How do you deal with sleep regression?

[dancingonmice]

DD is 8.5 months and is waking more at night, taking ages to go back to sleep and it is really difficult to settle her at bedtime (takes hours instead of minutes). I am guessing this is sleep regression and was wondering if anyone had any tips? We generally shush her to sleep if she needs a hand but even this isn't working.

Do we just ride this out? If I start cuddling or feeding her to sleep now will this come back to haunt me?

I am going through exactly the same problem! We have decided to adopt the controlled crying technique, though I'm not sure that it isn't her teeth causing her pain...

but I don't want to go back to feeding her to sleep else she'll be waking up constantly...
Sleep is soo over rated anyway!

how long has it been going on? DD about same age and had a spell for a week or two that she seems to ahve got over now.. she has just got another tooth so I'm thinking it was that.

and I did whatever I could to get her to sleep -sod whether it came back to haunt me. my view was that she had a routine/good habits before so they could be taught again.

Had an early night last night as was epxpecting a night of pain! It's been on nd off for about a week now, first the extra waking and then from Friday we haven't been able to get her off in the first place.

Last night I cuddled her to sleep after a failed hour of shushing. Hopefully good habits can be re-established but for now it is back to basics.

from expoerience with my 2 yr old, I would say go with the flow. 8.5 mths is an age where they're developing tons, teeth are coming in a big way - they're bound to be unsettled. She needs her mum !! I don't think it will come back to haunt you except in a beneficial way.

I used to have to spend about half an hour shushing my DS to sleep at that stage, he didn't settle by himself for a couple of months due to teeth mainly - but at 12 months we turned a big corner, he decided all by himself that he would put himself to sleep and reduce his night waking, he was sleeping 12 hrs by 14 mths and now he's two and cutting his last 2 molars, he's up again once or twice - but I'm very confident that if we see it through he will go back to 12 hours once they're cut.

Not a fan of controlled crying personally, I've watched my nephew get really clingy as a result of being sleep trained for mths.

That's reassuring to know puffylovett.

i hope it gets better for you soon, it's horrid when you're sleep deprived and it's taking ages to get them settled... you have mucho sympathy from over here !!