This is no longer a phase, is it? How do I help my fidgety DD (9mo) to settle to sleep and have fewer night wakings

[Kamikazefly]

I would really appreciate some advice from you wise MN'ers on how to solve my DD's sleeping issues. She has been an ok sleeper up until 6 months. Since then her nighttime sleep has gradually gotten worse. It now feels like we are no longer in a phase, but well and truly stuck with bad nighttime sleep and some bad habits. I'd like to canvass some opinions on what my 'from now on my baby will sleep' strategy should be:

1. I feel DD has unlearned how to settle herself to sleep. I now have to hold her hand until she drifts off, which can take anything from 10 to 30 minutes in the evening. She fidgets and tosses and turns, and often seems to get frustrated that she cannot go to sleep. How do I teach her to self-settle again? I am not completely averse to CC, but want to make sure I have tried all other options first. What about gradual withdrawal? How would that work?

1. DD now wakes anything from 3 to 8+ times in the night, often starting within 30 minutes of going to sleep. 9 times out of 10 the only thing that will calm her is a BF. Later in the night, often the only thing that will help is to take her to bed with me. I don't feed to sleep (wish that would bloody work!), but it seems a BF calms her down enough for me to put her back down (and hold her hand, so she can fidget herself to sleep again). Do I tackle this the same way as the going to sleep in the evenings (i.e. CC or gradual withdrawal or whatever)? Or should I initially focus on stopping the night feedings and just offer water instead?

1. She seems to settle much better for her naps. I still have to hold her hand, but she goes to sleep without any problems in less than 5 mins. Once we try and tackle the nighttime sleep, do I also have to change how I settle her for her naps or can I keep them as they are?

1. Does our current routine sound ok?:

6.30am - up for the day, BF 8am - breakfast 9.30am - morning nap (approx 1 hr) 11.30am - lunch 2pm - BF 2.30pm - afternoon nap (approx 1 hr) 5pm - dinner 6.15pm - start bedtime routine (bath, BF, book, bed) 7 / 7.30pm - asleep

Thanking you all very much in advance!

I'd tackle the day first Kami. I think she is reverse cycling and you need to feed her more in the day.

The current advice is to offer a bf an hour before you offer solids until they are one. Once she has reached one, you can offer the milk after the solids.

So with that in mind, I'd offer her a bf when she wakes up at around 10.30 and then another when she wakes up in the afternoon. Don't worry if she reduces her solid intake, its better to get her tanked up on the milk, so that she will hopefully take less from you at night.

Think you might also be suffering from the 9 month sleep regression, there is a great article on it here.

I'm not really sure how gradual withdrawal works, hopefully another MNer will come along and be able to tell you.

In the meantime, have a read of 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep and 12 alternatives for the all night nurser. You might also like this book.

Hope you have a better night tonight .

I agree, I don't think there's enough milk feeds during the day so I think she might be hungry at night

Maybe think about moving the afternoon nap a little earlier, so it falls directly after lunch? I know that I always feel like a siesta at that time . And if DD sleeps longer/better in the day, the nights may improve too.

I recommend having a look at lucidladys thread about Andrea Grace in sleep

I can't give other advice as my 11 month old is a terrible self-settler!

IMO, 3 milk feeds and 3 solid feeds in the day is about right, but that's only going on what I did and what friends do.

I think she's overtired. Two hours sleep in the day is not much for a 9 month old and waking frequently soon after bedtime is classic overtiredness. Would she sleep for longer at lunch if her morning nap were slightly shorter? I'd be aiming for 30/45 mins in morning and 2hrs at lunch.

IMO, 3 milk feeds and 3 solid feeds in the day is about right, but that's only going on what I did and what friends do. Kami, you might want to discuss the number of feeds with a BFC. Have you got the number of one of the Bfing Helplines?

or you could ask in the breast and bottle section. One of the posters has a great chart for the percentages of calories that should come from milk and from solids.

All I know is that if mine were waking that much in the night, I'd be feeding them more in the day and at 9 months both of mine had much more than 3 bfs a day.

Kami, you could be posting about my 9 month old. We do two extra bf during the day, and he generally only manages 30 min for his naps, but the rest sounds very, very familiar. I'm afraid I don't have any answers, but you're not on your own with this.

Thursday did you manage to read the link on reverse cycling?

I had a quick look. The link went to lll, but not to the right page, so I did a search. The page it brought up had lots of responses of people saying their child did this, so they started co-sleeping. That's not going to work for us as I'm going back to work soon and will sometimes be away (I'll be starting to transition from bf to ff soon). Sorry to dash, but I have to go and collect ds1.

Hello - why not come and join us on the Andrea Grace thread? Sounds like you are having similar issues to a lot of the posters on there.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1549900-We-met-Andrea-Grace-here-is-the-aftermath

No advice as DD2 (10 months) can't settle herself either. Goes to bed 7pm-7.30pm too and usually wakes after about an hour. Then wakes up several times a night and I co-sleep once I'm in bed. Bf to get her back to sleep again! She has done the rare
6-8hours stretch though, and so hoping she'll do more of those soon!

I was going to suggest the Andrea Grace thread too :)

Thursday if it is reverse cycling you don't have to co-sleep if you don't want too. Sorry about the wrong link, have a look here.

Some of the things you can do include taking them outside when you get up and before bedtime in order to help reset their body clocks. Have a look at 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep too.

Thanks JJJ, that link explains more. I definitely have a distractable baby, and because he's at a milestone too (just started crawling), I suppose it's not surprising that he'd rather feed at night than during the day. I had already started trying to do the daytime feeds in a quieter room (away from his noisy brother during the holidays), but wonder if some of the problem has been a bit self-inflicted. I was trying to get into more of a routine - a general one in terms of roughly 3.5 hours between feeds in the daytime, but more first thing in the morning, and extra before bed. I'll be returning to work later on in the autumn, and will be transitioning to ff soon as ds2 will be in childcare. I was trying to vaguely get a routine in place so I could change from bf to ff one feed at a time, and so he could have consistency with timings from home to daycare. I wonder if I've been pushing the daytime feeds too far apart, which would make it obvious that he would need more feeds at night. But if I go back to feeding him on demand, will that make it overly complicated to transition to different feeding methods?

Sorry, I'll catch up tomorrow. Ds2 has been asleep for 40 minutes now, I'm off to get some sleep while I can.

3.5 hours is a long time for a bf baby. If you are worried about a transition to ff a BFC could help you come up with a plan. Have you got the numbers for the helplines?

Well, I upped the daytime feeds yesterday, to see if that would help. He still woke 4 times.
That's a good idea about the helplines, I hadn't thought of them. I do have the numbers as I contacted them when he was little.

Its a shame he still woke. Have you had chance to phone the helplines yet?

Think it might just be sleep regression but I'd keep on upping his feeds if he were mine .

A quick update. The last two nights we've been trying something different. When he wakes at night for a feed, I've been feeding him, but on the first night, only for 7 min per feed. The next night, feed him for only 6 min per feed, etc. We're only two nights in, and he still has a really long bedtime feed, andmore frequent bfs during the day. The first night was horrible as he started crying as soon as I took him off the breast after the 7 min was up. The first time it took about an hour to settle him, he slept for an hour, then we went through it 3 more times that night. Last night was much better, he still cried briefly at the end of each feeding session, but I got him settled quickly by walking up and down his room. He only woke 3 times last night, and all went well, apart from him deciding 4.30 am is a good time to start the day.
Let's hope tonight is good as well.

Glad things are gong slightly better for you Thursday.