9MO DD2 is keeping the whole house awake at night - NEED to do something, maybe CC or PUPD??? Your success stories/tips please

[aliceinlalaland]

started a thread on here a week or so ago. Am really really struggling with DD2. She wakes up for hours at a time at night and nothing will settle her. I've tried bottles, hairdryer (which usually works when she's over-tired) - if I hold her in my arms and rock her she goes quiet and seems to go to sleep but wakes the second I move to put her back in her cot. She sometimes goes quiet if I stroke her hair but I just can't spend hours in the middle of the night bent over the cot. I try to leave her for stretches at a time but she just doesn't fall back to sleep on her own, which is perhaps because I"m being inconsistent and should be doing proper CC?

Her room is right next to DD1 who also gets woken up and can't get back to sleep for ages. I'm spending hours at night ping-ponging between the two rooms. DH is kept awake by it too. I really hate leaving her to cry but I'm trying to see the bigger picture and I'm really feeling quite depressed with the lack of sleep. I'm freelance and am going back to office-based work this week so really need to not be completely exhausted. And even without that, the sleep deprivation makes me so grumpy with the girsl during the day.

So, basically, I need to do something. Have heard about PUPD but will that work with a 9MO or is it designed for younger babies. Is CC more likely to work and be quicker? I don't relish the idea of either but need to have a plan. Any advice or stories about what has worked for you would be v welcome. If something worked please could you tell me EXACTLY what you did!

Sorry, this is really long and garbled but I hope you get the picture.

Thanks so much

PS if you feel strongly that CC/sleep training is cruel/unacceptable etc I'd be really grateful if you didn't post. I'm feeling guilty enough about the whole thing as it is I just need a solution now.

curlyLJ- groan... I feel for you. I'm no expert (though appear to be pretending I am!) but one thing I've read about PUPD (or indeed just PD) is that you have to see it through. Impossible it seems when your lo is raising hell. But I've certainly found that the nights when dd has been awake and we've rocked her, I've fed her, we've given her toys, calpol, tried anything to settle her, have always been more nightmarish than the nights when we've just stuck it through, even if we're awake for a long time. At the point where you are about to give up, keep trying!

I am mad though. I spent an HOUR settling dd for a NAP the other day. Mad. Perhaps you should ignore me and do what it takes to get a bit of sleep!

skippingturtle they are mysterious indeed. Hope your dd starts to come round to your way of thinking soon!

Things are still going quite well here, 4.45am start aside! She had 2.5 hours of total naps today (unheard of) for which she self-settled (unheard of in recent weeks), and self-settled at bedtime. Has been up twice already this evening, so I am slightly fearful for tonight though...

It's the cold that gets me at the moment. That jarring cry from the next room, and the dread of getting out from under the cosy duvet and going to stand next to a cot with freezing feet for however long. Good times.

Well, last night we had our best night in ages! 7 til 6.30, with a brief squawk at 5! She wasn't actually awake at 5, just squawking...

Yesterday was her best nap day in ages too, so I'm sure the two things are connected.

We've been revisiting Baby Whisperer and NCSS/NCNP, and it's struck me how contradictory they are. BW is all about removing sleep associations, where it seems to me that NCSS is all about creating them (white noise, 'lovey's etc). I wonder if our problem is that we've tried to combine both, doing PUPD but always playing music for her to go to sleep to etc.

Sorry, waffling there.

(Have also revisited the 'baby type' questionnaire, ours has gone from Textbook to Spirited now her true colours have emerged! )

thanks Napwhatnap - we did stick it out last night (because I don't sleep as well when she is in my bed) and i resigned myself that I would get up as many times as necessary but that she was staying in her cot! It worked to some degree and I feel like I did get some decent sleep in, despite being up for an hour from 2-3am. She stayed in her cot until 6am when she really didn't look like she was going to settle. Brought her in to me for cuddles, resigned to an early start, and she fell back to sleep until 8.30

Oh, and for the cold feet - I have taken to going to bed in my socks (not the most attractive look I know) so my feet don't get as cold when I am up and down...

HOpe your night wasn't too bad after all?

wow skippingturtle what's your secret?!I dream of having a night like that...

If there were a secret I'd gladly share it! I sometimes pore over what we do trying to find patterns, but sometimes it's just random, isn't it?

Do you ever find yourself jealous of people who have those babies that just sit blinking blithely whilst making the occasional squeak? A friend of mine has one and her baby at 3 months still isn't as alert as mine was at a week!

I'm sure the fact that she had three long naps yesterday was a factor, how are naps for you ladies?

curlyLJ- me too with the socks! Dead sexy. Last night I also wore long johns as pyjama trousers. Yes I did. Luckily I didn't have to get up though, she slept from 7pm til 5.30am, hurrah.

Naps have had a BIG transition in recent weeks in our house. She was having three short naps per day, then at 9 months it all went mad. She was refusing to nap in her cot, refusing to nap at all, etc etc. Lasted for 3 weeks or so. Once we started using the PD technique (and I assume she came through her little regression too), she started settling again for naps in her cot, and now has two longer naps a day. Not massive naps, but around an hour or maybe more. Long may it last, I say!

I'm unsure how much it's related to good night time sleep for our dd. I think it's more the case that when her sleep becomes unsettled for whatever reason, it all goes tits up, day and night.

Sorry to have disappeared - dd has been ill so sleep is all over the place. She's awake for hours at a time again, it's horrendous and really beginning to get me down. Feel like any progress we have made has all been wasted. I just really hope when she eventually gets better the sleep will improve. Weirdly daytime naps are fine and she goes to bed quite happily in the evening. It's the middle of the night that's the problem.

Anyway, glad that you are making progress - keep posting, it gives me hope!