what would you do?

[nello]

Hello. Advice needed! what would you do?...please give your advice/opinion...

DD (bless her little cotton socks?) is not being a good sleeper. she is now 6 months and has gotten worse rather than better. Last night for example:

7.30pm asleep (always falls asleep when i am giving her feed, i then rock her a wee bit for a couple of minutes and put her down. she often stirs a little and then is asleep)

10.30pm woke up (i have been doing a dream feed so i give her a top up at this time - the idea being to get her through the night - pah!) last night took ages to go back to sleep, lots of crying and i did go in each time and pick her up, which i am glad i did as she did tremendous farts so was obviously in pain.

1.30am AWAKE grrrr. grizzling and whimpering i ignore and then go in when she starts proper crying. she so happy to see me smiles and gets all excited and then it takes me over an hour to settle her. i pick her up and try and rock her, she is wide awake, i put her down and sush her and she starts crying, this repeats a wee while.....and in the end (i know i shouldn't have) i feed her but even then she takes ages to go back to sleep, prob by about 3am.

4am - 6am keeps waking and whimpering and i manage to ignore her and we get to 6.20am when we start the day feeling not very refreshed!

so i look on mumsnet and people talk about controlled crying, pick up/put down and i just don't know what is a good idea. i HATE hearing her cry and i feel natural to pick her up and sooth her, but need to start helping her sleep properly i feel. i also worry that in this heat (28 degrees in bedroom at night) she could actually be thirsty, though not convinced, think she just likes my cuddles. do you have any suggestions? please! what did you do? we have started solids but only early days and still breadt feeding first so she is not taking much yet, don't know if that can affect anything.

thanks in advance.

I would wait until she is properly established on solids before trying anything. My main advice would be to always put her into her cot awake, so if she falls asleep feeding (my 10month old dc3 always does) gently wake her, then maybe sing a lullaby or read a story to indicate bedtime.

If she wakes in the night once established on solids offer a beaker with water instead of milk.

I've recently tried the 'wake to sleep' method for early waking. My Dc3 was waking at 5am, so I went in at 4am, gently woke her but immediately settled her back to sleep, she then slept through until 6:30, it only took two nights and now she is sleeping util 6:30 most mornings. The idea is that you are resetting their sleep cycle.

Admittedly I have also done controlled crying with all 3 of my dcs, and it does work, however I completely understand why you may not wish to go down that route and wouldn't advise it to anyone who didn't feel OK with it.

Hope things improve soon!

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