How do you settle a bright baby??

[OxyMoron]

I've scanned through the sleep threads (albeit quickly), and can't find the answer to this one. dd is 6.5 months, very bright, by which I mean interested in everything, very alert, easily overstimulated, etc. I have huge propblems getting her to wind down at night to go to sleep. She was always a rubbish sleeper, but I worked really hard on it and eventually she understood that the cot was the place for sleeping (naps and bedtime). Then after about 3 months of things being not too bad, she suddenly decides she doesn't like the cot and screams every time we put her in it. Again, been working really hard on bedtime routine, which is:
bath
massage (in dim light)
into sleepsuit
feed
into cot
story (turn off light at end)
lullaby cd
asleep (sometimes!!)

It's better than it was, but it's just that more often than not at some point in the routine she'll throw a wobbler and basically scream herself to sleep whilst I try to shush her and stroke her and resist taking her out of the cot.
It's as if she knows it's bedtime and that she'll be missing out on the fun IYSWIM.
Naps have been pretty patchy since this cot strike started. She'll only nod off during the day if she's feeding, being cuddled or out in the stroller. Best I can get out of her is 3 45 min naps, and that's unusual. It's usually more like 2.
Sorry I've gone on, but you know what it's like. The last thing you want at the end of a tiring day is a fight at bedtime. I find it really stressful because I hate hearing her scream and also because I know, frustration aside, that there's nothing wrong with her. You know when you have to start teling yourself 'she's not doing it to wind me up...'

Any ideas? please??

TIA

Oxymoron, so sorry this screaming is so bad. Try and keep in mind the fact that you know your baby is going to have to learn to go to sleep on her own some time, and at least doing it now will work more quickly than when she's older. I know it doesn't feel like it now, but trust me. We left DS (or rather, tried so many different approaches that he didn't know what the rules were), and it was a lot worse having a 2 yr old crying at the top of the stairs "Mummy, mummy, please can you come and see me" than listenening to his baby cries.

We've "fixed" DD (7 months) much more quickly, although if she'd been my first child I would have had trouble listening to her cries too. it was only the advantage of hindsight from DS that helped me stay strong this time.

Monekysmamma, my DD does this:

7am get up.
9am nap
9.30am get up
12.30pmnap
2-2.30 get up.
6.30-6.45pm bed

If she isn't already awake by 7am, I wake her up, so that her daytime sleeps can fit round our other activites. Once or twice i've let her sleep in till 9am and then she only has one nap a day and it's awful by bedtime.

Sometimes I tinker with the nap times as 3 days a week i take DS to nursery in the afternoon and am not back till 1pm so have to keep DD awake til then. To do this I push the first nap back half an hour.

Like yours, she used to only catnap (2 x 40 mins sleeps if I was lucky), and it was hard to get through the afternoon. We sort of settled inot the current nap pattern with me keeping all her naps at home in her cot (I found buggy and car sleeps neve lasted long enough), and leaving her to cry if she wakes from the munch nap after less than an hour. Sometimes she chuntered away for 20 mins or more, but it was just grumbling and she then went back off for another hour.

We adopted the same approach at night and now that she has this nap pattern, plus a full night's sleep, she does really seem a much happier baby, much less grumbly in the afternoons.

Damn, I've probably jinxed it now!

PS Oxymoron meant to say one thing I used to do when the crying was realy bad was go and call a friend, or my mum - someone who knew what was going on and would be supportive - and then just stay on the phone whie the screaming continued. That way, I couldn't go in to the baby's room, and also had someone sympathetic to reassure me I was doing the right thing.

Hie there I must admit that what you've just written is an exact copy of what we are going through with our 7 months old baby girl. And when I am saying exact copy, we could easily swap and not notice the difference. To be honest we have tried to implement majority of the tips from above but for some reason, nothing seems to be working for us. She will cry for 2 hours and still not fall asleep. And in the night, when it is bad, she will be up every 1.5 to 2h having had only 2x 40 min sleep in the day - rocking, feeding or pram. Unfortunately, therefore I am not the one to help, but certainly have a lots of understanding and sympathy.
For anyone who is reading this message, I too would be grateful for any advise or "good trick". How long should I leave the baby to cry? It just seems so hard when it lasts well over 2 hours with no result. We do follow a bed time rutine: Bath,pyjama,milk,very short book (6 pages, 5 sentences) and lullaby playing from pyjama time. We also tried that "ugly bear" but she just was not interested at all.

