14 MONTHS waking up every hour

[SkylersMommy]

I don't know what else to do, my 14 month old is waking AT LEAST every hour at night if not more and I'm exhausted.  I've tried everything.  She has a strong routine at night and goes to bed very easily, no fights at all.  She's in a  great mood all day and evening.  She was sleeping until about 12:30 before starting the hourly waking but the past few nights it's getting worse and worse.  Last night she woke at 10 and was up every 45 minutes or constantly throughout the night.  We are completely exhausted.

Her schedule is 7am, wake  11-1  nap  6:30  dinner 7 bath  7:45 bedtime.  We tried adding back in an afternoon nap and it didn't make any difference in the night wakings, only made it more difficult to put her to bed on time.

We've been to the doctor 5 times over the past 3 months, no ear infections, nothing visable.  Teething but the doc says not enough to cause that much discomfort.  She's been pushing on her jaws for 3 months now, that's why I thought teething but even ibuprofen doesn't help her at all anymore.

Anyone else having this problem?  Any ideas?  Please help, I have a new baby one the way in a matter of weeks now, I need some sleep!

[mari]

her nap is only 4 hours after waking and then she is awake for nearly six hours after waking from her nap.  I would either try putting her to bed earlier or a later nap as she seems overtired.

What do you do when she wakes during the night?

[binxyboo]

I think that bedtime looks very late, I would have had Riley in bed by 6:30 if he woke at 1 from his nap.

[SkylersMommy]

When we switched her to her own bed, a few weeks ago and she was only waking once, maybe twice I would give her some water in a bottle and she would go back to sleep.  Now, with it getting worse every night for the past few weeks I try to give her water or a pacifier but she is drinking waaay to much water, she'll drink a whole 8 oz bottle if you let her.  I don't take her out of her bed, she doesn't want to be picked up anyway.  My husband get's her a bottle of milk, 3 ounces because she used to have that to go to sleep until I broke the habit to just a little water here and there.  I told him not too but we're so tired though, he thinks she'll go back to sleep and gets her a bottle anyway.  The past few nights, she drink it and go right back to fussing, not to sleep.

She is in daycare from 8 or 8:30 until 5 and they will only do one naptime, 11-1.  If she gets tired or cranky they will lay her down but only on a "as needed" basis.  On the weekend I put her down for her 11-1 nap and for another from 3:30-4:30.  She goes down pretty easy for both but it didn't help the night wakings at all.

I know not to give her bottle, even pcifiers are bad at night but they aren't the cause of the problem because I got rid of them and the problem got worse and I've gone back just ot get the little amount of rest that I can.  I'm 33 weeks pregnant and I'm so tired, I don't knwo what to do.  I tried no bottles, water only but then she whines for hours and drinks too much water.

I can't get her to bed any earlier because I get home from work too late.  Maybe I could get her down at 7:15 or 7:30 but I can't see that 15 minutes would make that much difference.

[mari]

I really think that the late bedtime could be a problem, but don't give milk, she will wake for it. (That's what I did with MY DD and she was having 3 bottles a night at 18 months)

Also, why don't you put a sippy cup next to her bed where she can reach it, sucking a bottle could give her the soothing that she wants but it could also become a prop (like a dummy) but a sippy cup should be less of a soother but more of a thirst quencher if she needs it.

When she wakes I would check her, ensure that she is clean and dry and not too hot/cold etc then do WIWO.  But I still think that she is overtired and Alex is a great sleeper now but if she is overtired then she wakes during the night a few times.

[SkylersMommy]

Thanks for the suggestions.  I had gotten rid of the milk (for fear of ruining her teeth) but getting rid of the bottle itself was next on my list.  I will switch to a sippy cup tonight and see if it helps, at least maybe she won't drink so much water.

The only thing I'm worried about though, is sometimes when she wakes I give her the bottle of water and she just throws it.  It's those times (which is most of the time) that I just don't know what to do with her, she doesn't want to be picked up/held, doesn't want a pacifier, doesn't want a bottle (unless it's milk of course)doesn't seem to want anything.  Maybe that's the overtiredness.

I will try putting her down earlier, as much as I can, and see if there is any improvement.  I will write back to update.

[SkylersMommy]

Well, I took away her bottle of water and replaced it with a sippy cup, which she was not too happy about, let's just say it was a loooong night.   Hopefully by the end of the weekend we make some progress before we go back to work.  I let her keep the pacifier, I thought it was too hard to take them both at once, not to mention it's hard to listen to her cry when I'm not 100% sure that she isn't haven't some sort of discomfort that is causing it.  It's such a guessing game.  The doctor says she's fine but it's seems a little over the top to just be a behavioral problem.

