11 month old. Wakes every 1-2 hours. Seperation Anxiety?

[negracr]

Yes, we've been taking turns sleeping in her room when she gets extremely worked up and won't go to sleep. Usually around 3am-4am.

I'll try the gradual withdrawal although I'm not entirely sure I understand how it works. She likes holding my hand or having my hand on her back to get back to sleep. Should I not touch her at all when she's crying...just sit next or near the crib? Do I come in and hold her hand for a bit and then move away or no contact at all?   

She did 3.15hr of A time this morning and only napped 30 minutes! No idea what's going on with her right now.     She's not cranky though... 

So confusing 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

With the gradual withdrawal,  you could try holding the bars of her cot as a first step, or sit right next to the cot and talk to her instead of touching her? I remember many a night with my first LO sitting with my face pressed up to the bars of her cot... She also liked to hold my hand during nws. If you can break the touch bit, then you can gradually start moving away.

On her routine, would you say she generally needs a lot of sleep  (more than most babies her age), about the same,  or less?  My LO  would only nap 30 minutes when UT,  but it's usually a sign of OT, though not necessarily when the LO  is waking up happy. I'd keep on with the A time push anyway, if you can.  I'd have thought even if she's high sleep needs you'd still need to get her to around 3.5hrs A time,  though I might ask others to chip in if she is HSN as I have no experience with that at all  - my two are both LSN.

[negracr]

I would say she used to function just fine with a 45 minute nap in the morning, followed by a longer 1.5 hr nap in the afternoon...but then she'd go for that cat nap in the evening which I wanted to get rid of since I assumed it was causing all the NW. Too much daytime sleep.

 I was hoping transitioning to 2 longer naps would make her sleep better in the evenings but she's still waking 1-2 hours after BT.

I noticed this over the past 2 days: She has 3.15hr of A time in the morning and is only napping for 35 minutes. She seems a bit cranky.  When I pushed the A time to 3.30hrs a few days ago, she was napping 1 hr or some days more and waking up rested...so going to push those A times to 3.30hr again.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

She *may* have been waking at night still out of habit rather than routine. The gradual withdrawal should help with that if you're consistent with it.

That's good that she's napping better on 3.5 hrs A I'd hold that for 3 days and then start increasing her second A as well 

[negracr]

We had a slightly better night last night with only 1waking from 1am to 6am. Two things were different. One...she  had her 1st swimming lesson which clearly made her want to nap longer. (I had to wake her from afternoon nap ) . Two...daddy slept in room after 1:00am because she was having NW every 45min after BD. She wasn't fussy, would just cry to get us in the room then roll over and back to sleep within a couple of minutes.

I think she's a spirited child with loads of energy and the swimming definitely helped a bit. 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yes, it sounds like it  - that hopefully also indicates that she could handle a bit more A time as well. I think the SA  must be playing a part too though if she settled once you were in the room, so I'm sure gradual withdrawal will really help you too.

Here's to more improvements in the future 

[negracr]

So I wanted to share this interesting update...and hoping I don't jinx it! 

When our LO would wake up really fussy at night, sometimes we would lay down with her on the floor to help her settle down and get sleepy again. We noticed she seemed to really enjoy the floor...so we decided to experiment. We made a little bed on the floor in the corner of her nursery...and she loves it!

So now, she still has NWs but they are less frequent and she settles in a couple of minutes. She now will go 2-4 hrs of sleep at a time, which is a huge improvement over the 45min we were getting right after BT.

If she wakes up very fussy in the wee hours, we will lay with her for a few minutes until she settles and then usually she's good until 7am.  (this seems to be her new wake time - no more 8:30am) I guess this is another sign she's well rested and needs less sleep. So she's doing 8pm to 7am more or less...11 hours at night and 2.5hrs day time naps.

So, my spirited baby seems to like the freedom of rolling around on her floor bed and not the cramped space of a crib! 

Fingers crossed that the NWs will dissapear soon...

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Great discovery and update! Fingers crossed it continues

[Maxsmum2014]

I just read your update about the floor bed and it seems very familiar to me. My son also has been waking every 30-45 minutes at night in his crib. When he is in a bed, any bed, he seems to sleep more sound. I was beginning to think his crib mattress may be uncomfortable.

Did you use the crib mattress as your floor bed? I may want to give this a shot.

[negracr]

Sorry for the late reply!

I had bought a 3" mattress for her playpen so I tried using that on the floor and she didn't like it. It has a plastic coating that is a bit noisy. So we just use a thick duvet and blanket instead and pillows as bumpers against the wall. She loves her little floor bed now and even brings her stuffed animals in to cuddle them 

She was teething last week so we had some rough nights but the past few nights she's been doing 4-5 hour sleep with no NW!! I'm over the moon that we're finally getting sleep !

My LO likes to roll around in her sleep so crib was to restraining for her. Good luck with your LO...I hope my feedback helps!