Hi Denisa. Without wishing this upon you, it's still nice to know there are fellow sufferers out there!

So the saga continues...

tonight we're following up on the suggestion of monkeysmamma and trying a much earlier bedtime. She started rubbing her eyes at about 4.20 this afternoon. Normally I'd try and get a nap out of her then go for something like a 7pm bed time. But instead I took her for a nice warm bath at 4.30. Had a little sing in the bath to try to calm her down (she seems to get very excited in the bath!) then took her through into her room, put her bedtime cd on to play, dimmed the lights and got her dressed for bed (she usually protests at this stage, but was fine tonight), turned the lights out, fed her in the dark then put her in the cot. Asleep as soon as her head hit the proverbial. So far so good. Now the acid test will be whether or not she wants to get up again in 45 mins. Wish me luck!

FWIW my dd aged 9 months does this about 3 nights of the week. Has a complete paddy before bedtime. I used to try stroking her back blah blah blah but it just seemed to get her more worked up and she looked at me madly as if to say 'why aren't you picking me up?'.

So now I just say good night and close the door. The paddy continues but I think it wears her out and she usually goes to sleep (from immense decibels to total silence) within about 10 minutes.

I guess its just the old fashioned lesson that screaming and yelling gets no reaction from the big people so it ain't worth doing.

Just read a few more messages, see you have a shed load of advice already.

Your last post - bed at 5pm!! Be interested to see what time she wakes up tomorrow morning - on a Saturday too. Ouch.

Well, she was up at 4 this morning, so I'm in a 'nothing to lose' kinda mood.

Hi Oxy, glad to hear she's gone to sleep without a fight - though think you'll have a very early start tomorrow!

You could look on the bright side (well, it's all relative!) and think of all the extra hours you're getting to get stuff done. Recently one day by 7am I had washed all my downstairs flooring, made a cake, made packed lunch and brekkie for DH, changed the sheets, washed and dried my hair and fed both children. Not sure I could maintain it on a long-term basis, though I now see why my mum is always cleaning her kitchen floor at 5am - after years of no sleep you must get used to it!

Sorry, rambling on a bit. Was going to ask about your dd's daytime naps. You mentioned she's not napping well either and only in pram or car. Have you tried leaving her to cry in her cot? You probably feel like you can't take any more crying in the cot, but it might be worth it, as by "practising" during the day (when you're less likely to be resenting every second of it as you're not also trying to sleep), you'll be reinforcing the "cot is for sleep" rule.

My DD (7 months) was a daytime catnapper until just a few weeks ago. It became obvious that these short naps weren't enough for her, and yet at the same time, she wouldn't go in her cot without a big struggle. I experimented with leaving her to cry, only putting her down when I knew she must be tired, and found that although the crying was really quite angry, it didn't last more than 15 mins and then she'd sleep much better than when out in the pram. It really seems to have made a difference to her nights, too, as now she is sleeping better at night and less cross when it's time for bed, as she's not so overtired.

OK, spoke too soon. 45 mins of sleep (a typical nap) and so far 25 mins of screaming. Back later...

40 mins...

there's got to be another way other than leaving her to cry - i can't bear that? surely?

even when she did sleep in the cot for her naps it was never for longer than 45 mins.

Oxy, have you had a chance to look through Richard Ferber's book? He offers some really good and useful solutions and you can use the bits you think you could stick with. One thing he suggests is gradual withdrawal from the room - ie you settle baby, then move slowly away from the cot until you're out of the room. So she can hear your soothing voice buit you're not picking her up or anything. His key thing is that within a few minutes, once you've checked she's OK, dry nappy etc, regardless of whether or not she has stopped srying, you must leave the room.

