Help with sleep!--Angel baby to spirited baby?

[Marcemom]

Our sweet daughter is almost 11 months old. She slept through the night for ten hours from month 2 to month 6. She was born with 2.8kg and left the clinic at 2.6kg so we put her on a two-hour (breast+bottle) schedule and she quickly made the 3kg mark. Up to month 4 she used to be put down in her crib, no pacifier, no bottle...I was just singing and telling her to go to bed. At month 4 she started to ask to be picked up so we rocked her to sleep. or sometimes she fell asleep on her last bottle. From month 6 on (when I went back to work) she stopped sleeping through the night, crying a few times a night and some (if not most) nights she can stay awake for 2 or 3 hours in the middle of the night (1am to 3am, 2 to 4am etc.). We have a fantastic nanny that pretty much followed our routine and adjusted it here and there when necessary. Baby sleeps 40min to 1 hour in the morning and the same in the afternoon. She has solids, breakfast, lunch and dinner (cereals, meats, fish, fruit) and a cereal in the afternoon and three 220ml bottles throughout the day. I don't think it's the lack of routine or the inadequate food intake that makes her wake-up. I tried PU/PD several times, but I struggle a lot because I bought Tracy's book only when our little one was 9 months so when I do the PD she stands up in the crib and starts bouncing. She doesn't always cry, she just wants to play. If i try to leave the room she cries, so I do PU and sometimes she cries and pushes me so I do PD but she won't lie down, she gets up. How does PU/PD work if the baby stands up (but doesn't cry?) Our nanny is now suggesting controlled crying it out but it feels so wrong. It also feels wrong that no one is getting a good sleep for months now. If it's just "welcome to parenting" then I'll embrace it but I'm wrecking my head thinking where we did the "accidental parenting", how we could we go so wrong from a baby that fell asleep by herself and slept through 10 hours to one that can't get to sleep without a prop and wakes up many times? Help!!

[Kellyjs]

Hi and welcome. I'm so glad you found us rather than taking the nanny's route of CC. We don't support that here as Tracy believed it could break the bonds of trust between a LO and it's caregiver.

I do wonder if she's UT for naps. No amount of PD will help there I'm afraid. Would you mind posting your routine to see if we can help adjust things for you? I'm thinking those two UT naps are leading to those shenanigans at night. Many are going through the 2-1 transition at this age, or are already on one nap so there is a wise variation of what's considered normal, but I'm confident we can sort this for you ok?

I'll post some links for you to have a read through that answer some of your questions, but if you could post your routine that'll be great xx

From 2 to 1 nap transition (10-12m and older)

How to PU/PD (inc age adaptations)

[Marcemom]

Thank you so much Kelly!

We did sleep training last week and the nanny helped us. The good thing is that LO learnt to fall asleep by herself, which is big progress considering that she got used to falling asleep with the bottle or by being rocked. The bad news is that she cries a lot in her sleep now. She used to cry once at around 11pm, while still sleeping, but now it's several times during the night. She doesn't wake up but she's really loud and even if I rub her back she won't stop. Sometimes I think she gets even more upset if I rub her back. She calms down when I pick her up but then pushes a bit like she doesn't want to be in arms. Is she having nightmares?
This past weekend last weekend (the first one that we try the new sleep routine) we couldn't get her to nap doing PD, so she fell asleep by herself at mid-day in the stroller when we went out. She slept 40 mins and then we couldn't get her to sleep in the afternoon either. So we put her to bed a little earlier, ie 6.30pm instead of the normal 7pm. She slept quite well except for the loud crying, and at 4am she woke up and stayed awake for an hour, in the crib, and fell asleep by herself (I was talking to her telling her to continue sleeping, mommy is here, etc.) and she continued on until 7.30am, which is quite something.
So on Sunday we tried the same again, we put her to sleep only one time around mid-day and she slept for 30 mins, then put her to bed at night at 6.30pm or so. And same, she slept most of the night but she's crying out loud in her sleep.

