[Ms Crackers]

Hi
I posted here last Saturday night because DP and I have been having serious sleep issues with DD who is 15 mths.
After a rocky start to that night, she slept through until 7am without waking or feeding. Hooray! We thought. Things are turning the corner. Let's try to stop the night feeds as she clearly does not need them.
We poor naive fools...
For six nights now we have refused to give her formula when she wakes. We offer water and her dummy. We shush and pat her in her cot and we leave before she goes back to sleep. For the first two nights she was sleeping solidly until around 4am. Then she would cry on and off until we got up at 6.30. Every so often one of us goes in to her room and offers the water, dummy etc, check nappy etc.
The next three nights the first waking got progressively earlier and she wouldn't fully settle for the rest of the night, crying and grizzling every 15 mins or so.
Last night was horrendous. She first woke at 1am and slept only fitfully for the rest of the night, grizzling, crying, getting hysterical. She'd calm down if one of us went in there but didn't want water or changing. We gave her neurofen in case it was teeth. Made no difference. Took her to the gp this morning who couldn't find anything wrong.
We are all seriously sleep deprived. DP is about to go back to full time work and he's stressing out big time on no sleep. I'm used to working full time on so little sleep but i feel like I'm reaching the end of what I can bear too.
We failed sleep school multiple times when she was younger and she does know how to self settle, she naps fine in the daytime at home and crèche.
I'm at the point of giving in and giving her a 2am bottle again just to get some proper sleep but that won't fix it long term. And we do need to fix it for all our sakes.
Anyone got any suggestions? Should we stick to our guns and not feed her overnight?
Cheers.

[sakura73]

I would give the bottle. At 15 months DS had stopped night feeding but then he started waking again and some nights I do give in and feed him. He is 17 months now and I would say I feed him one night in 3. Not ideal but at least hat way he does go to sleep fast again! And short term I was going to die from lack of sleep if I had continued to battle him. So I decided to lose the battle in the interests of winning the longer term war.

So, when he wakes I try to resettle with dummy and water, and sometimes that works, but if after 10 min or so it has not worked, I feed him. Am still doing a morning breast feed so any over night feed is breast too. The longer I try to settle him without it the more he cries for it, I think he works up the appetite the longer he is awake, hence my decision that if resettling does not work fast, I give up and feed.

This week has been hard because he has some teeth coming too. So most nights he has had the feed. Another thing we are trying is tanking him up on milk before bed: 2 bottles rather than one. I think it is helping.

I am back at work and need my sleep, and I do not have the stomach for leaving him to prolonged crying. So for me, giving him the night feed is the lesser of 2 evils.

This post has been edited by sakura73: 02/02/2013, 06:25 PM

[Guest_CaptainOblivious_*]

Give her the bottle... she's 1 and 3 months. That's not really that old at all.

We just waited ours out and they grew out of the night bottles. It was a hell of a lot more pleseant than trying to fight in the middle of the night. They gave it up around 2ish with no problems

[*little-rach*]

My DD2 was like this.. The best advice I got was to just give her the bottle!

By around 15 months she just grew out of it with only the occasional bottle if she sick etc

She is 3 now and sleeps fine!

If ur daughter goes back to sleep after a bottle than I'd just give it to her

[LovenFire]

Agree with a pp, offer water/dummy first and if she wakes again, offer the bottle.

The one thing I have discovered is that you need to pick your battles with babies. If you need to sleep - and she wants her bottle to keep her asleep for longer - just give it to her.

Hope you get more sleep.

[Guest_Dinah_Harris_*]

I would also just give the bottle. DD1 had bottles until she was over 2, and then gave them up very easily.
DD2 has never been a great sleeper, and at 17 months I still get up about twice a week to give her a night feed.

This post has been edited by Dinah_Harris: 02/02/2013, 07:23 PM

[soontobegran]

Feed her OP.
If this is what it takes I can not see the need to deprive her at such a young age. Ignore the fact that some will tell you that she doesn't 'need' it but heck, you do what you do to survive and I wouldn't be worrying about this for another year.

Good luck.

[GreenEggJimmyJam...]

I'm another who would try settling once and if that doesn't work give her the bottle. But only if she settles easily after the bottle. If she doesn't settle after milk then I would maybe look at getting the sleep nanny in or something.
Good luck, sleep deprivation is horrible!

[Rosepickles]

If u can handle it i would try to tough it out for a few more nights, you have been through some bad nights and it could get better. I only say this, because otherwise you may just have to do all this again and more. Unless you daughter really needs to gain weight, at that age she probably doesnt need the formula. If she doesnt respond, then maybe try again in a month or two.

I do not have any suggestions tho i am sorry. My daughters sleep is soooo much better now (she turns two soon) and it definitely has slowly gotten better over the last four or so months. We had to tough it out, i never thought i would take this approach but i felt i couldnt go on any longer.
I hope it improves for you soon whatever you decide.

This post has been edited by Rosepickles: 02/02/2013, 07:29 PM

[Alpha_Chook]

I'd give her the bottle, if it settles her for the rest of the night then its no dramas. She will grow out of it in her own time. I was told by the MCHN not to give Eamon so many bottles, up till he was 18 months he was having three bottles a day, he loved his milk (still does).....he eventually dropped most of those bottles and now has one cup of milk a day at bedtime