Help! 14 month old not sleeping!

[Happy Mommy!]

I'm new here and I was reading some other posts, and you ladies sound wonderful! I hope you can help me as I am desperate!

I have a beautiful 14 month old daughter who I love dearly! We have been having a sudden problem with her sleeping. I put her down at night and she sits up and screams before I get out the door. This started 3 days ago and I am at a loss as to what to do. We did do the cry it out method at 11 months and it worked soooo well. It took 3 days and the longest she cried was 28 minutes. I hated every moment of it but grateful it worked. I have been trying this method again with NO success! She gets more worked up if I go in there and lay her back down and usually leads to her vomiting. She will eventually fall asleep after and hour or more. I will go in to check on her when she is quit and she sleeping sitting up and bobbing back and forth. If I do go into her room and pat her and tell her I love her and I'm just right outside her door she will settle down and start to fall asleep, when I turn around to leave she sits up and screams again!  Should I go in there if it makes her more upset when I leave?

Please, any advise is welcome. Thanks so much!

                                                  Jennifer

[LindseysMom]

Hello and welcome.  What time are you putting her to bed?  Could she be overtired or not tired enough?  Is she teething?

[Happy Mommy!]

Hello and thank you for the welcome and reply! She is teething and has been since she was 5 months. She has 14 teeth and I dont really remember a time when she wasnt teething since she started teething. Shes going to bed at her normal time. (7:30) and she IS over tired because she isnt napping for the same problem. It's almost as if shes having separation anxiety. I dont know why it would start now because I'm home with her all day. When she is her normal self, she is happy and will go days without crying. I am just so shocked at this change she is going through.
I did forget to mention that this all started the day after I switched her to whole milk. Could this have anything to do with that? And I do give her Tylenol for the teething before she goes to bed. I started that yesterday and it doesnt seem to help. Tonight she cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep. When I checked on her she was again sleeping sitting up trying not to fall over. I hate seeing her like that. I just laid her down and she stayed asleep. I think she fell asleep so quickly tonight because she was so tired from no nap. I tried to get her to take a nap for 2 hours when I had to get her up and feed her lunch.
Any suggestions?

[Katet]

You mention seperation anxiety & I think that is part of the problem & unfortunately it seems to be that Cry it out makes that even worse.

What I have read on cry it out, is that babies /toddlers fall asleep through exhaustion & giving up, they don't really "learn to fall alsleep" they learn that crying doesn't get the help they wanted & so give up crying & then as a result of giving up they end up falling asleep. Cry it out has possibly caused a "blip" in the trust your daughter has for you & maybe why it has started again is that she is trying to find out if she can trust you again... in extreme cases it breaks the attachment between parent & child, although in most cases the other parts of the childs life over ride the "sence of my parents aren't helping me here" & no harm is done.

I hope I haven't made you feel guilty for using Cry it out as it is recommended by Peds etc, but I have just read lots about the 'problems it causes' & I am strongly anti it because it DOES end up in cases like yours that the problem gets worse again & if you keep doing it it just gets worse & worse before it gets better

I think your solution is too actually go the exact opposite & stay with her until she learns to fall asleep with you there & then gradually move yourself out of the room over time (like a month)... Do you have the BW book? as there is a great example of this in the BW solves all your problems.

I know there have been times with my 2yo that I have needed to stay in the room with him, but over a couple of weeks we have gone back to being able to leave the room with him awake.

[LindseysMom]

I know what you mean about the teething.  I guess they will be teething for a while.  And Lindsey only has 6 teeth.   Have you tried Motrin for teething instead of Tylenol.  It has anti-inflammatory properties that Tylenol does not have which helps with the pain better.  I would tend to think that if she has not been napping well then that is probably why she is not going off to sleep as easily.  When they get overtired it is harder for them to get to sleep and stay asleep.  What time are you trying for her to take her nap?  I would try and give her a bit to eat about an hour before you put her down so you know for sure she is not hungry.  Then you can feed her again when she wakes.  That is what I have been doing with Lindsey.  I feed her around 11 or 11:30 and then again when she wakes up from her nap.  So she actaully gets fed 4-6 times a day.  I also tend to be on the opposite side about the cry it out issue.  I think she is so fussy because she is overtired, not because she feels like she can't trust you.  Just my opinion, not trying to start any debate about cio.  I think if you can get her naps straightened out then her night time sleep will get better again.  Can you post what her schedule is or what you are trying for each day?  That may help us fugure out what is going on too.

[Happy Mommy!]

Ryann's schedule is like this, at about 7:00 am she wakes, she then gets a bottle. The reason she gets the bottle first is because she refuses to eat first thing in the morning. At about 8:00 she will have her breakfast, then at between 10:00 and 11:00 she will have another bottle and go down for her nap. Normally she will go off to sleep as soon as I leave the room or you can hear her play for a few minutes. She will usually wake up at 12:00 or 1:00 depending what time she went down for her nap. She wakes and has lunch usually by 1:00 at the latest and then one or two bottles between lunch and dinner at 5:00 to 5:30. She then will have her night time bottle at 7:30 and off to bed where she will usually stay laying down and waves bye bye as I stand at the door. I miss that baby...
I did try Motrin for the teeth. It upset her stomach and her reflux. She has bad reflux that is being controlled really well with her medication. Her dose has been adjusted to the right amount two weeks ago. I know it's not reflux because she will settle down and go off to sleep with me in the room.
Could all this be because I spend every waking hour with her? Is she seeing too much of me? I have always been home with her, rarely do I leave her in someone elses care, but when I do, shes wonderful. It's not like she doesnt get enough of me.

[LindseysMom]

Hello.  So it sounds as if she is on one nap now right.  The only thing I would recommend is trying to put her nap until after lunch so that there is not such a long stretch in between nap and bedtime.  Maybe even out the time a bit.  I am giving Lindsey 5 hours of wake time until her nap and then it equals out to about 5 hours until bedtime after her nap.  Also, will she not eat snacks instead of all those bottles during the day?  Maybe she needs something a little more substantial than milk. I will post what I aim for with Lindsey and see if you think it is doable with your lo.  She should be old enough to handle the longer awake time between am wake and nap. 


wake 7-7:30
milk when wakes(breastfeed)
breakfast around 8 or 8:30
lunch or snack around 11 or 11:30
nap at 12:30
another snack or another lunch when she wakes around 2:30 or 3:00
dinner around 5:30
milk(breastfeed)  before bed at around 7:30

This is an ideal day and some days are off a bit but I really think that if you evened out the time a bit between her naps and bedtime it would help keep her from getting so overtired before bed.   


I spend pretty much every waking hour with Lindsey too and luckily so far she has not been giving me bedtime battles.(knock on wood)  I think your dd's schedule needs tweaking a bit.  Try it and see what happens.  If it does not work out you can always go back to the other way you were doing things.  Which is not wrong but it sounds as if it is not working for her anymore. 

And if she will settle with you in the room then I guess that is ok, I thought she was getting more worked up with you in there. 

Oh, and about the whole milk.  If she is getting whole milk with all those bottles then it may be too much for her to handle.  I have decided to hold off on the whole milk for now with lindsey b/c it did seem to bother her a bit ie green loose stools. Now I give her calcium and vit d fortified drinkable yogurt and she will eat cheese also. 

I am not trying to criticize anything you are doing, I hope it does not sound that way.  Just offering my opinion and some suggestions that may help.  :wink: