Baby self settles with grandparents but not us!

[Bk8819]

My daughter is 8 months old and just recently my mum came to stay at our house for a week to give us a break as the sleep deprivation had really built up...she hadn’t slept well from the start and since 4 months didn’t sleep longer than 2 hours all night.

So my mum has her 4 nights in the week and although she took longer to settle initially and there was some crying while being held ....she woke up ONCE for a bottle every night?! My mum did the same thing we do to get her to sleep, rocked and held then transferred to cot, white noise etc. We did wonder if my mum just hadn’t heard her waking but we were in the same house and would have definitely heard her ourselves.

My mum had her again for 1 night this weekend in her own house and she slept great! Although I’m delighted that she sleeps well as it means my mum won’t mind giving us a night off...I do feel very confused as soon as we have her back again she wakes every 2 hours. But she obviously knows how to self settle...so why doesn’t she?

My mum wondered if it’s the fact we’re stressed out about bedtime and she’s picking up on anxiety ..and it’s true we both usually are a bit wound up around bedtime as dreading the night ahead but didn’t think this would make her wake all night. I breastfeed but don’t feed to sleep and I only feed her once or twice a night not every wake up.

My mum wondered if it’s the fact we’re stressed out about bedtime and she’s picking up on anxiety

I agree with your mother. Babies are emotional sponges. They pick up on everything.

Because your daughter knows she can get away with it with you

You breastfeed and your mum gives a bottle.

Your baby reacts differently in different situations l, with different cues. No matter how much it seems your mum is doing ‘all the same things’ she will just be different, and that creates a different response.

Try not to stress about it. At least it shows you that your baby can settle, so take heart and have some hope that soon she’ll go through longer.

If I were you I’d perhaps try to do a bottle as the middle of the night feed from your DP not you - you need to be effectively unavailable for breastfeeding in the wee small hours so for a little while your DP has to suffer the middle of the night stuff if you want it to work - you both have to be fully committed and on board for that to work.

But only do it if you’re really bothered - otherwise it’s fine to keep breastfeeding and she’ll grow out of waking in due course.

I only feed her once or twice a night not every wake up

Btw - this won’t make her wake up less. From a baby’s point of view, this wake-up might be the time they get fed, so they’ll keep waking just in case, if you see what I mean. If you want to crack night-waking you need to be boringly predictable and make it totally a functional feed i.e. a bottle for food not comfort.