Anyway, here's the usual routine, although I said, we've modified it to fit only one nap, starting two days ago:

6am/6.30 Wakes up, plays a bit on her crib, takes bottle (we prepare 180ml but she only takes 100ml)
8.30am Eats cereal with fruits
9am Activity
9.30am/10am Takes 220ml bottle and morning nap (we've cut this one now)
10.30/11am Activity
12.00 Lunch (chicken or fish or meat, mixed with vegetables: tomatoes, eggplant, carrot, etc)
12.30 Activity
13.30/2pm Afternoon nap (we moved this one to join the morning nap so that she naps mid-day)
2.30/3pm Bottle 220ml
4pm Activity or go out for a stroll
5pm Bath(every other day) or activity
6pm/ 6.30 Dinner
7pm/7.30pm Bottle, usually she takes 150ml/180ml
7.30pm Sleep

[Kellyjs]

Well done, I'm glad she's self settling for you  . It could well be nightmares, my DD had a brief period of something like this at this age too. I just went to her and used our ssh/pat method which let her know I was there for her. She also used to get mad if I picked her up, still does!

Oh wow, ok that's quite a huge jump in A time and not what we'd usually suggest tbh. I do think OT has and will creep in jumping that quickly to one nap at a completely different time of the day.

Will she take a CN in the afternoon after those short OT naps at midday? The 4am wu in the morning is definitely indicative of OT too I'm afraid.

Are you flexible on changing this new plan you've set at all? If so I'd suggest going back to two naps for a little while but moving them about a little. Perhaps a (hopefully) longer nap at around 10.30am for 1.5hrs then a short CN at around 3.30 for 45mins to get you to a 7.30pm (asleep by) BT. Wdyt? Xx

[Marcemom]

Hi Kelly! I'm back! We actually did change the schedule as you suggested and she stopped waking up at night, going from 7pm to 5am straight! It worked for about a month but now for a couple of weeks she's been waking up at 4.00/4.30am. How can we stretch that for at least another hour??

This is her current schedule:

4.00/4.30am; Wake up, play a bit in the crib
4.45/5.00am: Bottle (I try to stretch this as much as I can but she seems hungry), takes 150ml
5.00 to 7.30/8.00: lots of play and book-reading with mommy and daddy taking turns ;-)
7.30/8.00: Breakfast (cereal with fruits)
8.30: Play (nanny arrives)
9.00/9.30: Bottle 220ml and sleep (she used to nap for one hour but for the past couple of days these have been stretching for 1.5 hours) - tends to fall asleep with the bottle for this nap
11.00: Play
13.00: Lunch
13.30: Play
15.00/16.00 (time depends a bit on how tired she gets): she might get a small snack like a yougurt and then sleep (she used to sleep 30/40 mins, but for the past couple of days these have also been stretching to 1.5 hours!)
17.00: dinner
17.30: Play
19.00: Bottle 180ml and sleep. She never falls asleep with the bottle (which I'm very happy about!), we got a good routine and she falls asleep by herself in 10/15 minutes and I stay next to the crib. However, for the past couple of nights she cries quite a lot (I don't pick her up, I try to rub her back but she moves my hand away! I think she struggles to fall asleep even if she's tired because of the long naps?) so it takes 30/40 mins for her to fall asleep.

What do we need to adjust? At first we thought it was food but I think we're doing something wrong with the naps and now that she's napping longer she's obviously taking away sleep hours from the night.
Any help appreciated! We were so happy that your suggestions worked!! Thanks so much!

[Kellyjs]

Hey welcome back! Glad it worked out for you for a little while  . Sorry you're having EW again, that is not a nice time in the morning is it?!

That first nap is far too early for a 12mo I think. Even with the 4am WU. I think you're totally right in that the day sleep is taking away from the night sleep. That is a super long day (poor you)!

So in short, we need to completely change this up for you. That first nap is too early in a normal day and that last nap is too late to achieve a decent BT. I'm presuming the BT issues have been worse since the nap was longer? Seems like it from your routine.

Ok, so one step at a time. I think we need to push out that first nap first and foremost. I'd jump it by a good 30mins and do a nap at 10am. She will get super grumpy, I'm sos sorry about that, but it should only be for a day or two. One thing we do know is that she can do a good first A on a short night.

One thing I will also try and do is keep her in bed for as long as possible. Do what you do for any NW's. So sshing, sit by the bed, tell her your sleepy phrase, until you can at least reach 5.30am for now. Then at 5.30am (or later if you can manage it), walk out of the room and make a big dramatic 'good morning', lights on etc. All of this is telling her it's not time to get up yet, and will also help when you come to stretch that first A time as time in bed is not as stimulating. Does that make sense?

