Last night DH ended up sleeping in the car....please help!

[madmarriedNika]

DD is 13 months old, and in the last month has gone from sleeping pretty well- 7.30pm to 6am, waking perhaps once- to being a complete nightmare. This at first coincided with her first tooth breaking through but now she doesn't seem in pain, just doesn't want to go to sleep- day or night- and is as stubborn as they come & fights & fights it.
I can usually get her to sleep after spending up to an hour in her room "soothing" her in her cot- but then she wakes just a few hrs later and refuses to be settled, in her room or downstairs- she just wants to be awake. Last night this went on for nearly 4 hrs. It is happening EVERY night.

Problem is our house is small and you can hear every noise. DD's crying wakes DS (3.3yrs) and upsets him greatly, and DH cannot cope with interrupted sleep, gets really angry- and consequently last night opted to sleep in the car
I am getting beyound exhaustion but am determined to try to "crack" this- I've been trying gradual withdrawal, suggestions from the No Cry Sleep Solution & even controlled crying. But she just seems to keep fighting all attempts at sleep.

DD is now so overtired I'm worried for her.

Any suggestions very welcome. Wondering if it's worth carting DS off to granny's and DH to stay with someone while I give CC a concerted effort for 2-3 nights.... But really don't want to have to go that far...

bump for you

What are her daytime naps like - can you cut down on those? This was the only thing that worked with DD when she went through a similar phase.

Is she perhaps hungry?

Growth spurt/hunger?

It sounds difficult. If she is genuinely awake and alert and not just struggling o get back to sleep (as is usually the case) then my guess would be that she is getting too much sleep in the day/ going to bed too early as otherwise she'd be in pieces. How long does she nap for during the day?

It is really hard but remember - its just a phase (my new mantra). Has she started walking/cruising? DS went through a similar stage when he started walking - shush, patting (for HOURS) eventually did the trick and he got into the selfsoothing thing after a while...

Check her day time naps (she may be ready to drop one, maybe her late afternoon nap) also check she's not teething again (you can try a little bit of medised at bedtime if she'll take it if she is teething - it really helped DS get to sleep). Ensure she has a late snack before bedtime (may help with hunger if that's waking her up) and a really good winddown before bedtime. Maybe she needs a little nightlight on in her room (so she can settle herself to sleep)- some toddlers scream the place down because they're in the dark all alone.

Really hope life gets alot better for you now.

She was having 2 naps a day, each of roughly an hour. But my first thought when she stopped sleeping so well at night was to drop the morning nap and bring her afternoon nap earlier- so bring lunch forward.

However, she just can't last until even 11.30am. She has cystic fibrosis so needs chest physio and if she's tired this sets her off to sleep- so she keeps falling asleep at 9.30am each day. I've tried limited that sleep to an hour but now she's waking from that sooner even though she's still rubbing her eyes...and then fighting going to sleep after lunch, sometimes taking over an hour to settle so not going to sleep until 2 or even 3pm. I'm so confused by it all. Her nana helps me out 2 days a week while I work supposedly (in the same house...hmmm) and she finds it very hard to settle DD so often resorts to going on a long walk with the DCs...which is fine but now I think DD is preferring that to sleeping in her cot.... I have offered to settle DD even if I lose my work time but I don't think MIL really likes being so restricted by DD's naps...esp as the whole process takes ages these days...

RE hunger I have on occasion, when desperate, offered milk in the night, esp if she's been up ages- and she has drunk it- but I don't want it becoming a habit as found this hard to crack with DS. Instead I'm trying to feed her up in the day as much as poss...(when not trying to get her to sleep). She is getting quite mobile- v close to walking solo- so realise she's burning up more cals (it's hard as the CF also makes her burn lots of cals so we spend our life trying to force feed her high fat food!!)

I used to co-sleep with her (until around 7 months, and occasionally after that if she was ill)- and she always used to settle easily in our bed- but now she won't even settle there.

I don't like the idea of CC but if it only took 4 days to work I think I'd now be prepared to try it. But know it would disrupt my very sensitive son too much Plus have a feeling DD is going to just keep crying forever....

She just doesn't seem to want to sleep anymore even though seems to yawn a lot, rubbing eyes, and is generally grumpier...

If you are sure that it isn't teething or illness then I think you have to find a plan and stick to it -- consistency is really important, I think it just confuses them if you do one thing for an hour, then something else.

How much does she nap in the day? DS went down to one nap at around this age -- if he has more than 90 mins' sleep in the day then he wakes all night.