The idea is that your baby learns that when she needs you, you will come, but since she won't get any food/songs/whatever, it's not worth waking for.

I found with DS that the only thing that worked was actually leaving him to scream his head off. Once I'd checked he didn't have a dirty nappy, and had had a drink of water, I left him and yes, sometimes he screamed at full pelt for 40 mins and then on and off for 2 or 3 hours afterwards. It sounds brutal but by that time I was losing my mind. Also, a paediatrician I saw (for another reason) told me that I should be prepared for any sleep training to be a question of over a month, not "You'll see an improvement in less than a week" - which is what everyone else had said and why I always felt "It's not working".

It did work but it was more like 3 weeks to see an improvement, and 3 months before he slept well.

He was 18 months at the time. Doing a similar, though less lengthy thing with DD at 7 months has worked much more quickly.

i'm in a very similar situation with my little girl. She's also very bright and has been since day 1. She cat naps for 2/3 45 minute sessions during the day and will only sleep if she falls asleep in your arms, in the car or her pram. We're at the point now where we're going to have to leave her awake in her cot rather than getting her to sleep. I'm dreading it!

Oxy -

I hope things are going better for you! I am so sorry they have been tough lately...

It sounds like it was a VERY ealry bedtime that night - woke at 5am? We have had a few of those as well from early bedtimes. The advice I was given was to slowly stretch from there closer to the "normal" bed hour of 6:30 or so...it really has helped - although those first few nights of early bedtimes were horrible with ds waking up EARLY..all relative I guess to get him back.
I have found latly, that when his naps are bad during the day, even a catnap of 30-40min around 4pm or so,and then down for bed at 6:30 - he still goes down because he is so overtired. Have you tried this?? I am learning that sleep truly does = sleep!!! I was afraid that having a catnap later in the day would mess him up...but sure enuf, he went right down for bed, rubbing his eyes and all!! I hope you are seeing better days...anything helped thus far??

lulupop -

I noticed you wrote down that your DD was doing catnaps not too long ago...was implementing that schedule you posted for me what did the trick? did you just stick to it and begin to see results in having her begin to lengthen her afternoon nap?? ANY other tips you may have would be a charm since we are so very off and VERY tired! Each day gets a bit better - especially since we started putting him to bed earlier. tough at first, but now we are at a good consisent time of about 6:45pm, but I need some consistency in our days! What is your feeding schedule like as well around those nap times??

What about trying Tracey Hogg's pick up/put down method, apologies if you've tried it. Basically when you put her in her cot and she starts crying you pick her up and cuddle her until she stops. You put her back in again and pick her up when she cries again and soothe her, back in cot and so on. She says in her book that the number of times you have to go through this should lessen each night until they go down without complaining. I really hope things improve for you soon.

MM, yes, sticking to this routine was what changed DD's pattern. I don't mean I just decided "This is the new routine" and stuck unfailingly to it - if she became really hysterical crying at a nap time then I would go in and settle her with a cuddle or whatever, but in general I just worked out when she was tired, only put her down when she was tired, and was then prepared to leave her crying for 20 mins or so if necessary.

Every baby is different and I found with my DD, she'd be tired about 2.5 hours after waking up, so she has her nap then, and I get her up after a hlaf hour nap. Then she's tired again about 3-3.5 hours after that, and has her main lunchtime nap. These times can be tinkered with, but I try and stick to the guideline that if she wakes from her main nap to early (ie before 1.30pm), she gets too grumpy in the late afternoon, and if she wakes too late from it (ie after 3pm), she won't be sleepy at bedtime.

Sorry that's a bit waffly but just wanted to show how you don't have to stick rigidly to a GF type schedule.

Oxy how was last night?

Oxy how was last night?

Wow, lots of replies here. Thanks guys.

