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SLEEP => Night Wakings => Topic started by: negracr on May 06, 2015, 18:26:02 pm

Title: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 06, 2015, 18:26:02 pm
I moved LO to nursery at 7 months and haven't slept through the night since. She's now on 2.5 - 3 A, 2.5 naps one short in the morning one long in the afternoon, no struggle. BT around 7-8pm and sleeps for 2 hours max. After that she's on and off waking every 1-2 hours until 4am when I give up and move her into bed with me.  She stops crying the minute I enter the room, she's standing in crib so I lay her down tell her to sleep. Do this multiple times until she falls asleep. Then an hour or two later I repeat... Going on 4 months no sleep. Utterly exhausted  :'(   Help?!
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 07, 2015, 05:54:32 am
Hello and welcome to the forum :) It sounds like you're getting really tough nights at the moment  ((hugs)). I'm not surprised you're exhausted  :(

Can I ask for a bit more detail about what you do when you go in to her?  How long does it take to get her back to sleep, and is there anything which finally makes it happen, or does she just sleep eventually  (until the next time)?

Also, please could you post her day in the following format so I can see if anything stands out on that front?

WU: What time does she wake for the day?
E: What does she eat, what time?
A: How long is she awake between sleeps?
S: What time does she sleep from and to?
And repeat til you've covered 24 hours  :)

I'll also warn you that while I completely understand why you bring her into bed at 4ish, it *may* be re-enforcing the night wakings,  so as exhausting as it sounds, we might have to find an alternative to that. There are some BW techniques which can help with that, though, especially if there might be elements of separation anxiety at play.

Out of interest on the SA, is she showing much of this during the day?
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 08, 2015, 06:49:04 am
Hi and thanks for the quick reply.

When I go to her, she's usually standing up in her crib and I'll lay her down and tell her it's time to go to sleep. Sometimes I'll put my hand on her back, head or hold her hand for a few minutes then let go and sit in a chair next to the crib but facing away from her. Sometimes I  shush but rarely talk. From 9pm to 1am it can take  20 minutes to 1 hour for her to go down. From 1am to 4am she's tired and it usually  takes 5 to 10 minutes. If its just a pacifier drop she won't fuss at all, just rolls over and continues sleeping.

I have her on a 4 hour schedule and it usually looks like this. (I'll write down the next few days and post too)

WU: 8:15 - 8:30am
E: 9:00 -10:00 fruits, oatmeal and bottle
A: 2.5 - 3 hours max
S: 11:00 -12:00pm  (usually 45min. Occasionally 1 hour max)

E: 12:30 - 1:30pm veggies, protein, bottle
A: 2.5 -3 hours max
S: 2:30 - 4:00pm (usually1.5 hour max)

E: 4:30 veggies, cereal or protein
A: 3 hours max
Bath/ bottle: 6- 6:30pm
BT: 7ish

Note -last week I started stretching her A time from 2 hours to 2.5 -3 so I could drop her catnap in the evenings. Her bedtime was between 8-9pm and even then she'd still wake up 2 hours later and then every hour or so.

SA - she is extremely clingy during the day. She doesn't like to be alone, she'll play with her toys in her room or play pen but I have to be in the room too. If I try to leave she'll chase me and cling to my leg. Ive tried peekaboo and talking while I  leave but it doesn't work.

Any feedback is appreciated   ;D




 
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 09, 2015, 05:34:10 am
I suspect an A time increase is what you need :) Most 11 month old are awake for 3.5 - 4.5 hours. There's a thread showing average A times by age here :

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

The SA might be making the nws worse, but I reckon an A time increase will help the nws a lot. I'd start with that first A. 45 minute naps usually indicate UT, so I reckon you could start by aiming for 3hrs 15 there and leaving all others the same for 3 days, then work on the others.

WRT the SA, hopefully if we can get her routine right, then the nws will go, but if they're hanging on we might need to look at using gradual withdrawal or something to help with those, but let's get her onto an age appropriate routine first  :)

What do you think about the A time increase?
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 09, 2015, 23:20:22 pm
I'll try stretching the A time. She did 3.5 hrs A this morning  (8:15am - 11:45am) and the nap that followed was 1.30 hrs. (normally 45min - 1hr max) I didn't want to wake her because we had a rough night and I figured she needed to catch up. She's having her afternoon nap now and I'm thinking I should cap at 1 hour max so she doesn't oversleep during the daytime?

She gets cranky right around 2.5 hrs of A time, so I don't expect it'll be an easy task to keep her awake 4 hours...but I'll gradually try to get there  ;D

I'll keep you posted and thanks again!  ;)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 10, 2015, 08:03:33 am
If she did a longer nap after 3.5hrs, that's a good sign that an A push was what she needed  :) And you might need to cap the second one slightly in order to keep a decent A time til bed, yes. Once we've figured out some good A times for her, you might find you regularly need to cap either the am or pm nap, but that's easier to play about with once you know roughly what A times work for her.