[mari]

TBH a baby can't do much more than 5 and a half- 6 hours activity time, so any more than that before bedtime and you are probaly looking at an overtired little one.  This is what happened to Alex, but even when I got the times right, I still had to do sleep training due to accidental parenting, ie bottle, taking her to my bed, sitting with her.  you name it I did it, so I had lots of work to do.  Your goal is to put her to sleep, in her cot alone and for her to sleep all night until a reasonable wakeup time.  But obviously, you can't stop it all at once so little by little you have to make small changes to give her the chance to adapt to the adjustment slowly.  stopping the milk and offering a sippy is your first step.  If you are sure that she is having enough during the day then she shouldn't need milk, but if she is thirsty then she will drink from a sippy when she gets used to it.  Tell her it's there, show her where it is, when she wakes for it (until she can do it herself) say, are you thirsty, here's your water, and put it in her hand and leave.  then WIWO if she still cries.

She will adjust, you have to be consistent.  Let her know that you are there for her when she needs you but now is the time to sleep. 
I hope this helps you.

[SkylersMommy]

Putting her too sleep is easy, hasn't been the problem at all.  I tell her it's time to lay down, I put her in her bed and she goes to sleep.  The waking up up and crying isn't for a bottle either, I mean, she'll probably drink one if I give it to her but then she goes right back to crying afterwards.  She's getting plenty to eat and drink during the day so that's not the issue.

The doctor recomended Melatonin a few weeks back to regulate her sleep patterns and when I give it to her she sleeps through the night, only waking a few times for water, which she gives herself and then goes back to sleep.

The problem is that even though the melantonin is a natural thing, I still don't want to give it to her forever.  Has anyone else tried Malatonin for their toddlers sleep problems?

I really don't knwo what the problem could be.  She knows how to sleep on her on, she doesn't have bottles at night and ibuprofen doesn't help at all so it's not teething.

I've put her down earlier the past few nights and when I didn't give her Melatonin, it didn't make any difference.

Any ideas?

[tinytatsmom]

I had the exact same problem when my dd was arouund 6- 10 months old.  Finally I pulled the blow up bed into her room and was there to put her back to sleep asap.  I found that with Tatiana she was waking every 45mins to 1 hour 15 mins.  45 mins is where the sleep cycle goes from deep to light again and it sounds like your lo is having problems making it over the hump.  You can go in around the 40 min mark and try to help get over that.  For my dd it didn't matter what time she went to bed it happened, so I can sympathize with your lack of sleep.  My dd would only settle for me as well.  Hope that you get this before #2 come along.

[mari]

I'm not sure what Melatonin is, but I would certainly refrain from using medication just ot help her sleep.  If she is in pain then OK, but why should she need medication to sleep?

The fact that she falls asleep so easily then can't keep asleep points to overtiredness and until you get a routine which she isn't so tired going to bed then she will wake during the night.  I bet that she slept through the night the first time you gave her medicine because she was so zonked that she was catching up, now she is back to overtired.

I still advise you to put her down earlier, but you probably won't see much improvement to start with, you will probably have to do a little sleep training to get her used to falling asleep independantly as she is only used to falling asleep when she is really tired, but you need her to know that it's bedtime and it's time to go to sleep and stay there.  WIWO should work if done consistently for a couple of weeks unless she has Seperation Anxiety.

[Harvey and Theos Mam]

Hi, my ds is 14 months old so i thought i would post his daily routine. I only see a slight difference with yoursbut maybe you could take a look and see if your little one isn't having their last meal too late and food may be laying heavily on thier tummy.

6am Wakes anytime from here
7am Breakfast (cereal)
10:15am snack (cracker with cheese or youghurt, something small)
11am Nap (1 hour mostly)
12:30  Lunch (maybe a sandwich, a light lunch of some sort)
2pm  Snack (fruit, yoghurt, something small again)
3:30-4pm  Dinner (main meal and largest)
6pm supper (cereal)
After supper is wind down time and then bedtime routine
6:30-7pm in bed

HTH

When visiting friends in the US recently we tried to put our boys on our friends schedule which involved the late meal which was the main meal. Our boyus cannot sleep after eating something so heavy.  We only did this twice as our boys were useless and very uncomfortable with it.
Good luck with sleep training. Children can weake out of habit so you will have to go with the IWO method like Mari says...i am so against giving anyoen meds to sleeps because it isn't natural uless your body produces it on its own. But i think your lo is waking from habiot more than anything else. My 3 year old son did this and would come into our room and foolishly we let him jump into our bed for about 3 nights before realising he was creatiung a habit (this was a hwile back).We had to return him to his bed each time with no response and give any eye contact.
He soon got the message and didn't bother waking.

