waking every two hours from roughly midnight onwards - how in God's name do I get 6m DD to sleep?????

[emeraldgirl1]

She goes ot sleep like a dream at 7.30pm each night

Sleeps angelically until around 11pm to midnight

Wakes (possibly hunger?) around then, has bottle, drains it so she is obv hungry but am not sure is neccessarily the hunger itself waking her.

And then the madness begins.

Last night it was - 11pm, 1am (bottle), back to sleep by 1.30am, awake again 3.30am, awake again 4.15, 4.45, 5, I finally fed her again at 5.30am and then she went back to sleep when she shoudl have been waking up for the day at 7am.

I am a mess.

I can't go on like this!!!

Her naps have got worse and worse, is there a connection?? She won't go longer than 30-40 mins each nap. Posted about that y'day, wondering about wake-to-sleep, tried it for one nap y'day and it just made her wake up earlier from the nap. :(

It isn't hunger waking her every time. Yes she drained the bottle at 1am but at 5.30am she had just a third or so, so she wasn't waking hungry.

In the past wind has woken her. Not at the moment.

Teething - possibly - but she isn't waking crying in pain, she is just waking, stirring, trying to grab her dummy and then waking me up. When I go to the cot her eyes are wide open and she looks wide awake. I can get her back to sleep (unless feeding her) within about five mins EXCEPT from 4am ish when she is awake for two hours or more and will not go back to sleep.

Is it something to do with sleep cycles? The timing is very odd, exactly two hours almost to the minute between wake-ups last night, then 45 mins, then half an hour... in combo with her 30 min naps I can't help but think there is something going on with her sleep cycles and I need to try to solve that.

Please, please help, anyone. It is getting me down in a major major way and am worried I am sliding into anxiety and depression as I have in the past (over other things!!!)

Reading your post there are a few things that might be worth thinking about...

1. is it worth feeding her at the 11pm wakeup in the hope that she might then sleep a bit longer post midnight - might be worth a try - less painful than doing a 1am feed anyway...

1. where is she at with weaning - are you doing purees or BLW? I am never sure how 'linked' sleep issues and hunger are at this age to be honest, but I have found with my three that daytime sleep really settled into a pattern of longer, predictable naps once they were taking a good portion of a protein type meal (chicken casserole, shepherds pie type stuff - I've always done purees rather than BLW though) at lunchtime.

1. how mobile is she? Is she rolling, sitting up? Both those can affect wakefulness in the night i.e. at the end of a sleep cycle if they've rolled over and can't quite get back yet. We had wakeful nights with DS3 (8m) until he worked out how to roll back into a comfier position on his own. DS1, now 9, also had some wakeful nights around the 6-9m stage due to sitting himself up in the cot and not being able to get himself back down again!

1. where does she sleep? is she still in with you? If so, you might be disturbing her and it might be worth trying her in her own room (If she is already in her own room then obviously ignore this one!)

1. the dummy....when you say she is stirring and trying to grab her dummy - does she go to sleep with it in? Can she settle without it? If not...I hate to say it but you might need to ditch it. A friend of mine had an issue with her 6mo waking literally every 45 minutes for the dummy and taking it away was a bit painful but it did work and stopped the regular wakeups.

Hope some of the above is helpful...big sympathies, DS3 went through phases of multiple wakeups over the summer and it gets soul destroying after a while!

can't thank you enough for this dietcoke...

OK, in order... :)

1. will try the earlier feed, good advice

2. weaning... a whole other story... she is adamantly feeding herself at 6.5m... with no teeth this is tough. Lots of people are telling me they can eat almost anything with no teeth but not DD... she shoves in huge pieces and chokes... so she is spoon-feeding... herself!!! Is chaos. She is just about starting to get more in, and I obv shovel in what I can when she lets me. I think she could eat more and she will eat more, but what she is eating is increasing all the time... she ate beef stew today so lets hope for a better night...

3. mobility - hadn't occureed to me. she is mobile ish but can't sit up yet... can roll but not crawl... interesting, could be a problem.

4. we are just about to move her into her own room. I have been assuming this will just make my nights worse as will have further to go every time she wakes... but maybe she will wake less?

5. the dummy... I darent ditch it! But I know I need to!!! I think I may need a few more ok nights sleep before am strong enough to try. Will try other suggestions and keep the dummy one on the back burner...

Thanks so much, sorry you suffered too - it's utterly soul destroying isn't it?!

emeraldgirl definitely try moving her into her own room and yes, if the thought of losing the dummy is too stressful for the moment then put that on back burner for now! You may well find a room of her own improves things anyway.

I can only go on my own experience, but with each of my three they've reached a stage where they became unsettled at night because we were waking them, and things got much better once they couldn't hear DH snoring had a bit of peace

I hear you on the thinking that your nights will be worse because you'll have to go further to get to DD. But - if my own experience with baby DS3 if anything to go by - she may well be more settled (can't guarantee it obviously! but it's quite likely). DS3 spent a week in with us on holiday over the summer (he was 6.5m) and woke every hour and a half almost on the flipping dot, wouldn't settle back to sleep for ages, would end up in bed with me breastfeeding on and off for what felt like hours...was awful. Back in his own room, once we got home, and he still woke, but say once, maybe twice a night, and settled back quickly (ie within 10 minutes). So yes, it was more of a faff to actually get to him, but the tradeoff was that the wakings were less frequent and much shorter in duration.

Good luck

Read up on the Baby Whisperer techniques - pick-up put-down - to teach her to get herself back to sleep. My DS went from waking every 1.5 to 2 hours (at 8 months) for bf, to sleeping from 8pm to 5am. It's not controlled crying - you are there with her helping her. It's important to be consistent with it, and get into a good rhythm with naps. www.babywhispererforums.com/