at end of tether with ds2, please help

[bealcain]

ds2 is 10mo, he's never slept through the night, but last night really was the pits, he woke up every 45mins from 7pm until 6am. i am shattered and dont know what to do. he's breastfed both day and night, only once maybe twice at night though. should i consider changing to cows milk? what can i do?

Cows milk makes no difference.

Sounds like he is teething or ill. Did you try him with calpol?

he was ill at weekend, he had calpol and ibuprofen. he's not teething, not that i can feel anyway and it's not a new thing.

is he cold?

well we thought that so we bought him a convector heater for his room, but it made no difference at all. i then checked if it was too hot but that made no difference either.

Is he waking up properly? full on eyes open standing/sitting up? would you leave him to complain until he actually does? UI think a lot of frequent waking is to do with us responding too quickly to noises they make while half asleep.

i try not to go in till he's properly crying, sometimes he'll murmur and then go back off, but most of time it's full on wking up, but makes no difference if he's in with me or in his cot.

waking around 45 mins into a sleep is a classic sign of over-tiredness

try putting him to bed earlier and see if that makes a difference

does he nap at all in the day?

yea 2-3 times for 1 and half maybe 2hours. he's usually fine going off and will sleep through till about 11 and then it all goes down hill.

i know last night was a one off, but it still doesn't stop me wanting to get to the bottom of it, it;s a bloody nightmare.

sleeplessness is awful ...

illness can really affect babies and for longer than adults

if he wakes at roughly the same time each night , say at 11.00 pm you can do wake to sleep to crack it

which is what ruby?

sorry - had to go to work

wake to sleep is basically waking the baby 1 hour before their usual wake up

say he wakes at midnight, you wake him at 11.00 pm

untuck him, stroke his face and rouse him just enough so he is nearly fully awake and then leave him to re-settle and go back to sleep

you do this for 3 nights on the run

on the fourth night you see what happens - if they wake at the midnight (ie the "old" time) then you do wake to sleep for 6 more nights

if on the fourth night they sleep through their old wake up time you have most likely sorted the problem

wake to sleep basically disrupts their old sleep cycle and pattern

i did it with my DS when he was around 13 months old and waking at 5.00 am so i had to get up at 4.00 am to do it

it did work though

sounds like a good idea, will observe the times tonight and then try. thanks