Then I'd hope for a 1.5hr nap at 10am taking you to 11.30am wu from nap. Should be the case considering she used to have an UT nap in here and with the EW has stretched her own A time.

I'd keep the last nap around the same time at 3.30pm and cap it at an hour. Bringing you to 4.30pm and that should be ok with a 7pm BT i think (this might need playing around with). So, wdyt?? xx

[Marcemom]

Hi Kelly! Thank you so much again, as your suggestions were extremely helpful. So the part that's a bit difficult is to keep her in bed when she wakes up at 4.30am. She's been doing a long stretch without waking up at night for a couple of months now, from 7.00pm/7.30pm until 4am/5am so I never had to come in the room to do the ssshing. But now I think the 4/5am wakings are because of habit rather than her being hungry, etc. So I tried to do what you suggested and leave her on the bed but she keeps crying and pulling my shirt like she wants to be picked up. So I always end up picking her up before 5am. I tried to leave the room a couple of times but she gets even more upset....how long am I supposed to be out of the room? I only lasted a couple of seconds before I come back in to turn on the lights and "start the day".

The other problem is the afternoon nap. It's really hard to get her to sleep by herself, and sometimes we take her in the stroller so she falls asleep, but she cries a lot. Only the nanny is able to get her to sleep the afternoon nap during the week. So this past weekend we tried something different, which is that we stretched the nap time from 10 to 10.30 (she doesn't get grumpy from being awake for so long, just tired!) and Saturday she slept 2 hours and yesterday 3 hours!. And no afternoon nap. As a result, Saturday night it was ok but Sunday night she woke up at midnight and didn't fall asleep until after 3am. So this morning before coming to work I asked the nanny to try and stick to the 1.5/2 hour nap in the morning and the 30 min nap in the afternoon...or should we try and cut the afternoon nap and join it with the morning nap?.... obviously not for 3 hours....

Also, is it ok to pick her up at this age when she cries at night? She calmed down only when I did...
Thanks a million again for all your help!

[Kellyjs]

A couple of seconds is perfect! I don't want you t leave her to cry at all, it just the whole idea of yay it's morning NOW is the time to get up yk?

I would think a bit of OT would've crept in with that long of an A time to BT. It's great she can do a 3hr nap but that long stretch to Bt would be a killer. Unfortunately you may have to cap that first nap down to 1.5hrs to enable a CN. It does suck, but until we get that nap closer to midday ish we can't have that long of an A to BT. wdyt?

Do pick her up if she's asking you to do so. The idea is not to allow her to fall back to sleep on you, but if she's inconsolable int he middle of the night, there's not much else you can do is there? I'm sure once this OT is sorted out it won't be as bad for you xx

[Marcemom]

Hi Kelly, here again . So we've managed to move the morning nap closer to noon so she naps 1.5/2 hours at mid-day and we removed the cat nap in the afternoon. There were a couple of days when that worked and she slept throughout the night until 6am or so but she's having a lot of trouble falling asleep at night and cries A LOT. she used to fall asleep in 10 minutes and now it's taking close to one hour. So we went back to the 1.5 hour morning nap and the cat nap in the afternoon. She falls asleep OK in the morning but in the afternoon it is quite a nightmare because she cries like she can't fall asleep, same at night. Last night she was awake for a long stretch (midnight to 3am) and cried and cried whether I picked her up or not and she seemed exhausted. She had a full bottle at 2am but only fell asleep at 3am. Teething is playing a bit of a role as she had a bit of blood in her saliva that I saw in the sheet, but I think her trouble falling asleep is independent of the teething as it's been going for a week now. Or do you think the teething is what's making it hard for her to fall asleep? I just hate to see her suffering like that, I don't know what to do :-(

[Kellyjs]

It could be a bit of both actually. Some have to do an odd 2 nap day when mostly on one nap. We did that. What I did (even though we did your way before the full transition of long am nap then short pm nap), is to do a v short CN at 9am in the morning for 15-20mins in the car if she had a bad night , then that could get her to her usual nap time or a little later without OT setting in. Think we had to do this once every 7-10 days or so? But i can't remember now. I do remember it helped massively as the pm nap was a no-go after being on one nap, much like you're experiencing now. Do you fancy giving that a go after a bad night? You'll have to judge it and see if you think she can make it to nap time early enough for it to work.

