[tenar]

She's been doing this for a couple of weeks now. Her sleep was once pretty good but has been going steadily downhill for months.

I need suggestions for what to do. I'm so tired I can't function and I have another child to care for during the day too.

Non-gentle approaches are not an opinion for me, so no controlled crying or similar suggestions please.

I'm desperate.

[ally0812]

is she scared- hungry- ill?
my son does this, turns out he;s scared of the dark- and being alone. co sleeping for a bit helped. laying with him while he was awake till he slept. a comfort bottle. a lava lamp left on. soft music playing. a teddy that 'breathes' so she dosnt feel alone

[JupitersMoon]

If you've ruled out illness, hunger, cold (we've just had to put DD in her winter sleeping bag!), then all I can suggest is ride it out and drink coffee! DDoften went through phases of waking up 10+ times a night, they pass eventually....

[SeaPrincess]

DS2 did the same at about 8 months after he'd been sick. Before that, he was the type of child who always went to bed awake and self-settled quickly. I was picking him up because he shared a room with DS1 and I didn't want them both awake, but it got to the point where DH and I were both getting up 3+ times each and completely sleeping through each other getting up.

Ultimately I realised that most of the time when I went in, he was grizzling, not crying, and I left him to it for up to 15 minutes. I don't believe in letting a baby cry, so if the tone of the grizzling changed, or it did become crying, I got him up. If he grizzled for 15 minutes, I would get him up, read a book or have a cuddle with him, then start again. DS1 slept through the whole thing.

R

[SplashingRainbow...]

My LO did this when teething.

If I'd ruled out everything else I would give one dose if children's panadol and if it made a difference then clearly he was in pain.

The other reason was overtiredness. Can you move bedtime a bit earlier? Try some other strategies for getting longer day sleeps?

Baby massage with Johnson and Johnson's lavender oil also seems to have helped our LO relax, win down and sleep. Have you tried this? Pinky McKay has a good video on infant massage (but any is better than none).

Good luck, the sleep deprivation is awful. Have you got anyone who can come and give you a hand during the day?

[clairewright]

my boys did this for almost their first 2 years of life.not fun. i feel your pain. most of their troubles were from 5 mths onwards when they started teething and this caused lots of ear infections.

is your little one teething?? might be worth going to gp and just getting a check up to make sure that there is nothing causing the wake ups.

hang in there.

[JustSmileAndNod]

My daughter was the same at about the same age, i was feeding her to sleep every 45 minutes all night My nurse and GP both recommended controlled crying but I declined. I just rode it out by attempting to calm her and put her in the bed sleepy but not asleep. It took a while a few weeks but did work eventually. Hang in there. Has you had your baby checked by a dr? Urinary tract infection or tonsillitis can be ruled out ( usually have a fever though).

Nights are rough so do whatever you need but focus on settling while sleepy not asleep during the day. I still fed her until sleepy too.

This post has been edited by JustSmileAndNod: 12/04/2012, 07:34 PM

[mylittlemen]

OMG are you me? Seriously? Right down to the older child? I'm also only getting two half hour day naps. I don't have the answer, but we are off to Karitane for a day stay tomorrow. I can't work out whether I am dreading it or can't wait.

I have a feeling my 8 month old is chronically overtired, but nothing I do seems to fix it.

[Brownbear]

My son has had periods of this.

I find that it happens more when he's overtired, but I don't know what the solution to that is really, as you can't force a baby to nap if he or she doesn't want to. When I'm really struggling, I cancel all outings/appointments so I can concentrate on trying to encourage regular naps and early bed time.

It passes.

[tenar]

Thanks.

She is teething. I might try giving her some panadol when she wakes, to see if it makes a difference. She's cheery all day though, so I dunno if it'll help at all.

We basically co-sleep (sidecar cot, but she's ending up next to me in bed most of the time) and DD1 is in the room too. So I can't let DD2 cry or grizzle much at all because she'll wake DD1 up. I think I need to organise for me and DD2 to sleep elsewhere for a while so I can teach her to settle herself with a bit of grizzling without worrying that she'll wake DD1. I think that at this point, my shoving my boob in her mouth every time she starts to make noise is not helping at all.

I'm just so tired! This baby used to sleep for a solid 5 hours every night and up to 8 occasionally <sigh>.