Previously good sleeper now awful, thought it was the 4 months growth spurt but she's nearly 5 months now.

[chancelloroftheexCHEQUERS]

DD is 21.5 weeks. She used to sleep pretty well, went off abou 7.30 and woke normally either once or twice generally around 3 and 5 and went back to sleep ok.

Since about 4 weeks ago she's been waking loads more in the night - she did seem extra hungry, but now she is waking up, taking a tiny b/feed then dozing rather than sleeping and waking up ad infinitum.

She was still doing about 4/5 hours from bedtime til first waking but this is getting worse. I thought we may have been disturbing her when we went to bed and that her crib was too small so last night I put her in her own room. COuldn't get her to sleep til 8 and then she woke at 11!!! I fed her til she dropped off about 5 minutes later then she woke up so I fed her again, then same thing again. I think she just wanted to be up, she was laughing and smiling.

I'd had enough and in the end I didn't interact with her, just sat her on my lap in the nursing chair while she cried until eventually I fed her again and she went back to sleep properly. It took 3 hours to get her back to sleep.

She then woke up 2 hours later and I brought her into out bed until morning.

I have always put her into our bed when she wakes up around 4/5 but I don't really want to be co-sleeping with her, I really don't get good quality sleep at all when we do so it seems a bit pointless.

As she's no longer waking for food is it now just habit? What can I do about it?

She can't self-settle to sleep for naps or bed - has to have white noise and rocking ususally. She does seem to be able to settle herself in the night sometimes though, but sometimes not.

Any ideas? I'm going mad now but determined she must sleep in her own room.

I'm only on my first pregnancy and so I don't have any hard experience for you, but I did just read something which I thought was very interesting and perhaps might explain...

'Milestone waking usually occurs after the baby gas learned a new skill such as sitting up, crawling, or walking. the baby may wake several times a night and want to practice his new abilities' -- the baby owner's manual, by borgenicht and borgenicht

My mother has said that one of my younger sisters also went through a phase of waking up during the night and the best thing she did was 'keep the lights off and not speak to her' she would feed her then rock her a bit then would just let her be until she (my sister and not Mom)cried herself asleep. Mom said it was rough at first but it calmed down again after a week or so partly because she worked a little harder at keeping her up during the day.

Hope that helps a little

Thanks Bleuravin. She hasn't learned anything new unfortunately, but I thought it might be related to her suddenly being more aware of her surroundings.

What your Mum did sounds encouraging - I won't let her cry on her own but I guess if I carry on holding her while she cries it's not so bad.

BUmp in ncase anyone else can help.

Shouldn't have written such an epic!

My DS did this - was very unsettled from 4mths to about 5.5mths. I realised that he didn't really need a feed and was just feeding to sleep, so just started comforting him. Within a couple of nights he was sleeping 11-7 and did so every night for 6 weeks! We then had 2 months of teething, illness, Christmas etc. and he's been a bit all over the place but we've suddenly had 2 nights of 7-7 now (he is now 9mo)!

The neuro development thing def coincided with bad sleep for us - learned to sit at 5mo then sleep settled down after a week or so, just learned to stand and has settled down again.

Daytime naps have also really helped with my DS - the better naps he has during the day, the better he sleeps at night. Seems counterintuitive but I think it means they are not overtired.