Running on empty

[Ky31]

My daughter is 15 months old and has always been a "bad sleeper" - waking up every 2 hours for a feed. Since she hit 9 months old she started waking up hourly.

She's breastfed and will only go back to sleep if on my breast. I've tried a bottle with water, juice and milk but she won't have it. She will scream and work herself into a frenzy until it's my breast that she receives.

Occasionally she sleeps 3-4 hours before waking up and sometimes it's a quick sip and back to sleep. I can handle that.

Just lately it's been much worse. For example, I put her to bed at 6:30pm and she sleeps anywhere from an hour to 3 hours. At that first wake up she typically wakes up every 15 mins to be resettled and this can usually go on for 2 hours before she will finaly sleep for an hour or two.

Averagely, I am only clocking 4-5 hours of very broken sleep, dispite me "being in bed" for 9 hours each night.

To top it off, she very often refuses to sleep any later than 4am. I can usually get her to sleep until 5 if I hold her for the last hour. She then has 2 or 3 short (30-45min) naps during the day but will only nap if out in the car.

I don't know what I'm expecting to get in terms of responses, but I just need to tell someone and hope I'm not the only one in this boat. Any ideas to "fix" this?

Two questions
Does she have enough room to move about?
Is she a snuggly baby? Like to be held by you?

She sleeps in a cotbed, so she has room to move around. She can be snuggly, she doesn't cling to me during the day but will come over for a cuddle now and again between playing.

I've tried having her in bed with me but she won't sleep that way

You need to stop giving her breast milk in the night now because if you continue to give it to her every time she wakes up the cycle will continue. Just comfort her and give her a dummy if she has one but don't feed her. I know that sounds hard but she is old enough to sleep through without a feed in the night.

It sounds like what is happening is she can't link her sleep cycles - what are 45 mins long at that age. So every time she wakes up, she needs your help to get back to sleep by feeding her. You must be exhausted!

I'd concentrate on the day naps and hope that the night follows. So the aim is to get her to have decent naps in the day without being in the car. Feed her and then put her in her cot awake but sleepy and try patting her to sleep. When she wakes after 45 mins, which she will, try to settle her back down and go for another cycle. The theory is that over a period of time she'll know that she does x amount of sleep cycles in that nap and she'll also have learnt how to link them and have unbroken sleep.

I found the Little Ones sleep site really helpful. I'm a big believer that you need to teach babies to sleep and sleep problems rarely fix themselves I'm afraid.

Good luck.

Ps I'm currently awake with an 8 week old who is a dreadful sleeper! The theory is one thing, reality another.... 😂

JolieOBrien - I've tried giving her a dummy when she wakes and she literally throws it across the room 😣

Vixb1 - yes I think the sleep cycles are playing havoc with her rest. I will have a go at tackling the daytime naps the way you suggested and hopefully we get somewhere! 🤞

Thank you both for replying.