If she gets cranky after 2.5hrs you might just need to take the A time pushing slowly. Some LOs show tired signs after their usual A time, out of habit, but aren't actually tired enough to either nap well, or build up enough tiredness in the day to sleep well at night. If you take it easy though, she should adjust over time. I'd leave that first A at 3hrs 15 - 3hrs 30 max for now, and then increase her second A to 3hrs 15 max only if she's ok with the first A increase still after at least 3 days. Does that make sense?!

And yes please, let me know how you get on :)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 11, 2015, 01:35:08 am
We did well with extending her A time today. She did 3.5hrs in the morning followed by a 1.5hrs nap, she woke up rested and happy. Her next A time was also 3.5hrs since we had company and she was enjoying herself. No crankiness. The nap that followed was slightly over 1 hour. I'll try to keep this schedule going this week and report back in a few days.  Thanks again!  ;D
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 11, 2015, 18:58:42 pm
Sounds like it's going well!  Well done!  Keep me updated :)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 11, 2015, 19:24:55 pm
Thanks! I have a quick question regarding bedtime. With the extended A times, her afternoon nap is now 1 hour long from 5pm-6pm approx. This means her bedtime has also been pushed back closer to 9pm (later than I'd like  :-\) If I try to put her down earlier, say 8-8:30pm will this make her UT and also affect the NW?  Thanks again!
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 12, 2015, 05:51:31 am
That does make for a long day, but you're right, that I think any earlier and she'd be UT for bed  :-\ One option is to cap that second nap. You could make it more of a cat nap by capping to half an hour or something, then you'd probably get away with BT half an hour earlier.  What's her day looking like right now?  Most LOs do best on 12-13 hour days, depending on how long she is able to sleep overnight  (my son will only do 11hrs at night so that gives us 13 hour days, for example). You may need to cap a bit to stick to that. 
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 13, 2015, 16:16:09 pm
I've decided to make her WU time 8am to get her to bed a little earlier. Right now she sleeps 2 - 2.5 hrs total naps during the day, but at night its hard to calculate since she wakes up sooo much. Last night total sleep was approx. 10hrs minus all the random wakings it's probably more like 9hrs total. She is still waking up approx. 2hrs after BT and fusses on and off for about 1hr. Then falls asleep and wakes every 45min, 1hr or max 2hr straight sleep. Instead of bringing her in to our bed at 4am, I'll stay in her room and she is sleeping a little better. Here's yesterdays schedule:

WU: 7:50am
E: 8am - 9am  (bottle and fruits/cereal)
A: 3.22 hrs
S: 11:12am - 12:25pm  (1.12)

E: 1:30pm-3:pm (bottle and veggies/meat)
A: 3.45hrs
S: 4:12pm-5:05pm (53min)

E: 6:00pm (dinner)
Bath: :7:00pm
BT: 7:46pm  (fell asleep early while having bottle)   :(

*Woke up at 8:30pm, fussed for about 1 hr. Then came the continuous NW after 1 hr or so. Husband forgot to record those  :-[   
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 13, 2015, 21:16:00 pm
Hmm.... Those A times look closer to what you'd expect for an 11 month old, but the nws don't seem any better, and if she's falling asleep on the bottle only 2.5 hours after her last nap I wonder if it's been a bit much too soon for her.  I'd hold that first A at 3 - 3hrs 15 and keep the other A's to 3hrs max and hold that for a few days to see how that goes. I reckon your naps yesterday could have been OT  :-\

The other thing is that you could start using gradual withdrawal at night in case it's behavioural. I'll post a link in a minute. Jack used to wake for 2hrs until I got really strict with WIWO at 12-13 months and we've only had it happen once since  (when nursery let him nap too late in the day).

Also, how are you dealing with the SA during the day? I'm wondering if there's anything in the day we could that try that might help at night....
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 13, 2015, 21:21:45 pm
Ok, here's a useful link, with further links to WIWO and gradual withdrawal at the bottom.

Separation Anxiety
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 14, 2015, 01:54:18 am
Ok, I'll try to keep the A times a bit shorter so she doesn't get OT.  During the day she is very clingy, if I have to leave the room I'll talk to her and come right back to make sure she doesn't go nuts. She usually chases me around the house so I do feel its SA. I work from home and have a nanny help me with her during the mornings. She clings to her too. Basically she is never alone and gets plenty of love and attention 24/7.  ;D

I'll have a look at the link and try that out and report back. Thanks again!


This sounds very much like her:
      - clingy, especially to one parent
     - does not want to be left alone in a room, or with anyone else
     - suddenly has problems at sleep time; doesn't want to be left in his crib
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 14, 2015, 13:32:46 pm
Poor thing :( My daughter had very bad SA too - it was really hard on all of us :(

Is sleeping in her room an option for a few nights? I wonder if that's worth a go, and then using gradual withdrawal to get her back to sleeping by herself, whilst slowly pushing A times? On the A times though, just increase one at a time and hold for at least 3 days, or she'll get in a pickle. Some LOs need a week or so to adjust.

Let me know what you decide to do and how you get on  :) X
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 14, 2015, 18:35:23 pm
Yes, we've been taking turns sleeping in her room when she gets extremely worked up and won't go to sleep. Usually around 3am-4am.