There could be OT before BT, what time are you trying for BT atm? Many bubbas like as short as a 11.5hr day early on on one nap. If you could post what yesterday or today looked like in easy format we'll take a peek. It does take a bit of tweaking to find the right A time to BT, but sounds like you're nearly there xx

[Marcemom]

Hi Kelly! yes, it's getting worse actually. What was waking up at 5am and then 4am, now it's 3.30am....
So this is what the weekend was like:

Saturday
4.00am Wake up
4.30am Bottle  180ml (she starts crying and pointing to where we put the morning bottle)
5.15am-8.00am Activity
8.00am Cereal with fruit
8.30-10.00 Activity
10.00am bottle & nap
11.30am wake up & activity
12.30pm Lunch
(we went out at 1pm to do some shopping and came back at 4pm to try and get her to nap)
3.00 Snack (small yougurt while we were out)
4.00pm Nap attempt= FAIL (she pointed again at the bottle, she had 150ml but she rarely has afternoon bottle, only lately)
6.45pm Bottle & bed time (she fell asleep with the bottle)
Midnight - Woke up, and stayed up for two hours until 2.30am - had bottle at 2.00am

Sunday
5.30am woke up & activity
6.00 bottle 150ml (even if she had had a bottle at 2am!)
6.00-8.30 activity
8.30 cereal
10.30 nap until 11.30
11.30-12.30 activity
12.30 Lunch & activity
2 to 4pm We went out for her to go walk with her walker etc. (had a snack at 3pm)
4pm Nap attempt, managed but cried a lot and ended up sleeping with a bottle
4.30pm Woke up extremely upset, crying a lot - calmed down at 5 then a bit of activity before dinner
5.30pm Dinner
7.00pm Bottle & bed time
(Monday)
3,30am woke up with teething pain
4.30am Bottle & activity
7.30am Fell asleep on feeding chair while she started to eat breakfast (!)

All in all I think we lost the right balance. We seemed to think we were getting it right and all of the sudden it all went worse.
We're trying to adapt but if she sleeps too early in the morning then we cannot get her to sleep in the afternoon as she's OT then wakes up at night. If we get her to sleep later in the morning then she's UT for afternoon nap,... At first we thought it might be not enough food or the wrong food at the wrong time but now we think it's just habit....any clues?

[Kellyjs]

I actually think you might have something there in that the bottle may be becoming a prop. It's really not ideal to have them sleep with a bottle due to the milk on their teeth all night so we might have to try and get rid of that asap.

I do think you're in the very yucky stage of the 2-1. She's stretching her own A times in the morning, the resisting the second nap and then being OT by the end of the day. 4am-7pm is such a long day for you both. You have my upmost sympathy  .

Can we start with breaking the association of the bottle right before her nap? Maybe bring it 20mins earlier and not have it in bed at all? It will be tough for a few days, but as it's not been going on too long hopefully it won't be hard to break it at tis point.

Also what I'd try and do is pick a (reasonable) time you're happy with getting up in the morning. Maybe just have it at 5.30am for a few mornings. Then we can look at moving it later in time. Any wu beforehand, if she's not crying, leave her be. If crying, go in and use ssh/pat and repeat your sleepy phrase like 'it's nighttime, go to sleep'. If needs be sit on the floor/chair and keep repeating until 5.30am. Then leave, come back very quickly, turn lights on and make a big deal about the fact it's now morning. That down time in bed will help with moving the day on a bit for you.

What we do know is she can do 6hrs first A and that yields a long nap. Amazing considering the short night. I don't think we should start off at that A time just yet, but it's good to know.

I wonder if she is a bit OT and what we could do is switch it up massively for a couple of days? It's just an idea, but when DD was pulling these A times and getting OT by BT all the time, what we did is apop a quick car nap at 9am for 20/30mins. I was then able to get her to 12pm or even 12.30pm for a nice long nap for 2hrs. This helped so much with BT. Do you think you could give this one a try? Looks liek she could go with it considering she fell asleep at breakfast!

