Please help at end of tether

[Givenotake]

My nearly 8mo old DD is just the worst sleeper. She will usually wake twice a night and then often be up at 5. For the past month or two I have been doing one feed and settling her back to sleep. The settling takes anywhere between half an hour and two hours. I have also tried CC and CIO to no success. I did CIO with my older one and while it was absolutely not the miracle cure everyone else seems to experience it sort of worked a bit.

I am consistent in the way I aettle her. Pat her back and rarely pick her up. Only if I think she has wind or something is genuinely up.

She is not:
Hungry
Overtired
Under tired
Uncomfortable
Ill
Teething

Some days we have busy days some days we have relatively low key days. Sometimes in between. no difference to her sleep.

She is BF, eats solids very well, drinks water, has regular BM.

She is happy in the day but fights naps.

Her room is pitch black, I have had a consistent bedtime routine since she was very small. The room is as quiet as it can be.

I have never rushed to her side at the slightest murmur. Pretty much since she was born have given it a reasonable amount of time to see f she is actually crying/needs me IYSWIM.

Sometimes she will wake for one feed and then sleep til 5.30 and moan on and off til 6. I cannot identify a pattern at all with this. I have analysed as much as I can but there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to why the occasional night is ok but mostly hideous.

Sorry for the essay please please someone help.

Miserable bump...

Hi . What's her daytime routine like and how much is she eating and drinking?

Two sleeps in the day:

One at 8.30 (I can't make this later due to school run)
One at 12.30 for about an hour and a half. This is sometimes shorter.

Please please don't say sounds like too much sleep or sounds like she's over tired at bedtime. Trust me neither of these is the case.

No idea how much milk she has as BF but feed her four times a day and seems to drain.

Eats three good meals. Eg for lunch she ate a whole small baked potato along with nearly a while avocado, some tomatoes and cucumber.

Thank you so much for replying!

When is bedtime?

18.30

Could yoy move the 12.30 nap to later, say 2? That would make more even breaks.

Does she self settle when first going to bed?
We sleep trained at 7.5 months, and the 3 things that worked were putting down to sleep awake, doing last feed downstairs in daylight with noise etc and stopping all night feeds.
We were desperate so did it all at once.
The first night were all geared up to do CC and she slept through! Did for 3 weeks in a row, then we had a cold, the a tooth etc. so not magic but helped a lot.
I have also found that day sleep makes no reliable difference to night sleep.

Io find if the afternoon nap is much later she is overtired and then doesn't sleep long.

She's totally weird with self settling. After I feed her around the sort of 11 time she goes to bed totally awake and happily sleeps on her own. Other times she goes absolutely bonkers.

No advice I'm afraid as I could have written your post about my 7 month old DS he even naps at the same times as your DD although sometimes still with a late catnap (no difference to night time if he has one or not).

I also feel like I've tried everything and just can't work out why he won't sleep. No pattern at all, I've tried gradual withdrawal twice, the last time for 3 miserable weeks where it was 1 step forward, 3 steps back. Sometimes he self settles, other times he screams bloody murder if he's out of my arms.

I've randomly discovered he sleeps marginally better with a night light, worth a try?

Is your DD active? My DS started crawling at 5.5 months and is pulling himself to standing now and is always on the go, I do wonder if that contributes to the night waking (clutches at straws)

"One at 8.30 (I can't make this later due to school run)"

I have the school runs. For that very reason my DD doesn't nap until 9.30 when we are home (she sleeps in her cot).

Her second sleep is hampered by the school run. Ideally she would sleep 2pm-4pm (she does this weekends and school holidays). But because she sleeps in the cot I have to put her to sleep at 1pm so she is awake for 3pm and the school run on weekdays.

As a result of the earlier than ideal afternoon nap, she has an additional 5.30pm half hour powernap to get through to a 7.30pm (ish) bedtime.

I second the previous poster who said that the gap between waking from afternoon nap and bedtime is long and I'd try pushing daytime naps later or trying for a shorter third nap in the late afternoon.

Have tried later naps. Makes no difference.

Also completely impossible to get a third cat nap in.

With school run first nap would end up needing to be at 10 which is too late (have tried before and she is so overtired and throws everything off).

Yes v active, standing on her own now. You'd think that would mean sjed be tired out!

She's not got much interest in being in my arms. Screams whether I pick her up or not. Only thing that calms her is boob but haven't done that apart from 'dream feed' time for about a month so you'd think she would be over that! Maybe I need to give up boob altogether?

Awake AGAIN someone please tell me what to do.

