night wakes and bedtime nightmare for 9 mo old!

[dancingbear]

hi ladies

Wondering if someone can offer me some advice as i feel like i am losing the plot a bit!

Millie is 9 months old this week, breastfed and on 3 (small) meals a day. Our day goes something like this at the moment:

6-6.30am - up and breastfeed
7.30am - breakfast
9-9.30am - nap for 1-1.5 hrs
11am - breastfeed
12 - lunch
1-1.30 - nap for 30 mins - 1hr
3pm - breastfeed
4pm - tea
5pm - catnap in buggy for 30 mins (if short pm nap)
6.45 - bath, pj's, bottle, bed by 7.30pm

She's crawling now and is trying to pull herself up to stand all the time at the mo.

She's been waking at night for aaaaagggges now (since 16 weeks) I don't feed her at night and usually she can get back to sleep quite easliy with my hand on her and a little shushing. I try not to stay till she falls asleep but just til she's calm.

She often wakes around 10.30 - 11.30pm and between 3-4am.

In the last few weeks bedtimes have been getting increasingly difficult with her refusing to settle and crying a lot. Its often 8pm by the time she finally nods off. She won't finish her bottle and gets very upset if her dad tries to put her down, i always have to take over :-( With me she will dri k her bottle but still takes so long to calm down and goto sleep. She used to go straight to sleep with no fuss once upon a time!

Any suggestions? Does my routine need changing??

ps. naps were 30 mins on the dot but finally managed to extend with wake 2 sleep.

thanks

emma xxxx

[abbysmomma]

Hi.. do you have a bedtime routine? I know Abby gets super fussy after having her sippy of milk, but i read a few stories with her, go around the house saying goodnight to things and her dad, then into the bedroom for a lullaby and straight into crib. She would LOSE it if i tried to put her in the crib after her milk. This became especially important after she stopped nursing a few weeks ago. Nursing calmed her down, but sippy of milk aggravates her. 
We too are still dealing with night wakings, and just like you, it usually only takes a shush and a pat. We deal with usually two or more wakings a night, but I'm finding that she's SLOWLY getting better at soothing herself. I really do try and give her a chance to do it herself before going in. And last night, she started crying at 5:30am (yes, that's night for me!) and put herself back to sleep after about 20s or so. She did however get up every 15-30min after that until we got her up at 7:15am, but good enough for me. I didn't have to leave the bed! Really try and give them a chance first, especially since it's so easy for you to put your LO back to sleep. They'll get the hang of it eventually.

Hope that helps.

[Colin Macs Mom]

Hi Emma, sorry you're having some trouble. Like Aeri said, some LOs are much slower to learn self-soothing and that's fine - as long as you give them the opportunity to do so. How well do you know Millie's cries? Are you sure you're not rushing in?

Also, I do think your routine could use some adjusting; naps in particular. Most LOs drop the evening catnap around 6 mo and Millie's way past that. She needs that now because her second nap is shorter. The morning nap is an extension of night sleep, so ideally you want a shorter am nap and a longer pm nap. I'd aim for the am nap at 9:30 am and then the pm at 1:30 or preferably 2pm.

[dancingbear]

Hi guys

thanks for your replies! Well last night was the worst yet at bedtime, 45 mins of proper hysterics, urrrg! I'm gonna give her a little calpol before bed tonight so i can rule out teething. Although she goes down fine for naps, with just a little protest cry.

abbysmomma = yes we have a bedtime routine, bath, pj's, into her room, into grobag, sing songs while she has bottle, wind, quiet cuddle then into her cot. Its been the same since she was 8 weeks old and has always done the trick til recently. I'm wondering if i need to remove the bottle from the bedtime and give it to her a lttle earlier like when she gets her pj's on? hmmm, dunno!

I think i have been guilty of rushing in a bit as my partner is a very light sleeper and gets very grumpy if he's woken up. I do try to not stay til she's fully asleep tho, just until she's calm. Will try to leave her longer tho and give her the chance to settle.

Colin mac's mom- thanks for the advice, i know i need to drop the catnap but she seems extra tired recently and struggles to get to her nap times. I can stretch to about 3.5 hrs max between them so will try the timings you suggested with no catnap to see if that helps.

I just pray that one of these days i will goto sleep at night and wake up in the morning with nothing in between, not too much to ask is it?!?! 

thanks and will report back on my progress!!

emma xx

[Layla]

Emma - I was going to say exactly what Jessica said.

At 9 months, Jasmine was doing exactly the same and I was forced to keep the catnap because of the short pm nap. But then someone suggested to me that the catnap could infact be causing the NW, so I took a chance. I had to shorten the morning nap to 1hr. Wake her up after an hour and then aim for nap 2 at 1.30 (so 3.5hrs from when she wakes). I would also definitely bring the bedtime forward to say 6pm (if she's taken a short pm nap) until the pm nap lengthens or 6.30pm if the pm nap was 1hr or more. Until she is used to being awake for a longer period in the afternoon, I would keep the earlier bedtime. You're right in that she will definitely not last until 7.30pm and most find that they have to temporarily bring bedtime forward. Like Jessica said, morning nap is a continuation of night sleep so by allowing her to take a long morning nap, the cycle continues....

See how you go with that & let us know
Layla

[dancingbear]

thank you layla

its always nice to hear that someone has gone through the same things! she had a stupidly short pm nap of 15 mins today so had an early catnap at 4.00. i also gave her calpol before bed and she went down with no tears at all. we'll see how the night goes.

I'm gonna try limiting that morning nap to 1hr and see how we get on tho.

thanks

emma x

[traineeparent]

I had the same problem with DD taking ages to go to sleep and fussing and carrying on when she was about 7 months and was still having the catnap.   Previously she'd go to sleep by herself no problem almost every night.  So I got rid of the catnap but put her to bed 1/2 hour earlier.  It worked well - she was tired enough and settled a lot quicker, it was amazing!