6mth old wakes every hour after 11pm

[SamsDad]

Hi all,

New to the site so please go easy on me (I presume Dads are welcome here?)

Not sure if it's relevant but Sam was 10½ weeks prem, he's 8mths 9days but around 6mnths corrected.

My son used to sleep through the night from 8pm to 7.30am from three months old.. excellent, we thought! But for the last couple of weeks he has started both waking/crying and also wriggling in his sleep until he's at the top of his cot and wedged, he wakes usually once an hour! The waking/crying I'm presuming we are going to have to train him to get out of, but we're stuck on how to stop him wriggling up. I don't think he cries because he gets cold, more the fact that his head actually touches the bumper at the top.

We tried raising the matress at the top slightly so he's on a very slight incline.. thought it might stop him wriggling up which it did. Now he just turns 90° and wedges head in the side bars (cot bumper doesn't stretch down that far)!

Any advice on the wriggling, and any on the recent waking?

Thanks,
Marc
PS - what's the dd/dh code used here?

Sorry, title should really have read 8mth old.. these "corrected dates" etc still confuse me

Hi Samsdad

We're still having very similar problems with DS (21 months) so I'm probably not really the one to reply to you. Althugh having said that he has slept through the last 3 nights. But before that we could be up half a dozen times with him which sounds similar to you.

I've been advised to try a baby sleeping bag which might help to restrict movement a little and would certainly prevent loss of covers. I'm looking into buying one but they are quite expensive. There was a recent thread about sleeping bags which you may be able to find.

Welcome Samsdad. DD is dear daughter, DS is dear son, DH is dear husband and DP is dear partner.

Re the wriggling I think a sleeping bag definitely helps to keep them cosy and stop them getting cold but not sure it helps stop movement. My dd used to wriggle a lot but I think it was just a phase now I look back as she has always had a sleeping bag and still wriggled ! I am sure he will grow out of it.

Re the recent wakings, I am by no means an expert, only one dd who is 14 months so not well practised but in my humble experience I think that it probably is just a phase. DD has a lot of sleep phases. Could it also be that he is teething it's around the right time for it to start. Whenever dd has teeth problems she often wakes briefly in the night and is generally not very settled. Does he dribble a lot or have raised bumpy gums ?

I'd second (or is that 3rd?) the suggestion of a sleeping bag. If you happen to have a branch near you, you might find that you can get them for about £10 at H&M - and Asda sometimes have them at about that price too. This is less than half what you'll usually pay for the brand name ones, so until you're sure that it's the right solution it might be worth checking it out.

Samsdad
Welcome!
We borrowed a very interesting and pretty revolutionary thing from a friend of mine who'd just come back from NZ. It's called a SafeTSleep.
It's basically a wide strip of sheeting that wraps around the mattress using velcro, then attached to that is another strip that wraps around the baby, again using velcro. It stopped ds wriggling, and rolling over (which is it's selling point).
We used to put ds into a pretty lightweight sleeping bag, then strap him into the safeTSleep. It was designed by a NZ midwife. Ds liked the feeling of being strapped (swaddled?) in, and we got some very good, long nights out of him!
Try a search on SafeTSleep on the internet. I'm not sure if they sell them here in the UK.
Good Luck

Hi samsdad ...

I am in NZ and fms is right ... they are quite popular here ... I could start a little export business couldn't I?

Sorry ... can't help with your problem but hope you sort it out soon ... I would suggest controlled crying but if you DS is getting himself wedged then that is a different problem!

I am sure someone on mumsnet will be able to help you!

Good luck

Samsdad, my ds has had the same wriggling problem since he learned to roll over onto his front, since about 4 months and it gets "worse" not better! However, we have just conquered the crying it out at night (took 1 week)and as far as I can tell it hasn't been affected/delayed by the wriggling, maybe because it didn't even occur to me that it might?
I'm considering a sleep bag, but more for the cold-I don't think it'll help much with the wriggling. The NZ SafeTSleep sounds good.
Good Luck.
Tillysmummy, thanks for clearing up the "d" meanings-had been wondering myself!

Seriously though ... I am coming to the UK at Christmas ... could always bring a few SafeTSleeps back with me ... anyone interested?

samsdad, my dd is 6 mo old, sleeping w/ me. Lately she likes to wriggle up till her head touches my arm, or my pillow if my arm is not stretching out above her. It makes me scared of her being stucked under the pillow but I'm not willing to give up my pillow just yet, so I always keep my arm out now.

I remember reading somewhere or hearing that babies who are mobile tend to wriggle till they get their heads touch something like that. It makes them feel secure to have pressure on their heads, kinda like being in the womb with their heads down in the last few months. (I always wonder how they can miss the womb so much even after having been out of it for that long already!) But if that's the case, then it's not the wedged head that wakes him up. It's just the opposite, maybe something else is waking him up and he actually tries to make things right and comforting by seeking pressure on his head. And that may keep him asleep a little longer, till he feels that it's still not right (getting cold?) and wakes up anyway. That's just one theory. I don't know if it makes sense for your ds case. My dd wakes up every hour anyway, head touching my arm or not. So I believe it's something else that wakes her up for her case.

How about putting him down with head touching the bumper to begin with? At least he won't have to wriggle so much to find it and get cold in the process. I know you don't think he wakes up because he's cold. But if nothing else works, you may wanna try this. Good luck.

Sorry folks, I've just realized that my advice is dangerous for SIDS. Forget what I've said.