This is fifth waking tonight I just do not know what to do.

roly will you talk
Me through your night time routine? I feel like having a feed downstairs before bed might be a good idea but at the moment the actual first part of the night is ok (until like 8.30!) and worried about rocking the boat there but am desperate!

Oh Given I do feel for you. DS1 was like this. Didn't sleep, no reason we could find, he still wakes throughout night now at 3.5 (although usually only once now). DS2 10mths isn't as bad but I am normally up 3 times a night minimum between them both and it's just exhausting. It's been 3.5yrs of broken sleep and I know I am more stupid as a result
My advice? Do WHATEVER you need to to get sleep. If she'll co sleep with you, do it. If it's bottles do it. I found it was all about survival and just remember it will get easier.

In the midst of trying CC and is totally heartbreaking and showing no signs of working. She is so worked up

If she'd sleep in bed with me I'm sure I'd do it in a heartbeat but it seems to make no difference.

This is the problem, nothing works, if there was a rod I could turn to I'd happily do it and not care about anything but there is just nothing.

Given, we were in exactly the same situation. Our DD cried whether picked up or not. I won't lie, there have been nights where she cried on and off for over 2 hours, but the lack of sleep was destroying us, so that's why we persevered.
IMO stopping the night feeds completely helped us, as she wasn't then wondering when she woke if she would get fed, she knew she wouldn't. She was 7.5 months when we night weaned and absolutely fine.
We used to do bath then pjs all in a darkened quiet room, then I would feed her to sleep.
We changed it so we do last feed around 6pm downstairs with lights and tv on etc. and don't let her fall asleep here, even if you have to pull her off the boob to keep her awake. then do bath and pjs. The put her in sleeping bag. Close the blinds in her room and make it dark together so she knows that's a signal for sleep. Sit on chair in her room and read book. Sing song, and put down awake. Same book and song each night, and also before daytime naps if you can. If she cries, go in after 5, then 10, then 15 mins. Then keep it at 15. You are not going in to settle her, she has to learn to do it herself. You're reassuring her you're there. We also introduced a comfort teddy that says in her cot.
We did all this on the advice of a sleep consultant.

Thanks roly really helpful advice. You're my sleep consultant now!

I think dropping all feeding is a good idea to remove any association of getting a bit of boob at night time.

What kind of teddy did you use? Specifically for night time or for naps too? I can't get her interested in teddies comforters etc really.

Going to try CC along with no falling asleep on boob for three nights. If no change at all I'll reassess.

With my DS we did CC and to be honest it never actually worked, crying just became the way he went to sleep and it is still heartbreaking to me. But I am definitely up for it if it will give her the independence to sleep happily on her own.

We used one of those ones that has a blanket attached. But I think even a muslin would work. Our DD never was interested either, so we just left it next to her in the cot. Now, as soon as we put her down to sleep, she grabs hold of it. I feel a bit mean I didn't introduce it before!! As it lives in the cot, she uses it for naps too. I bought another one from Primark that lives in the car seat, so she has something similar if she naps in the car, just for consistency.

Ok she's in bed crying. The bedtime routine was fairly short. Feed, burps, two stories, two songs in the dark then down. I can't have it be too long due to other DC. She seemed incredibly perplexed when I put her down and not at all like she understood it was bedtime.

Am I doing the same CC that I would do for middle of the night? As in leave her for five, ten etc?

Was it a new bedtime routine or one she is already used to? I believe you follow the same technique for bedtime, night wakings and naps. So yes, 5 mins then 10 mins etc. Some start at 2 mins and go up in increments of 2. Good luck, I could never do CC and my 12mo still wakes around 2 - 3 times despite self settling at bedtime.

No it's new. I had been feeding her to sleep which I think is the root of the problem so trying to kick it.

When I go in the crying really escalates...

It will do, she just wants you to comfort her or do something you aren't so is frustrated. If you are commited to this you have to stick to the plan otherwise it's not fair on her. I always thought CC was a last resort type of thing and not recommended under 12 months? Have you tried any other type of sleep training?

I have no solution as my 20month dd still doesn't sleep brilliantly. Something that struck me reading your post was the room being as quiet as possible, maybe dc would prefer more noise?

I got a cheap CD player from Argos and have a cd playing on low on a loop through the whole night, it's definitely helped her resettle herself when she's woken in the night.

Just another thing to add to the list of trying!!
Wishing a good nights sleep for everyone!!

No advice here either. Ds is the same age and wakes 1-2 times per night but he really feeds so I know he's thirsty or hungry. I have just started leaving him to cry if he wakes when I put him down and have just added a teddy to his cot for comfort.