CC isn't for everyone but it was the only thing that worked for us. Even now (18mo), if he wakes in the night and I try to soothe him it just makes it worse and he gets really worked up. I have learned the hard way that he sleeps much, much better if simply left to it.

x-posted Dinkystinky-
thank you for all your suggestions...
I am now beginning to think more that she could be properly hungry...so will try an extra snack at bedtime - it's hard as she needs physio just before bed but that has to be an hour after food (or else it makes her sick), and we use the physio kind of as a wind down... But maybe straight after that I can give her a rusk or something with her milk...
Feel like at the moment our days are spent trying to get her to sleep or cooking/feeding- no time for anything else between these. Poor DS is just having to be patient as in the house A LOT....

Hoping so much this is "just a phase"
DH will move out at this rate!! (he can't even wear ear plugs as has weird ears..!)

Oh, cross-posted. I don't know much about CF but I'm not sure about doing CC on a child unless they're 100% healthy.

I would definitely look at the naps first. If DS wakes early he sometimes nods off in the buggy around 9.30 but as long as I limit it to less than 15 mins he will still go down after lunch.

Have you thought about the gradual withdrawal method if you don't like leaving her to cry? Put a mattress/ blow-up bed down next to her on her floor and sleep in the same room as her so when she wakes up she knows you're there. Over a few days, gradually move further and further away then sit in chair when she falls asleep etc etc. (sure it's covered in a few books and on here). I always liked that as it provided reassurance to them whilst letting them go back to sleep on their own.

If you really think she's hungry then you can also max out her feed before sleep. You could even re-introduce a dream feed at about 11pm which you could slowly withdraw over time if you think that would help.

I guess kids with CF aren't more likely to have sleeping problems for other reasons are they (e.g. respiration)?

Meg- agree re consistency. Especially with the daytime naps as well. Think we should put all plans on hold of going for day trips etc. until she's more settled (meant to be visting various friends who are all over an hours drive away- so whole days out, no cot etc...don't think it helps her sleeping routine).

Right, going to put together a plan, and if that doesn't work still consider the CC...

cestlavie- the gradual withdrawal method does seem like a gentler way, and in a way is what I have started- I sit next to her cot at bedtime and try to help settle her down, but having read a bit today realise I shouldn't really be talking to her. At the moment it still takes over an hour for her to finally sleep with me there, and often she seems to just want to play- keeps standing up, then sitting down with a bump going "whee!" (hard to keep serious- but I prefer that to the hysterical crying!- although not much closer to sleep )

I did begin to wonder if her sleeping issues could be CF-related but she's had a good check-up recently so shouldn't be...unless hunger related...

Hi mmn this all sounds sooo familiar . I posted a thread this morning, DH and I are really struggling here too with our 14 months old, have same problem that he wakes older one, in our case older one has SN though. If you come up with a plan esp re naps do you think you could post it here? I am at the end of my tether and completely out of ideas, so would love to use yours as a starting point! Thanks!

HairyMaclary- you really have my sympathies. It really is so hard when you have an older child too and they are woken as well- let alone if they have SN too I think we are all walking around like grumpy zombies at the mo And DS now tells me that DD's crying scares him

Just been chatting to a friend...due to the sleep debt DD must now have (she's certainly not getting anywhere near 13-14hrs/24hr) my friend reckons we need a couple of "quiet" days and just let her sleep as and when. So don't go out anywhere, just settle her any way we can into her cot to sleep and let her nap as long as necessary. Then after 2 days of this start a proper plan....
We're going to try dropping her morning sleep & then bringing lunch forward to 11.15am, making it as quick as possible and then milk & into her cot by 12. Nap up to 2.5hrs, and then snack, then bring dinner forward to 5pm, long wind down to bedtime, then at bedtime milk & small snack and bed by 7.15pm. It's going to be hard I think to get used to earlier mealtimes but worth a shot...

And think I'm going to keep trying gradual withdrawal at night, and maybe re-introduce a dream feed at 11pm too just in case hunger's an issue...

All comments/suggestion v welcome!!
xxxxx

Sorry to not come back to you! Thanks for posting that mmn, our mealtimes seem to correspond to your new times already. However I think we may have had a breakthrough, although I am reluctant to jinx it just yet, fingers crossed! Hope it works for you.

Seem to remember that DD when she was about 13 months was a bit difficult.

I would feed her at 5:00 pm, and then give her a ton of yoghurt right before bed at 7:00 pm. This seemed to work.