Regression or demonic possession?

[Somethingorotherorother]

8m DD hasn't ever really slept through, but she used to be pretty good, would wake a couple of times, feed, go back to sleep... For various reasons (she was born on the 25th centile line and is now wayyy off the bottom of the chart) I'm very happy to keep feeding her overnight, its about every 4 hours like clockwork, just the same as in the day.

She has two naps, goes down at 7pm ish and i usually try not to feed her til after midnight. She sometimes makes it til 2am! Clever girl. Usually if she wakes up she can settle herself down, or just needs a quick shhhh pat. Apart from the night feeds, i was feeling p good about it.

Not anymore! She's become really hard to settle in the night, awake for ages crying and rolling around, needing to be held, waking up after 5 minutes... it's not good.

Anyone have any tips? Light at the end of the tunnel?

8 months is the time when sleep associations kick in. If her sleep association is feeding/sucking to sleep then this will mean during her lighter sleep periods in the night that she will struggle to settle.

I appreciate you feel she needs the calories, she will also need to learn to sleep independently (unless you are happy to comfort feed through the toddler years - which many people are).

Could you up the frequency of daytime feeds and solids as a way to up her calories over 24h? Then fewer calories will be needed at night.

@BabySleepTeacherUK she goes to sleep awake by herself for all naps and at bedtime, and most of the time in the night she goes down after a feed awake. We stopped feeding to sleep as soon as she came out the other side of the 4m sleep regression.

The issue with night feeding is that because she's so small (12lb with a nappy on) her stomach is tiny, so she genuinely needs to feed throughout the night, as she's hungry. It's not feeding at night that's the problem, it's the fact that now when she wakes up instead of having a grumble and going back to sleep, she's getting up on her hands and knees, or sitting up, and going berserk.

she's getting up on her hands and knees, or sitting up, and going berserk

This is usual for the developmental stage. It gets even more difficult once baby can pull to standing (sorry!).

To get through it, treat it like an unwanted behaviour issue, rather than a sleep issue.

So reassert your expectation that sleep time means lying down. Try, if possible, to get her to lie down herself rather than lying her down. But if that's not possible then lift and re-lie down. It's just a case of repetitive consistancy until she accepts that the only thing you'll accept is her lying down and staying lying down.

A firm hand on her chest helps to reaffirm stillness and also gives reassurance.

She's happy to lie back down, but once down she just cries and cries and cries, she desperately wants to be asleep but can't manage it. I was watching on the monitor last night, she woke, sat up, played with her hands for a bit, lay back down, and then after about five minutes evidently got very upset that she wasn't asleep and went straight from zero to hysterics in 30 seconds.

I love your thread title and applaud you managing it in the face of sleep deprivation! Big sleep regression at 8-10 months; it was hell for us. Good news is she went down to one waking at 11 months, totally spontaneously; still fed to sleep. Regressed during canines? then back to one waking once they were through. She's waking up again now a lot but she's poorly and teething back molars.

I survived 8-10 months by cosleeping and feeding back to sleep constantly. Like I said it made no difference to her naturally sleeping better; and even now she's possessed again, she isn't feed-to-sleep obsessed.

@burritofan ha thanks, sleep dep has definitely done something weird to my sense of humour! Nights like last night kinda make me regret breaking the feeding to sleep habit, it was foolproof!

@babysleepteacherUK do you think it's likely she's forgotten how to self settle? I didn't really do anything to teach her, she just sorta got it by herself, so i don't know how I'd go about 'retraining' her!

She fed at 4.30, went back to sleep (by herself) for 15 minutes and then cried hysterically for an hour, despite being held. We're now on the sofa watching old Bakeoff episodes. Send help.

Was 4.30am her only wake up, or her second wake?

How was her other wake, if she did wake? Pressure to sleep is always lowest in the early mornings, these are the times when lots of extra help is usually needed to settle baby. Did you feed at the 4.30am wake?

@BabySleepTeacherUK she went down at 7pm, woke at 11.50pm, i fed her, she was asleep by 12.15am, woke at 4.30am, fed her, put her down, she slept for about 15minutes and then woke up absolutely miserable. Shhh patting didn't help, i ended up cuddling her in the chair, at which point she dozed for a moment and then decided it was time to start the day.

Would it be possible to cuddle in your bed after the 4.30am feed, instead of the chair? Just thinking that might help both if you doze for a bit longer.

@BabySleepTeacherUK i think that's what I'll do tonight - i usually feed her in the chair in her room, give her a little cuddle and then pop her into her cot and sneak out, but i might need to start feeding her in our bed and dozing, as you said. I just don't want to start creeping back towards cosleeping, we did that to survive the 4m regression and it was very stressful and uncomfy for all of us!

Loads of families bring baby into bed in the early morning, just to get a bit more sleep. It certainly doesn't mean Cosleeping full time.

As mentioned, the pressure to sleep is really low in the early morning. So it's much more difficult for baby to get back to sleep at that time, compared to other times. So extra help is needed.

While you could give the extra help in an independent way with sleep training techniques (consistantly putting baby down, settling in cot with shushing, picking up to calm and keep repeating until baby "gets it"). That's a lot of effort if at all other times baby is easier to settle. You've got to question if it's worth it?

These night wakes, inc the early morning wake, are things that will be grown out of, eventually. So instead of tackling it as an issue, you could just maximise sleep while it's happening (by having a early morning doze in your bed) and just wait it out.

I think you're probably right. She'll hopefully get the hang of it again soon - just have to convince my husband now! It's a pretty small bed, i may have to evict him.

She woke at 3am. She's been up ever since. We tried taking her into our bed, she screamed the house down.

I just fed her, she fell asleep on my boob for the first time in months and now is passed out on my chest, but still sobbing in her sleep. I feel like maybe something is wrong.

💐
I know you said for many reasons she dropped off the weight chart, does she have cmpa and / or reflux (silent or normal?) sounds like it could be silent reflux bothering her when she lies down and so she can't settle.

She did have silent reflux at about 3m, but we treated it really successfully. Im confident it isnt CMPA or reflux as she shows absolutely no signs of either, she's just been waking in the early hours unable to get back to sleep for the past week or so.

@BabySleepTeacherUK @burritofan @inthethickofit19 Mystery solved! Demon baby just sank a brand new razor sharp tooth into my nipple. No grizzling, dribbling, gnawing, no temp or redness, no ear pulling, no nothing... The demon is sneaky.

Congratulations on the tooth and commiserations on the bite!

If in doubt, it's always teeth. I'm convinced DD has about 300 now, popping up like Whack-a-mole.

Woohoo! Hopefully she will settle back down now!

How has her sleep been since the tooth appeared op?
We are going through similar with ds. Was down to one feed between 5-7 and back down till 8 ish. Only needing to pop the dummy back in during other wakings. Now he's up practicing crawling, sitting, pulling up and only a feed at about 12 will settle him back to sleep and another at around 5. I am sooo tired.
@burritofan 😂😂