How on earth do I deal with NW in a 9mo who goes to sleep independently??

[scruffymax]

Hi, I'm just after some suggestions.  We have been so incredibly lucky to have a "good sleeper" who slept through the night from a very early age.  For naps/night time, we go through our WD routine, I pop her in the cot with her dummies and she goes to sleep - sometimes straight away (morning sleep!), sometimes chats for a bit (afternoon sleep!), sometimes does a few little cries (bedtime!).

Over the last month or so we've had about one night a week when she has woken crying at night and I really struggle to know what to do to help her get back to sleep as she is not used to going to sleep with me in the room so it just seems to distract her.  She stands up in the cot, even though she is in a sleeping bag that is tucked into the bottom of the mattress (to stop her moving all around the cot).  I have tried lying her down but it either makes her cry or she just pops straight back up again.  I probably only tried that about 5-10 times though last night.  I have tried getting her up and getting her to fall asleep in my arms but that does not work.  I've tried bringing her into bed but she just wants to play.  The only thing that seems to work is giving her a bottle and putting her back down when she's drowsy.  Only problem was I did that last night and she woke an hour later, and then I ended up eventually giving her a second bottle (she drank all of both of them, 200ml each time) and after that she slept through until morning.  This is in a baby who started sleeping 9hr stretches at 4 weeks old - I could count the number of night feeds she's had since then on my hands!!  Yes, we have been very lucky and I really have no idea what to do when she wakes so if anyone has any suggestions I would really appreciate it!  Oh, and I give her some nurofen when she wakes in case it is teething pain.

[Erin M]

Oh, and I give her some nurofen when she wakes in case it is teething pain.

The tricky thing here is that once she wakes, then you have to wait for the nurofen to kick in before she's comfy enough to go back to sleep.  Though if it's only once a week or so, I could understand that you wouldn't want to medicate nightly just in case! 
Do you track your EASY routine?  Have you noticed anything different on the nights when she does wake up?  What's her daytime bottle intake look like in terms of ounces?  3 meals of solids a day?

[scruffymax]

I might try giving her nurofen nightly just in case for a week or 2.  I think there is a bit of SA happening too (which is quite difficult to deal with in the middle of the night as she wants me but won't go to sleep if I'm there!)

I don't write down my EASY - it varies slightly each day of course but is roughly:

6am (anywhere from 5:30-6:30) WU - leave her in the cot while she's happy, then go in and give her some toys; usually get her up around 6:45am.
E: 7am milk (180ml); 8am breakfast; 9:30am milk (180ml)/morning tea
S: 10am for 1.5-2 hrs (I wake at 2hrs)
E: 11:30am/12 lunch; 2/2:30pm milk (240ml)
S: 2:30-3pm-ish for 40min-1.5hr
E: 5pm dinner; 6:45pm milk (240ml)
S: 7pm

I'm strict on 7am milk, 10am sleep, 7pm bedtime but the others are more approximate.  It really varies how much milk she takes at a feed - sometimes the whole bottle, sometimes only half.  I have recently changed the milk feed times to come after solids/before day sleeps, as I was finding she would have a big bottle after the afternoon sleep and then be too full for dinner.  The amount of solids she eats varies too - I give her purees first and then finger food. 

I have a feeling a later afternoon sleep causes problems.  Yesterday she slept 10am-12pm (I woke her), then the afternoon sleep wasn't until 3:50-4:15pm in the car on the way home from a family function.  Up until about a week ago, bedtime was 6:30pm but I have been trialling having it at 7pm to fit in the increased A times.  I did put her to bed at 6:30pm yesterday though as she seemed super tired after such a short afternoon sleep.  There have also been 2 days in the last 2 weeks when she has refused the afternoon sleep.

This morning I capped the morning nap at 1.5 hrs to make sure the afternoon nap wasn't too late.  We'll see if that has any effect.  She went down without a peep for the afternoon nap (after 3hrs A time) which is not like her - she normally chats and plays a bit before that one!

I will keep working on the EASY but if anyone has any suggestions of ways I can soothe her and help her back to sleep at night for the inevitable occasional bad nights, I'd really appreciate it!

[scruffymax]

Hmm, just noticed and put 2 and 2 together, the NW are almost always around 10-11pm - that's an OT waking right?  Can a baby be OT from a long second A time even if they had a good second sleep?  I'm thinking of last weekend when she didn't go down for her afternoon sleep til about 3:45pm and we had NW.  Although I think that day she'd had a 2hr morning sleep so it would have only been 3hrs45 A time in the middle of the day.

[Erin M]

Generally a 10-11 NW would be an OT one.  OT can build as the day goes on, it's possible that she needed a longer sleep after the longer A.  As for what to do, I would just lay her back down, say your sleepy phrase if you have one (otherwise, you can start with one), and repeat if necessary -- pat her back if it helps.  I'd also keep an eye on her routine (which generally looks good) to see if you can find any patterns.

[scruffymax]

So if she's crying keep laying her down?

We had a good day yesterday - I capped her morning nap at 1.5 hours, had 3hr second A time, then almost 1.5hr second sleep, and she slept 7pm-6:30am.  That was even with Daddy putting her to bed (she sometimes gets upset when it's him not me).

[Erin M]

So if she's crying keep laying her down?

That's the general idea -- you're right there with her the whole time so it's not like you're leaving her to cry. 

However (and this is where you use your mommy instincts!) if you think there is some sort of discomfort at play, it's always ok to do some more snuggling.  Personally, I always err on the side of more snuggles, especially if it's not something that's going on all the time where I feel it's become a habit.  Glad you got a good night!