HELP!!!!! Not sleeping through

[AndreaBH]

I have a 14 month old girl who is not sleeping through - she is waking up between 4-5 times at night - it's drivingh me nuts!!!! I dont know whats wrong with her... she seems to be hungry (her tummy is growling) so I feed her till she falls asleep and then we do it all again a couple of hours later... she is eating solid food during the day and seems to have a good appetite ... is she really starving at night or what?

[Layla]

Hi there & welcome

Could you please tell me what her daytime schedule looks like (naps, how many & how long; meals, how many, milk feeds....etc....? Is she breast of bottle fed?

How does she fall asleep during the day? How does she fall asleep at night?

Layla

[AndreaBH]

She usally wakes at about 5:30am we have a bf then solid breakie of cereal and fruit, sometimes a snack about 8ish, then bed about 9:30-10:00 sleeps for about 1-2hrs... then a bf again, solid lunch, another snack, depending on how long she slept in the middle of the day I sometimes put her down for a mini nap of about 45min around 3ish, solid dinner and bedtime routine in bed by about 6:30ish... she has always gone down really easily for all her naps (but she has to be really ready for them) and bed has not been a problem since we started a bedtime routine at about 3months... she is sometimes a little wingey if she is overtired but nothing much other than that..... which is why this is out of character for her.... we are going to try the p/u/p/d thing tonight to see if this works.... fingers crossed....

[em_here]

Hi there, does she have a good milk drink before she goes down to sleep?  Maybe she could be waking up thirsty.  At this age PU/PD is not suitable really, more PD, like when she stands up you would put her right back down.  It does seem that she has a good amount to eat during the day but maybe a good milk drink before bed and maybe a small snack would help?

Could it also be a little separation anxiety? Does she have a nightlight or anything, you know the dim plug in ones?

[Layla]

If she's waking up every couple of hours & only returns back to sleep on the breast then I would think that she is using the breast as a prop. So as Emma said rather than feeding her you should try pd. You might have better luck having your partner/husband helping you here as she will probably settle sooner for him knowing that he can't bf her back to sleep

Also with the routine...  you might want to try shortening her morning nap & offering the afternoon nap earlier than 3pm as a too late of a nap can have an effect on night sleep. I would aim for something like this:

5.30 - wakes
9.30- morning nap
10:15 - wake her up from the morning nap
1:30 - afternoon nap
3pm - afternoon nap ends
6.30ish - bedtime

Alot of babies at this age start making the transition to 1 nap so to get her sleeping slightly longer in the afternoon you could try to shorten the morning nap. Some don't feel comfortable doing that so they let the baby have a long morning nap & short afternoon nap but some babies don't fall asleep until too late into the afternoon,.... which in turn can cause bedtime delays or the baby will fall asleep at bedtime but will wake at night often... but I think the issue here is more that she doesn't know how to transition to the next sleep cycle without the feed... so I would do pd.

hth & let us know how you go
Layla