Long night-time wakings in a 14 mo

[drjane]

Hi - can't believe I'm still posting on this forum - I thought we'd have sleep sorted by 14 months! How naive.

Anyhow, the latest horror - which has been going on for about 2 weeks now - is extended wakings during the night. They last for 1.5 - 3hrs and can be any time from 12.30 to 4.30am. It's killing me. It seems to have coincided with his starting to walk, but surely that shouldn't last 2 weeks?

I've tried everything - picking him up and rocking him, leaving him, bringing him into our bed, giving him milk/water/extra blankets but the result is the same - awake for about 2 hrs. It's hideous. He seems to be tired, but just can't settle. He's generally capable of settling himself when he wakes up, but for these wakings has mastered this brain-shattering shriek which he can keep up indefinitely with no sign of giving up.

Tell me it will end... I keep telling him he's not going to get and brothers or sisters until he's sleeping better ;)

[drjane]

Yes, and we had a good night last night! Went from 8-12.30, awake for 10min and then down until 5, gave milk and up at 6.30am. Wonderful. Fingers crossed for tonight...we may have cracked it!

[ladymoo]

Drjane did you go to the sleep clinic?

[drjane]

Ladymoo - yes I did! They said that children his age very quickly form habits, and that after the first few nights he had probably just got used to being awake for 2hrs every night. She suggested exactly what we've been doing which is to go in, lay him back down with minimal contact, and keep doing that until he goes back to sleep. She also said we should stop giving him a milk feed at 5.30am because he'll get more and more used to waking up at that time. Her idea for stopping them was to get up with him when he wakes at 5.30 and play with him to distract him from wanting milk! The idea is that he'll slowly start waking up later when he's not having milk as soon as he wakes. We shall see.

So it's been working okay so far - it's certainly much better than before. Some nights I don't even need to go in - he only wakes for a few minutes or he's not actually crying. He has been having a few early starts though...5.45am this morning. Didn't give him his milk until 7am though, with his breakfast.

[PorridgeBrain]

I know this thread has been dead for a good couple of weeks but I thought I would ressurect it, as we have been through this and are now going through it again now DD (16 months) has just moved to 1 sleep a day.

We had huge problems between 10 and 12 months with DD screaming for 2 hours on average 5 nights a week. It was killing us, we were getting run down and I was getting pretty depressed about the whole thing. We solved it by fluke when we went away on holiday for a week and didn't put DD down for naps as we were out and about and she naturally fell asleep in the car for 2 x 45 mins sleeps and we also put her to bed later (8pm instead of 7pm). Miracurously she slept 5 nights out of 7! So since we came home we continued to put her down for 2 x 45 mins sleeps and then to bed at 8pm and she started sleeping through (except for ocassional cry outs but always put herself back to sleep).

Fast forward 4 months of blissful sleep and DD has been refusing to go down for her 2nd sleep so have had to move her to one lunch time sleep just before Christmas and lo and behold its all started again! I have come to the conclusion that DD is a very very sensitive baby and this unfortunately spills over to her sleep patterns. If we don't get her daytime sleep pattern spot on and she has too much DTS then we get 2 hours of night time waking. So we are currently trying to work out her new sleep pattern and coping with the long nights in the meantime. Having said that she has slept through for the last 3 nights and I am hoping we may have cracked it. My current 'theory' is that she needs to have more wakeful time in the day than she had sleep the night before. So if she slept 11 hours in the night which is our best case scenario then she needs to be awake at least 12 hours the next day which may mean only giving her a 1 hour nap in the day but she seems to cope on it. We'll see if it lasts, otherwise I'll be back on here asking for more advice but just thought I'd share my experiences and also I have to say that I am relieved its not just us that has experienced this, although I wouldn't wish it on anyone! I hope all your LOs are now sleeping through

[mamusia]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/682201-How-much-day-time-sleep-for-8-mnths-old

[mamusia]

I added link to the talk about the same problem with younger child - both threads were very helpfull in my situation

[Nappyabi]

drjane, just wondering how things are going now?

We are going through the whole 2 wakings lasting 1 - 2hrs thing at the moment with our 10month old son and it is really getting me down. I have read NCSS and although there are some good ideas in it, I can't see how it applies to the baby who just wants to be wide awake and can't be breastfed back to sleep etc.

We are wondering about trying controlled crying but I am not totally sure about it. I am going to try getting him up earlier to see if it helps.