It wll get better, I promise. But I am concerned about this NT milk all night wrt teeth and a prop issue. You could also try putting water in it at night instead of milk for a while?? The NW's will get better once we sort out this OT silliness xx

[Marcemom]

Dear Kelly,
silence for a long time because we followed your advice and it had worked!
I said "had" because three weeks ago she got sick and everything got thrown off balance...again!

So here's what happened, we removed the night bottle by slowly switching to water, it didn't take long, to our surprise, before she didn't want water anymore. It was just watered milk for a few days and she dropped the bottle and was going to bed OK. The daylight saving hour change in April also helped us a bit so we started putting her to bed a bit later and she was waking up at 6.30am or so which was fine by us.

Then she got sick with some gastro bug (this was the second time in 16 months she got sick so quite an accomplishment that she hadn't gotten sick more times before I guess) and while sick she wanted to be in arms most of the time (fever, vomits, NW, etc.). We took her to the doctor and she had lost weight, so after that, whenever she asked for milk or food in the following week we would give it to her, including at night. She would wake up at midnight and go through two bottles of milk (before being sick she would normally have three bottles per day) but we thought it was ok for her to be "catching up".

Now with all these changes after being sick the night sleep went crazy, and she stopped sleeping and not only having the old time wakings (ie be awake for two hours), but she'd wake up every 10 mins and want to be held...all night!! Impossible for her or me to get any restful sleep. She also didn't want to go with daddy so it's taking a toll on me (and I'm 12 weeks pregnant so not fun!!).

We digged into Tracey's book to check again about PU/PD but we see that at 16 months we just need to sit next to the crib and tell her to calm down, which she won't. I tried this out last Saturday and Sunday and she just doesn't want to go down. She stands up and stays there crying, even when I get up from the chair where I’m sitting and go reassure her when the cries escalate. So these two nights she nearly fell asleep standing up, and as soon as the cries turn into very stressful cries I picked her up and she stopped crying and fell asleep. I then put her down in the crib. She slept most of both nights, but wakes up at 5am wanting a bottle, which then gets her to continue her sleep until close to 7am, which is highly unusual for her.

Now last night she didn't want to go to sleep with me but with daddy and it was a complete disaster. The stressful cries wouldn't stop for one second and it was 30 mins of stress for him and for her. In the end he picked her up and sat with her on a chair and she fell asleep. I saw that in one of Tracy's cases she suggested to just put a mattress next to the crib and sleep there for a few days. We did buy one during the weekend, after reading Tracey’s suggestion, I'm just worried that putting in a mattress in her room introduces yet another variable to the mix, that might distract her further or confuse her, when we're trying to get her into the good sleeping habit she had picked up before getting sick.

Worth noting that she CAN fall asleep by herself because she has done it before, what we are not sure is if she knows HOW to (no pacifier, we’ve always been in the room until she falls asleep, etc.).

So here's how her routine has changed since I last wrote to you in February, and before getting sick:

6.00am waking up, playing a bit in the crib
6.30am Morning bottle
6.30am-8.30 Playtime with daddy
8.30am - Nanny arrives and breakfast (cereals)
9.00am to 11.30- playtime
11.30am - bottle and nap (we didn’t entirely remove this prop yet, we’ve only started very recently, we thought the night one was more important and she hasn’t had a night bottle in a long time).
13.30-14.00 - Lunch
14.00-18.00 - Activity & bath (she'd have a bottle or a yougurt at 4)
18.00 dinner
19.00 start bedtime routine, ie: say good bye to animals, read books, say good bye to daddy, etc.
19.30 -20.00 Sleep

For the past few weeks and after she was sick the nights have been so random that you never know what to expect. Only this past weekend when I didn't carry her to sleep and she cried a lot standing in her crib (with me sitting next to her) she slept most of the night. But again, last night after she had daddy carry her to sleep (after crying for 30 mins), she woke up again for two hours between 1am and 3am. Then had milk and fell asleep until 6am.  She has her mid-day nap for 2 hours and surprisingly she goes about her day as if nothing had happened during the night: she's in a good mood, playing, laughing etc. Even we she has VERY short nights.

We know how to get rid of the night bottles but how do we get her back into her good sleeping habit of going to bed without being carried? She doesn't necessarily wake up for a bottle but she wants to be carried, etc. Do we need to increase the food intake during the day? She's still not chewing properly so she doesn't get full solids yet. What are we missing??
Thanks again!!!!!!!