6mo waking for 2 hrs to play at 3am. Please help. Want to cry but too tired.

[titferbrains]

any thoughts on this. she has her feed at 3amish and then cries when put down. I tried rubbing her back, shshing, putting my face against hers etc - she kept almost going off then waking up and crying, very cross, kicking legs etc and rolling onto her back to look at me (she goes down on her side).

I get extremely short tempered at night and husband works very long hours so rarely helps.

I am not sure what to do. give her a dream feed at 2am? Last night she was awake for ages singing to herself after I finally got her relaxed but awake, she fell asleep but then woke about 1hr later. No idea why. perhaps hungry because of crying. Just so fed up of this. so depressed at the thought of another night like this. SHe can sleep from 6.30 till 1230, sometimes 130. I started putting her down awake last week so she could in theory fall asleep by herself if she woke in the night. so why is she getting so upset in the middle of the night, after a feed, when she has always gone down fine after feeds?

So so so fed up of being a mother.

Maybe she doesn't need the feed and it is keeping her awake, I mean the full stomach is. (It's a while since I breast fed so I can't remember how many night feeds mine were having at that age)
Or she is just at that stage where she is very interested in everything and doesnt want to go back to sleep?

I would try CC but will probably get shouted down...

Sleep deprivation sucks.

don't understand why a full tum wd keep her up. Overfull? thought you couldn't overfeed a bf baby? SHe is the one waking for the feed, we're not waking her...

We left her to cry for a bit last night but she didnt' seeem to settle. one of my nct mums said she got fed up of getting up and left her dd to cry - she went off after 5 min. no such f-ing luck with ours.

I would try fitting in more feed's during the day so she is more likely to not need feeding at night I'd them do a dream feed (where you feed the baby half asleep) at about 10.45pm and then only offer water between 11pm and 5.30am
I know when they are little it feels like this stage will last forever but it won't. Also make sure to be silent and don't give eye contact or turn lights on etc as that will wake her more and she is then less likely to go back to sleep quickly. Persevere and hopefully it won't be long until you can get a full nights sleep x

IME babies and small DCs are creatures of habit - maybe she wakes up because she usually wakes at that time, not because she's hungry iyswim.

5 mins is not long. If you go for CC it'll take maybe 4 or 5 nights of up to an hour of crying on and off the first night reducing to 5 mins, if you're lucky, the last night.

Remember CC 'properly done' is where you go in every 2, 4 , 6 etc minutes, you don't leave them screaming for an hour on their own...just in case anyone tries to tell you otherwise.

Sorry, not very helpful but it's the only thing that ever worked for me.

Obviously you can feed her AND do CC, you dont have to cut out a feed if you think she needs it.

If you find CC hard start by doing it at naptimes during the day.

Agree with Lovemygirls too.

already feel like I'm doing more breast feeds than usual. what I don't understand is why night waking is variable. She is only ever hungry when she wakes ie. starts sucking at my face when I pick her up looking for boob. she is just getting over chest infection at mo (on antibiotics) so have to continue offereing feeds until she is better. What I'm confused about is why she won't go back to sleep after feed. She will relax but just lies there (between me and DH eventually) singing and blowing raspberries, scratching sheets, pulling hair etc. but would cry if left in her bed. Do I put on musical mobile? usually only use this when I go for my shower and have rigidly enforced the no lights, no noise rule after bedtime for months now. but want to be able to leave her so she'll go off on her own.

just room temp tap water - keep it in a bottle by her bed? is this ok?

I'd use cooled boiled water at her age but then I would also insist she slept in her own cot so you might not want to listen to everything I say I co-slept with dd1 and though it seemed like a good idea at the time it's actually harsher in the end because at some time there comes a point where you want your own bed and then comes the problems but that is my experience and it may not be yours.

Are you ex bf-ing? Perhaps you will need to wait until she is on solids before she sleeps through the nigfht and can go without a night feed?

My youngest is now 3 and a half and the 1st year was hard work and a bit of a blur! I'm a childminder now but obviously the babies I have go home at 5.30 ish.

I think as mums we should trust our instincts, if you think she is hungry she probably is, if you think she is just in the habit of night waking then just offer the water but at the end of the day it's you that has to get up with her and she's your baby

I once read it takes 3 days to get a baby into a routine and 3 days to break it so anything you try needs to be consistant.

hth

we co-slept at first but now she goes down in her own bed, I only bring her into our bed when it gets close to her wake up time because I figure it's not worth the trouble of settling her for half an hour (of precious sleep time). perhaps this is where we're going wrong but until I catch up on some sleep I can't see myself doing much different.

Am still breast feeding yes, she's on solids tho but not eating that much. today she only wanted banana and avocado puree I made for breakfast and for lunch. perhaps when solids more established things will get better.

titferbrains. have a look at what i posted back in November when DS was 6 months. (see link below). He was waking for 3 hours every night, mostly crying but sometimes just wanting to play. It drove me insane. I mean it - I cried all the time, I had no idea what I was doing wrong and I just hated being a mum. We ended up doing controlled crying, which didn't work because the problem wasn't that DS couldn't settle himself, it seems that he was just going through a development phase and it was disturbing him big time. 6 months is apparently a time for major skill learning AND a growth spurt to boot, so you can see why some babies get upset. I just wanted to offer you a bit of hope really - we're well out of the other side now and he never wakes for a long time in the night anymore. I really think and hope this will be the same for you.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=sleep&threadid=651583-Can-someone-give-me-some-hope-that -this-sleep-nightmare#13260207

I don't think co-sleeping is wrong and it's certainly not the reason she is waking in the night, when I say problems later I mean when they have their own room because it's a big change, I put dd1 in her own room at 2 and a half and she was most distraught but that was only my experience.

Good luck for tonight