I'm desperate - 6 mo DD

[BuntyCollocks]

DD was an excellent sleeper, right up until a combination of things -

We went on holiday to center parcs for a week
During that time, she grew out of her hammock (she slept in a miyo baby hammock), so we had to move her into the cot in the room
We then went to Scotland for a week to visit our parents, and she slept between 2 different cots, depending what parents we were visiting.

Since then, she is a nightmare.

Previously, she would go down at 7:30, up at 2 for a quick feed, then straight back down.

Now, she goes down at 7:30 no issue, generally wakens at 9 - hit or miss if its a stirring or a complete HIYA MUMMY I AM WIDE AWAKE LET'S PLAY!!!

Either way, when she goes back down, she'll sleep til 11/12, feed - and then the minute I try and put her in her cot, she wakes up. She looks sound. I wait until she has deep, quiet breathing. The minute her head hits that mattress it's game over.

She naps wonderfully in her cot during the day. She goes down no problem for 'the night' - why the fuck won't she go back down after her first wakening?

She is ending up in bed with us just so we can all get some sleep. We tried to not do this last night, and were up 2 hours. Finally got her back in her cot, and then she woke back up at 4, so we gave up and brought her into our bed. We also have a 2 year old.

This is breaking us. Please help.

Hiya Bunty-

I have been in your shoes as recently as last month! I know your pain all too well.

A question-when she wakes up,what do you do to try and get her back down?

I discovered that my DD didn't always need to be nursed back to sleep so my DH would go and pat her back and "shh" to sleep. After that hurdle we'd be good for a few solid hours. Would this be possible for you?

Hi, good :)

Generally I nurse her back to sleep. Last night, for example, I nursed her to sleep, put her down - eyes pinged open.

Then shushed and patted to sleep, put down - eyes wide open!

Then tried shushing and patting in cot - cue screaming match like I was murdering her.

DH then took her and rocked/shush patted - screamed like we were pouring boiling oil on her, and quieted as soon as back to me and in our bed - fast asleep in 30 seconds.

:( I think I have well and truly fucked up.

I can assure you you haven't. DD1 was a brilliant sleeper from day one, and I chalked it up to "doing everything right and everyone else was wrong."

Ha. Hahaha. 6 years later, DD2 is born reminding me that my shit in fact DOES stink.

You say she is 6 mo-is it possible to move her into her own room? I found my DDs got to a point around that age where they couldn't sleep with me in the room because they wanted my full attention ALL.THE.TIME.

What seemed to help was putting an unwashed t-shirt of mine (bonus if I squirted breastmilk on it) as a lovey for DD2 to cuddle.

She's been in her own room for a month, but moved back into ours last night in case it was the heat disturbing her - nope.

She has a lovey, and I've slept with it, and just now squirted some milk on it. She is currently upstairs in the cot howling as I have. Had. Enough. She has napped for 30 mins today between 2 naps. She is over hot and over tired and I am so done with her not sleeping. She usually naps! I can deal with anything if she naps.

Hello bunty

We went through a bad patch with dd's sleep a few weeks ago. There was no particular trigger but suddenly she decided she hated her cot and would only feed to sleep.

We have coped by embracing co sleeping for now. Do you get a good night's sleep if she is in with you? if so you could do the same.

I bought the no cry sleep solution and there are some good ideas in there. Wrt the naps she suggests that as soon as the baby starts to stir you go back and do whatever you do to get them to sleep in the first place - feeding, rocking etc. Once they have dropped off again they should sleep for another 'sleep cycle'. I have tried this with dd and it really worked.

Good luck!

If she sleeps in bed with you, why not do that?

We went through exactly this with DD - she's 13 months now, and still not sleeping through, but she is generally much much better since we decided to just let her sleep in our bed. We've made the cot into a co-sleeper too now, to give us a bit more space, and so far, so good. It seemed to be down to teething as much as anything else here, could that be it?

Could she be going through a development milestone?

DS' sleep was shot from 4 months to 12 months, particularly horrendous between 6 months and 10 months because at 6 months he wasn't moving at all and at 10 months he was walking shudder at the memories of that awful period

We ended up co-sleeping for sanity.

Hello, mrsb!

Funny you should say that - she stirred at 9 last night and we were able to get her down by me feeding her back to sleep, and then she was sleeping until 12.

I think we may have to embrace the co sleeping. I'm shit scared of doing it as my mum was an accidental co sleeper with me - and I didn't go in my own bed until nearly 4. She has drilled it into me that YOU DO NOT WANT THAT.

No teeth as yet, although she would desperately like some to help with her eating, which she loves. I don't feed any lumpy gums either :(

You could be right on development spurt - she is so nearly crawling. She's at the pushing herself backwards commando style stage, and is incredibly frustrated. She also pushes herself all the way round her cot by arching her back and hips, and thinks it's a great game

I had all sorts of plans before dd was born, we definitely weren't going to co-sleep. Then dd arrived with her own ideas and co-sleeping is definitely better than not sleeping at all.

We're having the same issues with DS2 who's 8 months nearly. He's never slept brilliantly and we co slept from the start - it was lovely but I would advise against it as we are having a battle to now get him to sleep "through" in his own cot in preparation for eventually getting him into his own room with his brother. Co sleeping certainly gave us some sleep but I think it might have dragged the process out for longer than we would have liked.
(I wanted to stop co sleeping so my boy can go in his own room so that DH and I can have our bed to ourself again and resume some sort of normal relationship! This may not be your or someone else's priority, if that's the case I say go for co sleeping).
I'll be watching this thread with interest (clutching at straws that someone will provide miracle advice!)
Hope it all eases up for you soon & you all get some decent sleep