9 mo waking every 1.5 hours through the night - help!!

[wibbleweed]

Z has never been a good sleeper, in fact I think I can count the number of nights he's slept through on one hand, but now it seems to have got worse and worse. Basically he goes down (usually) nicely and sleeps for about 2.5 hours in the first instance, wakes briefly (and is relatively easy to settle) and then wakes every 1.5 hours regular as clockwork, each time becoming harder and harder to settle. By 4am he's wide awake and virtually impossible to settle. The only thing that seems to work is for me to take him into the spare bed and sleep with him, holding him nice and snug.

I know he's teething at the moment (but this current bout has been going on for several weeks and no signs of teeth yet, plus he's fine during the day). I wonder if he could be cold? His room gets cold at night - he's in the number of layers plus grobag appropriate to the temperature on the thermometer, but wonder if he needs warming up?? Oh yes, and he's a rubbish napper during the day too (2 x 45 minutes tops...)

Sorry this is long, but any suggestions would be welcome. It's so easy just to go in and take him into bed at the first or second waking, rather than that constant niggling and build up over several hours to being fully awake??

no sdvice other than my sympathies! ds has never been a good sleeper (now 2.5) i am a single mum so he ended up with me in bed because i was to knackered to argue.... it really is exhausting isn't it! hope someone comes up with a solution that works for you!

Much sympathy wibbleweed, my now 10 month old ds was waking every hour or so until a couple of weeks ago and it is just awful. What do you do to settle him to sleep and then again when he wakes? I was bf my ds to sleep and then feeding or rocking him to sleep every time he woke. We used a technique called "controlled comforting", which is basically like controlled crying except that you spend up to ten minutes soothing your baby each time you go in (ie patting, stroking etc, but not picking up). It took two nights and now he goes to sleep on his own in his cot and sleeps beween 8 - 10 hours straight each night. I know this sort of technique isn't for everyone but would be happy to give you further details if you're interested.

By the way, I do think that sometimes the recommended temperature for babies is a bit cool and mine seems to sleep more soundly when it's a few degrees warmer than what is recommended by the makers of grobag.

Hope this helps.

Thanks - I generally just hold his hand, let him know I'm here and play his lullaby snail (usually at least 30 times!!). Then I have to make sure he's really fast asleep before I leave otherwise he rumbles me as soon as I make for the door!

Would be interested to hear more about 'controlled comforting' - do please tell me more mamarug...

Hi Wibble, my DD has never been a great sleeper (slept through once and even then only to 5.30) but did have a bit of a regression at this age. Anecdotally others seem to have suffered too at about this age. Ours has very much improved since about 12 month mark. We cosleep as soon as she wakes so as not to have to get up half a dozen times.

Hi Wibble. Sorry for the delayed response, am currently on Australian time. We followed the technique set out in the book "Sleep Right, Sleep Tight" by Rosey Cummings, Karen Houghton and Le Ann Williams (available on Amazon). The authors run one of the government-funded sleep clinics in Melbourne and the technique they describe is what they use on a daily basis in the clinic, so I reckon it must be pretty tried and tested.

Anyway, the basic premise is that you put your little one into his cot after a relaxing bedtime routine (we do bath, milk and story), say goodnight and leave the room. Once he starts crying, wait for 30 seconds and then go back in and start using whatever settling technique works for you (we roll ds over onto his side and pat his bottom, but you could stroke his hair, hold his hand, whatever), but don't pick him up out of the cot. We try to keep talking to a minimum and say the thing each time ("it's ok, it's time for sleep"). You keep using your settling technique until your little one is quiet or for up to ten minutes. Once he's quiet (but not asleep - this is really important) you leave the room. If he's not quiet after 10 minutes of settling you leave the room. Usually they will start crying when you leave the room and then you stay out for 2 minutes, then go back in for up to ten minutes. Then it's 4 minutes out of the room, 10 in, 6 minutes out, 10 in etc up to a maximum of 10 minutes out of the room. Once you've reached 10 minutes out of the room you continue with 10 minute intervals. We found that our ds didn't get too distressed (although he did cry allot, it wasn't that frenzied, hysterical crying I had feared) and settled much quicker than we expected. The first two nights there were a couple of hours crying (in total, not in one stretch) and we were up half the night, but after that there was hardly any. After a week he was consistently sleeping for between 8 - 10 hours straight from when he is put down to sleep. Sometimes he wakes at around 3.30 and I feed him and he goes back to sleep until around 5am. I would love for him to sleep for a bit longer in the morning, but hey, you can't have everything! It's just such a relief to know that when we put him down for the night we have the evening to ourselves rather than spending hours on end rocking an overtired and cranky ds!

Sorry this is such a long post - I hope it's helpful. This technique really worked wonders for us. I'd given up hope that anything could work as my ds had't slept more than 3 hours in a row since he was born, but it was just a matter of deciding what to do and being absolutely consistent. Good luck and let me know if you need any more info.

many thanks for this mamarug - sounds like a more 'civilised' (less heart wrenching) version of cc which may be just the ticket! I'm just not sure I'm mentally (and physically in my sleep deprived/coming down with a cold) state to manage consistency and sticking with it, without giving in to the temptation of getting into the warm snug spare bed with him, but perhaps this weekend when there's then the option of a wee lie in!!

My dd is like this. She is 16 months old, We have just done Baby Whisperer pu/pd (or in her case put down as she always stands up.)

It has worked in that you can leave the room when she settles at night, and has caused less night time crying. But it hasn't changed dd's sleep patterns at all. She is still up most of the night, just better behaved about it