Officially desperate

[babaduck]

I have a 10 month old DD2, co-sleep, breastfed, terrible terrible terrible sleeper.
In short, she goes down to sleep at about 7.30pm, wakes screaming 30 mins later, then wakes approx every 1 to 2 hours til morning. I think we've tried everything, feeding, not feeding, in the bed, out of bed, patting shushing, lavender, cranio-sacral. The paediatricain think she has reflux, but shes on Losec for ages, no change. At the mo, I feed her, sometimes she goes back to sleep, sometimes not and I have to rock her to sleep. DH is fantastic at night, but even he is thoroughly fed-up, and you can imagine the rows we are so tired. I wrapped my mobile phone the other day, put it in the fridge thinking it was cheese. ANY suggestions PLEASE? sorry for long msg.

Babaduck, my 5 month old co-sleeping baby suddenly started waking every hour/hour and a half about 3 weeks ago. I turned to a local mums and babies group where it was suggested that instead of feeding my baby lying down, each time he cried I should sit up, pick him up and feed him in the conventional cradle hold. I started it during the day for his naps and of course he protested at first but even by the first night he'd cottoned on to the new way. Sure, it's more tiring to sit up and feed him properly at night but after 10 days I'm back down to 2 feeds during the night and life is bearable again. Worth a try maybe? Good luck...!

babaduck can you get different meds? Also are you weaning - can you try cutting out dairy, tomatoes and other acidic fruit as this will trigger the reflux? Also has the Losec been adjusted for her weight?

I'm BF and found it took at least two weeks to notice a difference cutting dairy out of my diet (my DS has reflux)

Also as has already been said, she might be overtired. My DS was like this and the things that worked (he used to wake 45 mins after bedtime then every 1-2 hours like your DD):

• elevating the head end of the cot using blocks from here

• putting DS to bed really early (6pm sometimes)

• having a bedtime routine which is very calm and short (sometimes skip the bath)

• getting militant about naps - not allowed to stay awake more than 90 mins, gradually upping to 2 hours now he's 6 months old.

• nothing exciting two hours before bedtime (no games, no visitors playing with him etc etc. Basically let him roll around by himself/watch us do chores or put him in the sling for a wander round the house etc)

Sounds ridiculous but we were desperate! The thing that made the most difference was the early bedtime. First time we did it, DS slept through his 45 min window.

Now he goes down at 7pm and needs less and less rocking etc etc.

HTH

I've just seen the date on the OP?!! Whoops