Baby waking at night

Toto

Hi everyone.

I have a little girl who is almost 10 months old. Since the age of 6 weeks she had been sleeping through 12 hours a night. I got so lucky

For the past month or so she has been waking up at night again, at first it was once, I gave her a bottle because she seemed hungry, she drank the lot and went back to sleep. I didin't mind that so much, I thought maybe she is having a growth spurt and needed some extra milk.

Just recently though it has gone to 3 times a night waking and I am exhasted. The only thing that settles her is a bottle, she is still drinking all of it.

She is teething and she is tall for her age but not chubby so the extra food is being burnt off. I've tried giving her more to eat during the day. putting her to bed later, making dinner time at 6pm rather than 5. Nothing seems to be helping.

I don't know about this controlled crying thing, she shares our bedroom still so this is going to be tough.

Does anyone have any other ideas that we could try?

I miss sleep

LucyB-Bride_to_Be

Do you think she might settle better in her own room? Do you have a routine for putting her to bed as well? When we were having problems with our LO sleeping we were told by his behaviour specialist to have a strict rountine, therefore at 6.50 he gets his Pjs on, then 6.55 he has his cup of milk then 7.00 he goes to bed, has a story and straight to sleep. We also did the controlled crying it was really hard work for the first 3 nights then after that he slept great and now dosn't wake up till 7.30 ish. LIke you said though it might be that she's just having a growth spurt and its maybe just her teeth that are bothering her so much, maybe try just rubbing some gel on her gums when she wakes up and see if that helps. I hope u manage to get it sorted and get some some sleep! x

System

i had the same problem , my dd would wake and not go back to sleep untill she had been fed the best piece of advice i got was to not feed her during the night , the 1st few nights were horrendus but eventually she got the message and we managed to get her into a better routine.

kuczer2

If teething is the problem then Baby Nurofen should be your new found friend. IMHO it is a far more effective than teething gels which simply numb the pain for 20 minutes at a time. After the gels wear off I found that my DS woke once more with the pain. The Nurofen lasts longer in killing the pain and has a natural drowsy effect as well. Please be sure to use only the infant Nurofen products (available in most supermarkets).

Be aware, though, that you shouldn't use Nurofen for longer than a week at a time, so having on hand some Calpol to use in between should help.

It may not be a major consolation right now, but you have been very lucky with sleep by the sounds of it up until now. My DS has just turned 8 months and I can count the number of sleep-throughs on one hand. He has also been teething since about 3 months and only now are the flipping things starting to come through!! He is magic during the day though so you can't have it all!

starbump

I reckon you've been super fortunate because I haven't slept properly in over 2 years.

Anyway, have you tried just putting your hand on baby and ssshhing gently? Sometimes just reassurance that you're there is enough. For teething, I recommend Baby Anbesol teething gel as I don't think the other gels work half as well. It could be a growth spurt too, as you mention the extra milk. You could try reducing nap times through the day - this is definitely effective but obviously depends on the child as you can't force baby to stay awake! If it's not hunger (or not just hunger), maybe baby just likes the soothing sucking motion? Would she settle herself if you gave her a dummy/soother to suck? Is there anything different lately? E.g. starting at nursery, moving house, etc. If so, it could pass after baby gets used to the change.

Best of luck.

Mutantk

Hi OP - you're story sounds exactly the same as my son, 10 months, previously slept throght from 6 weeks etc - with his it was his teeth coming through that woke him but after 3 or 4 days when his teeth were better he was just in the habit of waking up for no reason and so it continued. My health visitor advised me to move him into his own room ASAP (which I'd been putting off as he's my last baby!), get his into a strict bedtime routine, bath, bottle then bed and then if necessary 'controlled crying' in the night when he wakes. It sounds obvious but after 4 weeks of little sleep I needed someone to tell me the obvious and how to do it! Anyway that's what we did and the first night he woke three times, 2nd night once and touch wood that was 5 weeks ago and he sleeps fine now and also goes down awake in his cot and goes to sleep by himself. Goodluck!

kingshir

CHRISSYG wrote: »

i had the same problem , my dd would wake and not go back to sleep untill she had been fed the best piece of advice i got was to not feed her during the night , the 1st few nights were horrendus but eventually she got the message and we managed to get her into a better routine.

I had the same with DS, I gave him water in case he was thirsty and after a few nights he start sleeping through again.

Pepzofio

Does she fall asleep by herself or before you put her in bed? As I went through a similar thing with my son, used to give him a bottle just before bed and found that he slept a lot better if I put him to bed just before he dropped off, rather than letting him fall asleep in my arms then moving him.

You know when you half wake up in the night sometimes? If you suddenly found yourself in a different place to where you fell asleep/without the person you fell asleep with you are more likely to wake up completely... That's what I put it down to anyway.

Once I figured this out, he went from waking several times a night to waking once at about 5-5.30am for a bit of milk then going back to sleep til 7-8am.

nottslass_2

Had the same problem when DS was around the same age.

Was advised not to feed him ,as he'd see it as "a reward" for waking.

The controlled crying was hard - but it does work !! I think it only took 3 nights untill it worked and he slept through again:j

Good luck - its hard and I felt like the worst mummy ever,but its worth it in the end.