Sleeping gone to hell, should we try and night wean?

[glovesoflove]

Apologies in advance, this is a bit long.

DD nearly 7 months, was a fabulous sleeper from about 4 weeks onwards - put her down awake and she'd go off to sleep, woke for a feed about 5am with occasional extra waking for feed about 2.30. Has two decent naps in the day but will only sleep outside

4 month sleep regression wasn't too bad and she went back to "normal" by 5mo. We went on holiday, she had a cold, still didn't make too much difference to her. There was a phase of feeding all night but it seemed to coincide with a growth spurt, made effort to feed her in quiet boring places during the day and it passed.

The last three weeks or so, she WILL NOT go to sleep by herself, I have to lie down with her and then she wakes up and cries as soon as I so much as hold her over the cot (same travel cot she's happily slept in since she was about 12 weeks and will happily sit in, just not lie down or go to sleep! in our room still). Last night she went to bed with us at 10pm and I managed to move her into the cot after about half an hour.

She has also started screaming, and I mean screaming, with no build-up whatsoever, two or three times a night. When we pick her up she's not awake IYSWIM, we have to put the light on to wake her fully before we can soothe her.

I am feeding her god knows how many times a night, would night weaning help? Doing BLW and she's just starting to swallow food. Currently switching her over to formula in the day as I go back to work soon (will not be expressing for various reasons).

She's a really busy baby, into everything, crawling backwards/bumshuffling and starting to pull herself up on furniture, also her babbling has suddenly become much more speech like this weekend. It's like her brain is constantly "on".

She has no teeth yet but this doesn't seem like teething as remedies that help her when her gums hurt don't help!

Going to book her an appt with GP to make sure we're not missing something though she seems fine. HV is a bit crap and it's minimal contact in this area so don't want to bother them either.

I've read the No Cry Sleep Solution but we're doing pretty much what she suggests, have got the Baby Whisperer on order now.

If you've got to the end thank you!

[glovesoflove]

bumping hopefully...

As you can't edit posts on here I'll just ask

Do you think night weaning a 7mo will help with sleep or not?

Thanks :)

[knickyknocks]

You poor thing. eeuuurrrgghh! Sleep deprivation. Yuck.

I think the screaming can only be exhaustion or teething. You could try to cover all bases by applying some teething gel before she goes to bed.

I also think because she's managed to go to sleep on her own once she'll be able to do it again. I've just replied on another thread but really do believe the PUPD method is by far the best. The other thing we did was we would lie our DD in the cot and say goodnight. Invariably she'd start crying and trying to stand up. We would not give her anything but shushing noises and lay her back down, then stand in the corner of her room, not looking at her (usually looked towards the ground). We kept doing this until she went to sleep. Some nights it took ages, others it worked like a dream within a few mins. We would also follow this method in the middle of the night.

Just a thought with the screaming, have you tried not putting on the lights and just shushing and saying her name? Sometimes just the sound of your voice will help.

Lastly to say it really does get better. I can't believe that in the last month, our DD sleeps from 7 till 6.15/6.45 almost every night. It's not that far off for you either!

[knickyknocks]

Meant to also add, think our DD needed milk about once in the night until she really had been weaned properly. That was about 9 months.

Got to add, generally if our DD had a good amount to eat for supper (she loved rice pudding!) - she wouldn't wake as much.

[glovesoflove]

Thanks! Might try porridge and rice pudding suppers and see if they help her feel settled.

Well, it's at least partly teething so bound to be disruption til that's dealt with. Got Baby Whisperer and one of those light show things on order, she starts nursery in Jan so will start working towards a new routine and see what happens.

Still not sure with the waking screaming thing though, she's not "with it" and has to be woken to be soothed, otherwise she just carries on. Looks like night terrors (have seen them when babysitting toddlers) but I thought she was too young. Oh well!