More early waking questions - long message

[Lisa2912]

My DD is coming up to a year - from 4 to 7 months she slept through the night, but after that it became very erratic (we get one or two nights each week where she sleeps through, a couple where she will cry out briefly for a couple of minutes and resettle herself, and a couple where she absolutely yells one or more times and we go in to resettle her - the worst time was about three months ago when she yelled every 45 mins from about midnight onwards). She is still having two daytime naps each of between 40 mins and an hour and 20 mins. The night wakings have been fairly tiring and driving me slightly mad (there seems to be no reason eg teething or ear infection) but the worst development is that she has now started waking v early (this morning was 4.50 although we managed to get her back to sleep after 30 mins, for another hour). Usually if she wakes up around 5.30 that's it, she's up for the day.

Does anybody have any helpful suggestions? DH is very good and regularly goes to her at night (he has more patience, and I just want more sleep) but he feels that Gina Ford is the devil so I can't do controlled crying. we have tried Baby Whisperer which works for the daytime naps but doesn't seem to help at night. At the moment I am not well either (only a bad cough/cold but it means that I spend about an hour or so coughing after going to bed) so I end up with 4-5 hours sleep - and it's not enough!

I have tried to keep her up a bit later at night, but it doesn't seem to have much effect, and she tends to be very tired by around 7.30 (she usually goes to bed around 7 - 7.30).

We have blackout linings on her curtains, but they do still let some light in around the edges. Having said that, she did 6 days recently when she didn't wake until after 7 am, so the light was clearly not disturbing her then.

Help!! (and many thanks in advance for any suggestions....)

I haven't got any major suggestions but I did want to express my sympathy. I think sleep deprivation is the worst thing about parenthood. My baby is the same age and he goes through pahses of early waking and we try and think what to do about it; never decide anything then goes back to about 6.30/7ish. Then we forget about it till the next time!

Is she hungry when she wakes? Mine nearly always is and so I upped his food during the day and that seemed to do the trick one time. I'm lucky in because whatever time he wakes he usually wants to go back to sleep again between one and a half and two hours later and sleeps for 90 minutes to to two and a half hours. So if I can I go back to bed too.

My sympathies too, I know what it's like.
Mine did it and all I can say is it was just a 'phase', not any help to you but it will pass.

Lisa - It sounds silly but she might not be getting enough sleep. What times does she have her naps? TBH I think maybe you should be trying to encourage her to have a long nap in the middle of the day rather than two v short ones. It sounds as if she's waking when she comes into a light sleep (half an hour in) and not learning how to settle herself back. My dd is 19 months and has been doing 1hr and a half to 2 hrs in the middle of the day. When she doesn't get this (eg when we're out and about - she is bad a sleeping in pushchair)she tends to wake up in the night and shout for us. I think it's because she's more tired she gets upset quickly rather than turning over and going back to sleep.

Re cc - we have never really done it but I think it's psychologically easier to sleep train in the day when you're less tired and it's not eating into your evening/ night's sleep.

Thanks for the sympathy, and also for the suggestions Jimmychoos.... You could be right about the naps - she usually stays down for over an hour, but every two or three days she will have one sleep of under an hour. On really bad days (every two or three weeks) she only has two 40 min sleeps, and is really grumpy for the rest of the day! Usually, she has about 2.5 hours in total during the day, in two naps. Nights tend to be about 9.5 or 10 hours when she wakes early, but were more like 11.5 hours until the last six weeks. I have tried cutting out/down her morning sleep in case she is getting too much during the day, but she gets v tired once she has been up for 2 or 2.5 hours and I give in and let her nap! Maybe we just have to live with it until she is able to give up her morning nap....but I do hope not

I guess the other thing might be the timing of her naps - she tends to wake up from her afternoon nap between 2.15 and 3.15 and sometimes finds it a struggle to get to 7.30 which is when she usually goes to sleep (although recently she has started protesting vociferously about going to bed, even when tired!)

thanks again, Lisa