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Separation anxiety at night?

0 replies

LunaNova · 24/12/2020 08:25

Hi all,

I posted a couple weeks ago about the transition of moving DD (now 9 months old) into her own room and we've had a mixed bag of experiences since then.

Ever since we've moved her into her own room we've had one wakeup that she is impossible to settle back to sleep. It's not the same every night (sometimes it's at the beginning of the night but more commonly it's any wakeup after 3am). Pre-moving to her own room she would wake once about 3/4ish and would feed before nodding straight back off, now I feed her and put her back in her cot (awake but drowsy) and she will roll around for a few minutes before settling, which is fine, but as soon as I go to leave the room she wakes and cries. I've tried sitting in there for a while but it makes no difference, the minute I go to leave the room she wakes.

Sometimes she will wake up between 11 and midnight for a feed as well and that wake-up is usually fine to settle her after. And she goes down pretty easily at the start of the night (feed, into cot drowsy, she generally rolls into her stomach and then she's out like a light) and she can self settle (I've seen her wake up, roll around to get comfy and then go back to sleep).

The first few nights in her room we were having long wake-ups but it was more that she wasn't falling back to sleep, now she falls back to sleep but as soon as I leave the room she wakes up and this can go on for hours. The past few nights I've been so tired that after about 2 hours of trying to get her back to sleep, I've brought her into our bed to cosleep for those last few hours, she's a fidget so I don't get the best sleep with her in bed with us but at least it's some sleep! She is always straight to sleep when in bed with us.

The only thing I can think is that it's separation anxiety at night (we thought we'd had the sleep regression about 6 weeks ago before we moved her into her own room because she went through a period of really unsettled sleep and waking every hour but maybe that was something else?).

If it is separation anxiety is there a best way to tackle it? I'm keen to keep her in her cot for at least some of the night so I can get some sleep where I haven't got limbs hitting me in the face Grin. Am I making it worse by bringing her into our bed?

My husband doesn't mind whatever I choose, historically I've done all the night wake-ups but he has usually taken charge of any wake-ups before we go to bed and also gets up with her in a morning so I can go back to sleep. He's typically a very deep sleeper so for him to do the night wake-ups I would have to wake him up anyway but he's open to trying to settle her if it will help (but he's back at work in a couple of weeks so he couldn't sustain doing it long term because I would get less sleep than I do now).

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