I'll try the gradual withdrawal although I'm not entirely sure I understand how it works. She likes holding my hand or having my hand on her back to get back to sleep. Should I not touch her at all when she's crying...just sit next or near the crib? Do I come in and hold her hand for a bit and then move away or no contact at all?  ??? 

She did 3.15hr of A time this morning and only napped 30 minutes! No idea what's going on with her right now.  :o   She's not cranky though... 

So confusing  ::)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 15, 2015, 05:30:29 am
With the gradual withdrawal,  you could try holding the bars of her cot as a first step, or sit right next to the cot and talk to her instead of touching her? I remember many a night with my first LO sitting with my face pressed up to the bars of her cot... She also liked to hold my hand during nws. If you can break the touch bit, then you can gradually start moving away.

On her routine, would you say she generally needs a lot of sleep  (more than most babies her age), about the same,  or less?  My LO  would only nap 30 minutes when UT,  but it's usually a sign of OT, though not necessarily when the LO  is waking up happy. I'd keep on with the A time push anyway, if you can.  I'd have thought even if she's high sleep needs you'd still need to get her to around 3.5hrs A time,  though I might ask others to chip in if she is HSN as I have no experience with that at all  - my two are both LSN.
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 15, 2015, 18:22:33 pm
I would say she used to function just fine with a 45 minute nap in the morning, followed by a longer 1.5 hr nap in the afternoon...but then she'd go for that cat nap in the evening which I wanted to get rid of since I assumed it was causing all the NW. Too much daytime sleep.

 I was hoping transitioning to 2 longer naps would make her sleep better in the evenings but she's still waking 1-2 hours after BT.

I noticed this over the past 2 days: She has 3.15hr of A time in the morning and is only napping for 35 minutes. She seems a bit cranky.  When I pushed the A time to 3.30hrs a few days ago, she was napping 1 hr or some days more and waking up rested...so going to push those A times to 3.30hr again.

Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 16, 2015, 06:51:08 am
She *may* have been waking at night still out of habit rather than routine. The gradual withdrawal should help with that if you're consistent with it.

That's good that she's napping better on 3.5 hrs A :) I'd hold that for 3 days and then start increasing her second A as well  :)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 17, 2015, 15:53:24 pm
We had a slightly better night last night with only 1waking from 1am to 6am. Two things were different. One...she  had her 1st swimming lesson which clearly made her want to nap longer. (I had to wake her from afternoon nap ) . Two...daddy slept in room after 1:00am because she was having NW every 45min after BD. She wasn't fussy, would just cry to get us in the room then roll over and back to sleep within a couple of minutes.

I think she's a spirited child with loads of energy and the swimming definitely helped a bit.  ;D
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 17, 2015, 18:59:21 pm
Yes, it sounds like it  - that hopefully also indicates that she could handle a bit more A time as well. I think the SA  must be playing a part too though if she settled once you were in the room, so I'm sure gradual withdrawal will really help you too.

Here's to more improvements in the future  :)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on May 24, 2015, 02:26:20 am
So I wanted to share this interesting update...and hoping I don't jinx it!  ;D

When our LO would wake up really fussy at night, sometimes we would lay down with her on the floor to help her settle down and get sleepy again. We noticed she seemed to really enjoy the floor...so we decided to experiment. We made a little bed on the floor in the corner of her nursery...and she loves it!

So now, she still has NWs but they are less frequent and she settles in a couple of minutes. She now will go 2-4 hrs of sleep at a time, which is a huge improvement over the 45min we were getting right after BT.

If she wakes up very fussy in the wee hours, we will lay with her for a few minutes until she settles and then usually she's good until 7am.  (this seems to be her new wake time - no more 8:30am) I guess this is another sign she's well rested and needs less sleep. So she's doing 8pm to 7am more or less...11 hours at night and 2.5hrs day time naps.

So, my spirited baby seems to like the freedom of rolling around on her floor bed and not the cramped space of a crib!  ;D

Fingers crossed that the NWs will dissapear soon...
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: LovelyLilyandJack on May 25, 2015, 06:43:37 am
Great discovery and update! Fingers crossed it continues :)
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: Maxsmum2014 on June 01, 2015, 00:21:20 am
I just read your update about the floor bed and it seems very familiar to me. My son also has been waking every 30-45 minutes at night in his crib. When he is in a bed, any bed, he seems to sleep more sound. I was beginning to think his crib mattress may be uncomfortable.

Did you use the crib mattress as your floor bed? I may want to give this a shot.
Title: Re: 11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?
Post by: negracr on June 13, 2015, 05:44:09 am
Sorry for the late reply!

I had bought a 3" mattress for her playpen so I tried using that on the floor and she didn't like it. It has a plastic coating that is a bit noisy. So we just use a thick duvet and blanket instead and pillows as bumpers against the wall. She loves her little floor bed now and even brings her stuffed animals in to cuddle them  :D

She was teething last week so we had some rough nights but the past few nights she's been doing 4-5 hour sleep with no NW!! I'm over the moon that we're finally getting sleep !

My LO likes to roll around in her sleep so crib was to restraining for her. Good luck with your LO...I hope my feedback helps!