OK ... lulupop, I don't know of Richard Ferber's book. I'll look into it. A friend has lent me 'the no cry sleep solution' (can't remember author), but I never have time to read it! Know what you mean about losing your mind tho.

buba - sympahies

monkeysmama - i don't really know what to say. For a long time it all made sense. We'd get up in the morning and once she was all fed and dressed she'd be ready for a nap again, so back in the cot, no protests. Then she's get up and we'd do stuff and I knew that when she rubbed her eyes she was tired but not overtired. I'd put her in the cot (awake), and she'd go to sleep. Three naps like this during the day then bead at about 7pm no problem. Now I just don't know what's going on. I can no longer tell when shes tired/overtired/not tired at all, I can't put her down awake for a nap, I don't know when to expect her naps, I don't feel I can extend them because there's nothing I can do that helps her go to sleep, I don't know what time to put her to bed ..... [frustration emoticon].

Kittypickle, yes we tried the pick up/put down thing. I found it just wound her up.
Initially I'd pick her up and she'd calm down, then put her back and she'd start crying again, then pick her up and it seemed to be she understood what I was doing so everytime I put her back down she'd get more p*ed off and scream harder until even me picking her up wouldn't calm her down.

Last night was fairly typical. Early bed and no probs, but only slept for 45 mins. Then screaming for about an hour, regardless of whether I picked her up or left her to it, then asleep again for a grand total of 10 mins then it all starts up again and I just couldn't be bothered anymore. I just got her out of bed and brought her back down. And phoned my mum. Previously my golden rule had been that once she's gone to bed she stays upstairs with the lights off so she knows it's bedtime. But I was on my own and couldn't send dh up and just couldn't fight any more. He came home and put her to bed after some mild protest (from her, not him!). She always settles better with him. Fron me she tends to only settle with a feed, even though I know sh'e not hungry. Friends have suggested making her bedtime feed a formula feed as she might settle better. What do you think?

Hi oxy. Sorry it's all so frustrating - I remember feeling like that and at the time I'd decide "OK, I'm going to do X", but after yet more crying I'd just end up doing whatever shut DS up the fastest. Usually picking him up and putting him in bed with me.

You mention DD used to rub her eyes when tired - does she still do this? For me it's always been the best indicator of that starting-to-get-tired time, and I put my DD doen then. She does cry sometimes - for instance, just now I put her down and she's cried for half an hour (I went in once and picked her up, but she started rubbing eyes again so I put her down), but finally gone off to sleep.

Richard Ferber's book is here . It's very helpful - I used to read it while ds was crying!

I don't think simply switching the last feed to formula will change things, but making it formula given by dh might help. DD obviously associates mummy with breastfeeding and comfort, and perhaps someone else taking over this feed might work a bit better. If possible.

Try not to take it personally that your dd settles bettwe for dh than for you. I have always found this really annoying with my babies, but I think they just pick up on when you're a bit stressed out and respond to it. Currently my DD won't eat solids from me without a fight, but takes it all with relish from someone else!

Lastly, I found both my babies hit a new level of rage when I tried pick up put down. They just knew what was going on and it sent them into a right state when I kept going in and putting them down again. In the end I had to just leave both of them to cry, only intervening if there was real hysteria. Richard Ferber has some good advice on this too.

sorry to hear crying is still going on - this is just a thought and I don't want to stress you out more but is it possible that she is either teething or has an ear infection - just because it sounded like it was a more recent change to her sleep pattern - perhaps I read that wrong though? my ds has been diagnosed with an ear infection when the only sign was on off waking throughout the night and during the day - no temp/pulling at ears etc at all - just something to bear in mind

Hi lulupop.

Thanks for the link, and for all the advice. I'll def look into the book. Yes, dd still rubs her eyes when tired. But what's changed is that previously that was a sign I could put her down to sleep. Now it seems to mean 'I'm tired, but I'm going to try my hardest to stay awake.' If she realises I'm trying to get her to sleep, that's when she gets annoyed. It seems if sleep sneeks up on her when she's relaxed, it's OK. But if she realises she's nodding off, or if we try to put her to bed all hell breaks loose.

morocco, thanks for the suggestion. She is teething at the moment and I think it is exacerbating things, but I don't think it's just that. All these problems started before the latest round of teething. Yesterday we gave her calpol for her teeth and had a not too bad night. Today she's had some again but so far dh has been trying to settle her for more than an hour.