[SkylersMommy]

Baby is on a good routine and falls asleep on her own at night so there's no room for improvement there.  I also put her down wide awake, not tired, so she knows how to fall asleep on her own. She knows it's bedtime, she goes to bed in her own bed, awake.

I uderstand that she's probably waking out of habit but how can that be fixed?  I don't let her into my bed, I don't give her milk.  I let her keep her pacifier in her bed but I rarely help her to find it, she does that on her own.

She is waking with the sleep cycle, every 45 min to 1.5 hour.  The melatonin is not a sleep medication, it's not for pain.  There are perscription levels of melatonin that people take but that is not what we are giving her.  Melatonin is what our bodies produce to keep healthy sleep cycles.  This was the purpose of the temporary use of melatonin, to help establish good sleep habits/cycle.

However, after about 2 or 3 days, the melatonin doesn't really seem to help and we're back to being up every hour.  So lets forget about the malatonin because it's not the problem or the solution and I think it's taking focus away from the real problem.

I've been putting her to sleep by 7 every night, I don't know what else we could do.  I mean, how can you break the bad habit?  She sits in her bed and crys until she finally goes to sleep but it takes the same amount of time every night, in other words, she's not getting better at it.  Sometimes I hold her hand and it helps, but not always.  I shhhush her and I dont pick her up.  I do everything to books say to do, nothing that it says not to, we're not making progress and it's been weeks now.  As for the overtireness, I'm ruling that out but I did add an afternoon nap for a few days and it didn't seem to help at night.  Also, I had to take a few days off of work to do this, since she is in daycare and they won't impose an afternoon nap.

I really appreciate everyones help.  I feel like we're not really getting anywhere though.  I understand she's waking out of habit, I don't know how to fix that.

I am on maternity leave in 2 weeks so can make some more changes at that point but as for the next two weeks, I am just at a loss, I don't know what to do.

[SkylersMommy]

A few people have suggested a comfort item (ie. tedy bear, blankie).

I've tried multiple items but she doesn't seem to care for them at all.

Anyone had luck with introducing a comfort item afer a year old?

[Harvey and Theos Mam]

A few people have suggested a comfort item (ie. tedy bear, blankie).

I've tried multiple items but she doesn't seem to care for them at all.

Anyone had luck with introducing a comfort item afer a year old?

We tried this with Theo too and he didn't take to anything new. 

I am also thinking it is seperation anxiety (even though your lo seems too old for his). Theo was waking and very clingy all day not so long back and we think that was sep anxiety.  I am not too sure as to how you can break the habit other than you may want to try the wake to sleep boards to see if you can get help there. I have experience of WTS because Theo's waking habits were sorted just by themselves and us going in (like you) doing a little shush and pat.

Poor you got your work cut out what with being pregnant. I sure hope you get your sleep soon and that someone can help you.

Just one last thought......We recently moved Theo into a bed because he was waking so often amd in our room. Since moving him to a bed he did sleep better. Like i said, just a thought.

[mari]

As you are unable to get her to bed before 7, could daycare do a slightly later nap?  If they could do a 12pm nap and say she slep for 2 hours (hopefully) then a 7pm bedtime would be fine. 
How does she fall asleep at bedtime?  If she is zonked then I would think that she goes off quite easily, but if she has a slightly later nap you may need to try a little WIWO.  If, as Rhian suggests, it is seperation anxiety then you should try Gradual Withdrawl.  There is a thread on how to choose which one will suit you and your LO best on the FAQ section on this board.

When I first started sleep training with Alex she was 18 months old and having up to 3 bottles a night and waking for 2-3 hours a night, I was in a right state, but with consistency and the help of members on this board we did it and we haven't looked back.  I would say that it about 2 weeks before I saw an improvement, but from then on she sleep so well (My DH, who works away, called it a miracle when he came home from a 3 week stint in Boston)

I hope that this gives you inspiration, it will work, there are ways to help her learn to sleep, you have to show her how it's done.