Is this separation anxiety or something else?

[bluebell568]

My dd is 7.5 months old and is waking a lot during the night. She used to sleep through the night until a big growth spurt at 24 weeks. Since then we have had some good nights and some dreadful nights. At the moment we are going through a particularly bad patch and I could do with some help working out what might be causing it.

Teeth were definitely playing a part a few weeks ago. She would wake almost screaming about an hour after going to bed but some teething gel on the gums would send her straight off to sleep again. She has 2 front teeth and teething gel and medicine don’t seem to help her current night wakings.

Then she had a cold and cough and I thought her blocked nose and cough were waking her and making it uncomfortable to be lying down but that seems to have cleared up and the night wakings go on.

Then I thought maybe separation anxiety. If I go into her I can often settle her just by leaning over the cot and letting her twiddle my hair. Or if not I can pick her up and she stops crying and immediately snuggles down and goes back to sleep. Also she only wants me in the night and not DH. If he goes in to try and settle her she gets hysterical until I go and take over when she immediately calms down. But one night when I was really tired I took her into bed with me thinking if it was separation anxiety she would be happy next to me but she wasn’t, she still wanted to sleep upright on me and not lying on her back.

I have also noticed that when I go to her in the night and pick her up, she often does some enormous farts. She has also started crying after her bath when she is lying on the changing table being dried and dressed. So I am wondering if she is in some sort of discomfort when she is lying down. Could this be caused by starting solids? She had reflux and was always being sick until about 5 months when it started to get better and now she isn’t sick at all. The GP gave us gaviscon but we had so much trouble giving it to her we hardly ever used it. Right from birth she hated lying flat on her back and we would have to get her completely asleep before putting her down or she would be sick and then wake up again. She has always slept on a foam wedge and with her cot raised at one end.

Last night she went to sleep at 7pm. The night went like this

8:50pm  Woke up crying, I resettled her in her cot by rubbing her back
9:45pm Woke up crying, I resettled her as above
10:45pm Woke up crying, I resettled her as above
12:15am Woke up crying, I couldn’t settle her in cot or by rocking her. I fed her and she fell asleep again
3:15am  Woke up crying, couldn’t settle her in cot or by rocking. She did lots of farting and I decided to change nappy in case it was dirty. She got really distressed on the changing table and was arching her back. I couldn’t settle her so I fed her to sleep again. She woke for the day at 7am.


Last night the night wakings were fairly short with the longest being the 3.15 one when I got her back to sleep at 4am. But sometimes recently I have been up with her for 2 hours in the night trying to settle her. She goes to sleep upright on me but as soon as I put her in the cot she wakes up again.

Tonight she went to sleep at 7 and woke at 9:15pm. I resettled her by leaning over the cot and she fell asleep quickly again. So I'm thinking seperation anxiety?? We'll have to see how the rest of the night goes.

Last week I posted on the Props board thinking that resorting to rocking and feeding her to sleep was contributing to the night wakings but now I think that something else is going on that is causing her to be distressed in the night.

Can anyone help me make some sense of this please?

[bluebell568]

Well it's now 10.40pm and she woke up at 10.15 At first I thought she was going to settle straight away when I leaned over her cot as
 she sucked her thumb, twiddled my hair and closed her eyes but then she started kicking her legs, arching her back and crying so I picked her up. Standing up with her on my shoulder, which is usually her favourite position made her thrash about and cry. Sitting down with her on my knee worked and she seemed to drift off but then started thrashing about again. Now I'm feeding her and she has fallen asleep but is it because she was hungry or is the milk or the sucking soothing her for some other reason?

[LouiseV]

You poor thing!
I think the first thing you need to do is get this reflux looked at and sorted, because if thats an issue then no amount of sleep training is going to help. It looks like Pick up Put down might help, but you cant do it with reflux babies as it makes symptoms worse.

There might be some advice on how to get the meds into her on another forum on here?

Then I'd get her EASY looked at, as she might need some tweaking to help the NWs. You could post it on here or over on the EASY board and really get that age-appropriate.

Have a think about adding positive sleep associations if you can, like white noise or a cuddly.

At this age I would doubt SA myself :-)

[gyorgyi]

Hi bluebell! Thanks for your reply on my post!
I read yours and there are lot of things similar with us. My DD had reflux too but it's long gone. My DD doesn't fall asleep on her back either or the one time she did she wokeup after 10 min. I also feel that nursing to sleep became a propw with us too but I actually don't mind it because sometimes nothing else calm her down. I don't know that nursing to sleep during the day can cause night wakings...
The night wakings started on the day she had a mild cold and I left her at our childminder for an hour. First I tought her nose is bothering her but the cold is gone and tonight she woke up at 12 and 3 already.
I fed her at 12 but I refused to feed her anymore tonight. I am sitting close to her crib so she can see me, I already changed her and put some teething gel on her gums and now I wait.
I was wondering why do you think that your Lo has SA?
Is she showing any sign during the day? Mine started to be really insecure.
She used to play alone for half an hour-45 min at the time while I was doing some chores.
Lately she always needs to see me even if she playes alone but many times she start fussing after a few min and I have to go to her to show her somthing to play wth or sing a song to her.Also she started to prefer to be in my arms and starts to cry if I put her down. I have never been the carrying around my baby type, even if she was with me while i was cooking etc she sit in her chair or bouncer playing with somthing. Lately she only stayes for a short while and after she wants to come in my arms! I don't know what is going on..
I hope someone will come up with some good advice for us

[bluebell568]

Thanks for your replies. It's 5.45 am and she has slept since 11pm. The best night in ages! Yesterday I cut right back on her solids and didn't give her any fruit or veg. She just had a couple of bread sticks, a rice cake some baby porridge and plenty of breast feeds. so there could be a link between her diet and discomfort at night maybe. Or just a co-incidence.

I think maybe I thought SA because she has tarted crying when I leave the room. Not always but sometimes even when she is with dh. I have always left her on her changing mat while I run her bath but she has started bursting into tears when I leave and immediately recovering when I come back. She has definitely got too attached to twiddling my hair and I'm going to try to transfer this onto a taggie blanket.

Her Easy could definitely be improved as we can only ever get 30 minute naps and always have done. I've had some great advice from the Naps board before which has really helped to get her to nap in her cot but she still does exactly 30 mins every time like clockwork.

[gyorgyi]

Oh good for you! You had a good night sleep then!
Haha! Our DDs are like twins
She has never been so clingy. I always left her before bath on her changing mat too if the room wasn't warm enough, I could make a phone call or something and she would just play there and listen to the music. Well now even if I keep talking to her from the kitchen she cries! I have a baby sling and I am going to carry her because I do think it's SA triggered by the childminder. So leaving her alone is just going to make everything worst.

Mine loves my hair too! I have long brown hair and her eyes are sparkling if she can touch it. Of course I don't allow her because it hurts!!
She didn't have solids yesterday at all as I am experiencing some decreasing in my milk supply so she had lots of breastfeeding and around 3 oz formula before bed (around 7).
She woke up at 12 and I fed her and after at 3 but she managed to sleep back without breastfeeding but it took 1.5 hour and daddy moved to the living room
She wasn't even crying maybe just for a few minutes. Mostly she just played around in her crib and tried to take my attention.
I hope she will stop this because I am going back to work but today I can't even keep my eyes open!