Nearly 11 month old sleep help!

[Littleguggi]

Evening all. I'm hoping someone can offer me some suggestions even a magic solution to help with my nearly 11 month olds sleep. She is breast fed.

She's never been a great sleeper waking up frequently throughout the night (on a bad night she can be up every hour, on a good night she can do a 4 hour stretch of sleep). Tonight I know we're in for a bad night as she's been up twice already in an hour.

I always try to leave 5 minutes before attending to her. She usually stops crying the minute she is picked up (will sometimes trash around for a bit as though she's trying to find a comfortable spot). Today my health visitor advised instead of picking her up to pat her and offer reassurance to help her go back to sleep. I can't even imagine how that would work (either she'll think its a game and decide to wake up or she'll cry hysterically which will result in her being picked up anyway).

Usually she settles fairly quick. Sometimes I offer her a quick feed or rock her gently back to sleep. My husband and I take turns at settling her. For the past week I've been feeding her once or twice a night..before it was more like three or four times (I know some of these were comfort feeds).

I struggle to get to the bottom of what's waking her and how every night is so different in terms of how many times she wakes up. The number can vary greatly from twice a night to excess of 10 times a night!

Any advice welcome. Thank you!

I agree with your health visitor, baby needs to learn to go to sleep in the cot and that all settling will be done in the cot.

It is probably the very reason and cause for her waking so frequently. Humans have small periods of semi-consciousness all night long. They don't ususlly wake up properly in these periods, in an adult it might involve changing positions, pulling the duvet over yourself, unconsciously glancing at the clock and back to sleep.

These are often calked 'environment checks' - like that the caveman needed to ensure he was safe and protected from predictors whilst also sleeping.

Imagine you went to sleep in your bed and then an hour later when to roll over and stick your leg out from the duvet and you suddenly realise you are in the back seat of a car. You would not just roll over and go back to sleep. You would be wide awake and wondering wtf happened within seconds. This is what is happenibg with your DD when she goes to sleep in your arms, secure at your chest, hearing your heartbeat and smelling your smell. Then rolls around an hour or so later and finds herself in her cot and on her own.

If she's going to go to sleep physically close to you, in your arms like that. Then in order to sleep well, she needs similar conditions maintaining through her environment checks. This will involve bed sharing and co sleeping.

If you are expecting her to sleep in her cot, this is where she needs to go to sleep. From fully awake to fully asleeasleep all done in the cot. Same at bedtime and all night wakes.

Try the 'firm hand' technique. Firm hand on baby's chest or back. I'd add in a dummy to suck to reduce crying but that's up to you. Don't push down with your hand but the idea is baby can feel your hand there even with eyes closed and relaxing.

Other hand might be holding kicking legs still, or stroking hair or patting or whatever you feel works best. Aim for still, quiet and calm where p osdible though. And stay there right through until fully asleep.

Don't be tempted to pull away once calming down, keep that firm hand on chest/back and stay right there until fully asleep. Then leave ninja style once asleep.

Repeat every wake up. Every bedtime and naptime. Utter consistancy.

It won't be easy and it won't be a magic answer to give you an independant sleeper from Day 1. But it is the first step towards this.

I received similar advice for my BF 11 month old. But I to laughed at how claims of "shushing and patting" while baby remained in the cot would smooth back to sleep.
I had no plan on what to do, but I'll let you know what naturally happened and where we are now (13months)
1 stop breastfeeding through the night. Do whatever you can to break the cycle, offer water, rock to sleep, send someone else in to them. I did this cold turkey one day and DD was rocked back to sleep after some water each time.

1. Pick baby up when you go into their room, but stay very still (I sat on the floor/char) and repeat the same soothing words/sounds. Shush, bed time, Muma is here etc. Keep these words the same.

3, next phase was to leave baby in cot, and then tell her to lie down, it's bedtime now, go to sleep (you'll be surprised at how much they understand) it was only after this stage that the shush pat/ reassuring words were enough for her to go back off to sleep

mude there is no suggestion that shushing and patting going to magically sooth baby, easily and calmly from the moment it's first used.

FATE, thank you but I actually did receive the suggestion that it would magically sooth baby from people in my life. I'm just posting on my experience.

Thank you FATE, your post made so much more sense the way you explained it to how my health visitor explained it.

I tried the firm hand technique for both naps today but I found it very challenging and ended up leaving the room with my little one crying..my husband returned after 5 minutes picked her up and she settled immediately. The reason I found it challenging was because my daughter was extremely fidgety and thought I was playing a game with her despite me avoiding eye contact with her. I tried to hold her legs down but she then started waving her arms around and I didn't have enough hands to hold her down plus pat her. I guess I will have to stick with it and see.

Thanks Mude. I think I'm at the stage where I can stop breastfeeding at night as whenever I do, she only seems to want a little suckle before falling back asleep. I was offering water around a month or two ago but stopped (not sure why tbh..think maybe I was worried my milk supply would go down). Well done on getting to where you are two months on..I too will need to think of a plan that suits my daughter and I and stick to it.

I did exactly as you suggested FATE and for the first time ever my daughter fell asleep on her own in her cot rather than on me! I can't thank you enough! It might just be a one off but at least it has shown her (and indeed me) that she can fall asleep on her own and we are hopeful she will do it again. Thank you so much!!!!!!

Fantastic news!