Frequent night wakings 10 months

[Aimi]

Hi

I have a 10 month old who wakes up 2-3 times at night at the moment. I currently went back to feeding her cause it's what works the fastest. I have spent many hours doing pd and she'll sleep through 1 night and then it's back to night wakings again. I just lost motivation after doing it so many times after a cold or teething. I'd gladly do it if it gave me more than 1 or 2 nights. She wakes at different times and I can get her back to sleep by putting my hand on her for about 10 min but it's painful to hang over the crib and I can't do it night after night several times without improvement. She is extremly clingy daytime and wants to be held a lot. I'm wondering if the two could be connected and how I can best support her. If she really needs me now I was thinking about cosleeping fora while to get some sleep but I don't want to reinforce something if it's just a bad habit. Any ideas?

[Katet]

I've btdt with night waking.
The further down my parenting journey I get the more I realise two things 1) Connection by the child to the parents has long lasting positive effects, and they call you at night because they need you. 2) ask yourself why you think something is Abad habit...more than half the world's population cosleep and it's only in western affluent populations that baby's have sleep problems...for the most part because we want babies to sleep in non evolutionary ways.
So my answer is listen to your gut, shut out the noise around you of what others are saying and remember so much will change over the next 5, 10,15 and more years.
For me rather than bring my children into my bed (unless they were sick) I put a mattress on the floor of their rooms. Often words were just enough. Sometimes a hand through the crib spaces others cuddled up to me. Mine are teenagers now I miss those times far more than I regret them.

[Aimi]

Thank you, you're right of course about cosleeping being the actual norm! I coslept with both of my kids for the first 3 months but then it didn't really work for us. I really love the idea of cosleeping but I don't sleep well and neither did the kids after a while, they started moving about and woke up when they rolled into me.. she does sleep in her cot about 5cm from my bed though so I'm right there 🙂 I tried your advice of putting my arm through the crib instead of over it and I can actually do that lying down in my bed so that's not as painful, I just have to move her first if she's too far away in the crib. But that made a big difference so thanks!

what I was thinking about was taking her in to my bed for part of the night, like if she wakes at 5 cause it's really hard to get her back to sleep then but I'm wondering if that will confuse her if I don't do it all the time and if she'll then only fall asleep lika that which would be an undesirable habit if not bad 🙂

I was also thinking if there was something I could work on during the day to reassure her and that could help with the clinginess..I pick her up when she's crying and if I have to do something she'll sit in a sling but is there something specific I could do to build trust and security? My first one wasn't like this so there was never a problem.

[Katet]

Taking her into your bed may get earlier and earlier, but it may not, hard to know.
In terms of the clinginess... Part is your mental energy about it. She needs to feel you truely want that closeness as much as she does also looking for the warning signs before she gets upset. Cuddling just 'because' to build up the tank and looking at what works for her, my eldest was (and still is) loved up by companionship, doing things together. My youngest is (less so now as a teen) about cuddles. My friends 1yo likes his mum talking to him... She has to talk to him so much she says she can have him in a stroller watching her clean the whole bathroom if she carries on a monologue, but if she stops talking for 2mins hes whinging and upset...he loves the sound of her voice... She's a university lecturer so I guess during the pregnancy she spoke a lot. So finding that 'need' and working with it.
So If using the sling works...use it more would be my trick.

[Aimi]

Thank you so much, that's really helpful!