reflex&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=uk picked at random the not needing sleep was the only way it affected her, she also had poor upper and lower body co-ordination, she was late sitting independently, late learning to ride a balance scooter and the way she ran was a bit strange. She is actually very academically able, great social skills etc.

She was treated using brushing techniques the INPP.org.uk way - was very quick about 4months although we saw huge improvements in her sleeping and running withing a month.

She used to wake up 3-4 times per night most nights and come and ask if it was morning yet. She was just wide awake, it wasn't seperation anxiety as she would toddle back to bed and then revisit to see if it was morning yet - for all I know she never actually went to back to sleep in between

Yes, the twitchy fitfulness sounds like DD. That's why we really can't co-sleep. Last time I tried (was away on my own with her and it seemed like an easy option - ha ha) she writhed around for three hours, mostly trying to fit her whole fist into my belly button. She really seemed to be trying to sleep, but absolutely couldn't. Good luck tonight! I'm going for an early night to maximise sleep opportunities.

Sorry CarGirl. Cross posted. That's very interesting. Glad your DD is doing so well now. I'm interested to hear that brushing was successful for you (had experience with it with some ASD pupils of mine).

that's really interesting about tension - i can totally see how my ds1 just couldn't sleep by any other means than crying - we tried co-sleeping,rocking, anything we could - and nothing worked! i can count the number of times i've held him in my arms to sleep on one hand!!! quite sad really, i would've loved it - but the rocking made him so much worse. that's why we resorted to CIO with some aspects of GW (i.e. we would potter around nearby so he could hear us a bit and return if not working after a while). with ds2 it seems he is similar - i often rock him to sleep if there is no alteranative, eg at toddler group, but more often than not he nods off as soon as i STOP rocking!! and in the sling i can go for a walk, then as soon as i get back and sit down he nods off. he cries in his cot but usually then calms down very quickly. so it makes a lot of sense to me. i guess you just have to try things and use your instincts for your child.

That's interesting, stinky - these babies who cry a bit and then just stop and go to sleep fascinate me; mine would never have done that (despite us sitting listening tensely) - they just get more wound up, and you see this blotchy face and bright red eyes. yy to using your own observations and instincts - I think some babies like to be left to their own devices, but mine certainly don't. dd is now utterly fantastic, though, and has been for a couple of years, though (sleep wise - she's been generally lovely all her life) so I have hope.

belinda, I'm oddly comforted by this thread - ds having a "twin" reinforces in me the idea that this is just the way he is.

I agree, Habbibu. I thought of you in the small hours and felt better!

I think one of the problems with baby books telling us what babies 'should' do is that we forget they're people - and really, actually different from each other.

Adults sleep differently, so it makes sense that babies do too. DH can nod off on a sofa, train, bus in a crowd of people. OTOH I have to be lying down in a dark room, and even then it's very rare for me to ever be able to sleep in the day, even when DS was a newborn.

I do think that most of how babies sleep is down to their 'sleep personality'.

ds's seems to be split, though - first half of the night not bad, deep sleeps, easily resettled - second half utterly unable to get into a deep sleep. So odd.

Well, he went down with no contact tonight, just shushing, so that's something. Left the light on in his room to see if that helps, and plan to just sit in comfy chair with him and duvet when he does The Big Wake tonight. May as well try not to get stressed about it. I may even come and watch TV...

well done - if he can do it once he can do it again, and it is great that you are feeling confident as your vibes will rub off on him.
i am sure they are telepathic! the minute i stop thinking about it, my ds2 falls asleep!
another tip i read about somewhere which i really believe, is gthat it only takes 3 days to learn (and sadly to unlearn!) a new routine / pattern. this is why holidays can be more trouble than they are worth with little ones. but it is reassuring to think that even ingrained habits can be soon forgotten in tiny memories. not sure if 15mo is still 3 days, probably a bit longer. but not as long as we sometimes fear when in the thick of it.
i also console myself that we humans are remarkably resilient. did you hear about the baby who survived in the recent earthquake for 8 days?!!!!!! so a few nights of extra crying and disturbed routine in the hope of an eventual improvement is not too bad.
good luck with the big wake tonight.

I've now been up for three hours with DD. Hope you're doing better, Habbibu! It's ridiculously frustrating. She sleeps for maybe 3-5 minutes in the cot, then wakes again, sits up and we start all over again. I've left her crying for a minute or so (to recover from crying myself) and that just made her furious and wouldn't stop until I relented and fed her again. That didn't make her sleep though. She sat on my lap, refusing to lie down, sucking her thumb with wide open eyes, for ages. When I can get her to lie down, she wants to fiddle with my hand and arm and it's driving me INSANE! Sorry to sound incoherent. Think she's asleep enough to leave now. The worst thing is to get back into bed yourself only to have them wake up again!

Think they're doing shifts. ds from 2 onwards. But he slept in my arms and we both dozed in a chair - why on earth will he not let me do that in bed? It seems to me that they both have trouble falling into a proper deep sleep at some point in the night - but at the beginning of the night ds is fine, so I just don't understand it.

My nan is giving us £500. I desperately wanted to spend it on a new bed for DH and I as we've never had a new one and ours is so uncomfortable. However... sleep clinic might change our lives even more?

Meh, just read Millpond case studies, and frankly there's nothing there I haven't worked out for myself. Or tried. dd was like this, and gradual withdrawal did sort her out, and she's been fantastic for ages. I'd buy a new bed...

I do the same thing every day as far as possible.

Run around, fresh air, lots of food then more fresh air for a nap in pushchair.

Some days it doesn't work but always seems to sleep better when he's a had a nap of around 1-2 hrs in day.
if i want him to go to bed earlier, I'll wake him.

As she's walking now have you tried extreme exercise?!!!
Where you feel knackered but you make dc run and run or play and play until they are pooped out?

Sorry if any of this is patronising. My 17 month ish old has only just started sleeping through. We went with the flow with him really and it's worked out nicely.So far, so good until he's sick/more teeth coming!