10mo very unsettled at night

[asar53]

My little one's nighttime sleep is very restless. We'd hit the 8-10 month sleep regression and she'd been napping badly and waking frequently for feeds at night. We've managed to get back on top of some of it - she isn't fed to sleep at bedtime and after routine settles herself to sleep. Sometimes, like last night, this can take a long time - over an hour. She didn't make a sound, but can see her tossing and turning with eyes open every 10-15 minutes before she looks to be asleep again, only to have same happen.

This is also happening overnight. She wakes 2-4 times. If I go in, she'll get very distressed and claw at me til I feed her. So I've been waiting a few minutes, and if she stops crying, I leave her to see if she'll go back to sleep. But lately it can also take a long time - last night she woke at 1.45 but didn't get back to sleep until 2.45. She looks like she is for a bit, but will toss and turn after a bit. She shouts out occasionally but doesn't cry. But then she woke up again at 4.45 and did cry after 15 mins of trying to get back to sleep so I went in to check - cue screaming until I fed her. However, she's not feeding back to sleep easily so after a bit I put her back down. She cried but stopped when I rubbed her tummy and sang to her and recited her bedtime story etc until she was settled, then left her. I came out and it was 3.45 and it probably took til after 4 for her to get back to sleep.

I check her body when I go in and she's warm but not hot. I've tried both extra covers and running a fan when she's felt cooler/warmer. She has had some trapped wind and is a bit constipated at the moment, but usually when it's tummy pain she'll cry and is settled with a feed and tummy rub, and I've been giving her prunes/pears and rubs to help move things along in the day. She's also teething and this set have been bothering her more than the other, but she's not mouthing/chewing and anbesol and calpol don't seem to help.

We're both losing hours of sleep a night, because I can't relax and go back to sleep until I'm sure she's deeply asleep. It's making our daytime routine tricky as she's often tired not long after getting up, and is easily tired through the day.

Sorry for the long post and thanks if you've made it this far! We've had to deal with night wakings etc in the past, but she'd always gone back to sleep quite easily with a feed. Now that's not working, and I've no idea how to help her self settle more quickly. Any thoughts?

Having a 10 month old who lies in the cot, alone and awake in the middle of the night without crying is unusual, especially so for extended periods of time.

Given you have a child who will do this, the problem is probably the ownership of a video monitor.

I just have a normal sound-only monitor. I set it on sensitivity 2 (of 5) overnight. It means I don't hear continuous sound, I don't hear breathing, I don't hear shuffles in her cot or changing positions. But I will hear her calling for me and would certainly year a cry.

So basically all the stuff you are worryibg about that you are see on the monitor, I wouldn't have a clue if my child did any of that. Unless she needed me and cried, I would have nothing to stress about. If she needed me and cried, I don't but this "leave for a few minutes first", I figure if she needs me then she needs me, so id go and see what up.

(All that said, I still had the cot on my room until 12 months, I didn't fancy plodding back and forth to another room in the night)

As for when she does wake, unless you have night weaned, I would just feed straight away. That's likely to be the quickest way to get her back into a deep sleep, so will get you more sleep.

How long ago did you stop feeding to sleep? Was this baby-led or parent-led?

What comfort does she have instead?

It IS odd, isn't it?

We stopped feeding to sleep a few months back. She started taking 2+ hours to feed to sleep and get really frustrated. It was suggested to me by a gentle sleep consultant to try other techniques and we found that moving her to her cot for a tummy rub and light show helped get her off to sleep much faster and without crying. Then after a while she seemed to grizzle at the stimulation, so tried just putting her down and leaving the room and she started just drppping off to sleep on her own within 10 minutes without crying. (I'd still feed to sleep on the days she wasn't up for it, but they were rare). And around the same time she went from waking every two hours for a feed to once or twice at most, and sleeping soundly the rest of the time. So it was parent led but in response to baby if that makes sense - I would've quite happily kept feeding to sleep if it had been working! But then this past month it's all changed.

Our monitor is definitely too sensitive (even on lowest setting hear every little sound) - but we've had the same one and this waking pattern is a new observation.

I've tried a couple of times to get to her as soon as she wakes, but find that feeding just doesn't seem to cut it. She just lies awake on the breast but not falling back into the deep sleep, as she does in her cot. The other night it seemed to wake her up more and we ended up awake from 2-4an together.

People have said could be a regression or developmental but I'm just at a loss. I hate that she's not getting a good, restful sleep and nothing I try seems to help!

Oh, and as for comfort - she has white noise and a Lulla doll, which breathes and has heartbeat noises. We tuck her up with the doll but she's so active now that I think she ends up tossing and turning herself into odd positions away from it.