Help!!11 month old wakes in the night, can stay up for hours.

[ShelleyMarlee]

Hi,
It's been happening more and more often, that my 11 month old DD wakes anywhere between midnight and 2 am, and will stay awake for up to 3 + hours!!! More and more her routine is out of whack, and she's been giving me a hard time at nap time both am and pm. I tried making her nap times a bit later, but I think that only made things worse. Saturday night she woke up at 1 am and was up until 4:45 am. She has yet to ever sleep thru the night. sometimes she still wakes because she is either hungry or thirsty.
I just don't know what to do anymore.
What can be keeping her up like this??
Her routine was as follows, until i tried moving her naps to a later time. approx 30 min

7/7:30 am wake up
8 am breakfast
9:30 am bottle and nap ( usually 1-1.5hrs, but seem so slowly getting shorter)
12:30 pm lunch
2pm bottle and nap ( same as morning nap)
5:30pm supper
7pm start bedtime routine  ( bath story bottle) usually asleep by 8pm.

Has a hard time falling asleep on her own.
tried pu/pd unsuccessfully for 3 weeks when DD was about 8 months old.

Any advice will be appreciated .
Thanks, Shelley

[Alison_3]

Shelley,
I couldn't read and not reply.  I'm not sure what's waking her up, but I had to send you some hugs.   My one year old has been fighting his naps lately too.  Usually he fights the p.m. nap more.  I see that she only has about 2.5 hours of A time.  I would think she could handle more, but if she's showing signs of being tired, maybe not.    We usually do about 3-3.5. 

You're certainly not alone.  Charlie has a difficult time falling asleep on his own and has yet to sleep through the night.     When she wakes at night, what do you do?  Is she fussy the whole time or does she want to play?  Has she started walking?  Is she teething? 

Hang in there.  Our difficult little sleepers will have to sleep through the night eventually, right?

[ShelleyMarlee]

I thought my DD could handle longer A time. What happens is she won't drink her bottle and I may be missing her "window" She also ends up waking at noon. Her pm  nap ended up after 3 pm, then she's not tired enough for sleep.
When my DD wakes, if I catch her before she is standing in her crib, she can usually settle quickly. Once she is standing... forget it!! I need to cradle her until she is either sleepy, or asleep, and put her back in her crib. Sometimes when she wakes, especially when it's for hours, she wants to play. She's just about to walk, and she been teething for what seems like forever, been giving her motrin before bed for the past 6 weeks.
I'm so tired sometimes, I could just fall over!

[Bryony]

Hmm, I would have agreed that she needs longer A times, but if you say she then gets 30 min naps then that would suggest OT. Have you tried extending them very very slowly?  All changes should be made gradually to avoid OT

Bryony

[ShelleyMarlee]

My DD doesn't take 30 min. naps, i mean I was trying to extend her activity time by 30 min.  All it's doing is pushing her afternoon nap too late, if she even takes it lately, and it has been making bedtime really rough, as in she just doesn't want to sleep, and after about 3-5 hrs she's up and seems to want to play, and it;s been taking hours until she falls back asleep.

[anyamom]

hi shelley,
sending you huge hugs... the only thing worse than a nw is a LONG nw!! my dd had 2hours nw @ 6months. what worked for me is:
1- i started putting her in her own crib (she was co-sleeping till then)
2- i did not pay attention to her (nor to dh, who kept asking me to pick her up) when she woke up, she kept playing with the select few toys that i kept in her crib. yes for the first few nights she protested and quite loudly at that, but i just kept my back turned to her, knowing that she didnt need anything at all.
3- i made sure she had enough calories during the day and just before sleeping.
4- i was rigid about naptimes. 9:30am meant just that, not even 9:31!!

either becoz of these or becoz my angel decided to shine on me, baby decided to stop night wakings.

now she has started nw again (she is 11months now) but she doesnt stay awake, she goes to sleep when patted. moreover, the afternoon naps were becoming a struggle. so i am re-instating the last two points again. it has really helped me with getting the afternoon naps going again.

i feel at this age, i would still go with bottle before solids, not sure if your arrangement has worked for you so far...  if she is hungry enough for the bottle, only then will she take it. solids before bottle would fill her up.

also i would put 2.5hrs between wake and sleep in the morning. are you sure she is getting enough to eat during the day?

i can imagine what you must be going thru.... i hope we are able to work it out ! hang in there , more hugs to you ...

[Bryony]

ShelleyMarlee - ah, in that case, you want to increase A time more slowly (not a whole 30 mins at a time - just by 10 mins or so every few days), and cut short one of the naps. Most people shorten the morning nap at around this age, eg to 45 mins, and then have a 1.5hr PM nap.  that should give you longer A times without pushing the day too long. It sounds like she is heading towards that journey of the 2 to 1 nap transition! 

Bryony

[ShelleyMarlee]

DD had another off night, was up between 2:30 am and 5am. It also took over an hour to get her to fall asleep.
I wish she would be able to fall asleep on her own. When left in her crib, she yells, throws everything out that she can find, once she does that, she tries to remove her bumpers and her sheets. What to do? She will only fall asleep if in our arms. Last night after 2.5 hours of trying to let her fall asleep on her own, I gave up as I was so tired I was seeing stars. Once in my arms, she fell back asleep.
DDis also a fussy eater, some days I wonder if indeed she has consumed enough calories, but you can't force her to eat when she doesn't want. If I give her milk before solids, she won't eat, but 90 min after a meal, she will take a full bottle of milk.
Thanks anyamom and bryony for the advice.
I am trying today to not let DD nap longer than 1 hr this morning. She went down with a struggle!! Hopefully she'll nap this afternoon, as yesterday, she simply refused!

[Bryony]

I think you will continue to have problems if she can't fall asleep on her own....  I didn't realise this from the posts below. We all wake up a lot at night and just go straight back to sleep - if she can't go back to sleep on her own she is going to need you to help.  Also I note looking back at your routine that you are giving a bottle before each nap - do you think she might need this to go to sleep?  If so you will need to slowly give the bottle earlier or move it to a different time so that she is not dependent on it to sleep

When you said you tried PU/PD without success, what happened?

What do you currently do to get her to sleep?

Also if she only had one nap yesterday she would have been very overtired - limiting her morning nap sounds like a good plan. At 11 months of age most LOs are on 45 mins AM nap and a longer PM nap. We are doing it the other way around but then we are strange!

Bryony

[ShelleyMarlee]

I know, Marlee not being able to fall asleep on her own is a big problem. The way she falls asleep is usually while I'm holding her, otherwise she is all over the place. Once her eyes are closed, I place her in her crib ... bad bad bad.. I know.
 I tried pu/pd. Did it for 3 weeks, no result. The minute DD is in her crib, she stands up, so I would put her down. This would go on for awhile, her screaming in the process. If I left the room, she would cry and scream. It would go on for hours, sometimes 2-3 hours. She would fall asleep while I was holding her, standing up by her crib, sleep for an hour, then would be up again, and would repeat this. After 3 weeks, I gave up, I was exhausted, so was the baby, she stopped eating, it was horrible.
The bottle before naps or sleep started when my dd was really young, and had undiagnosed reflux, and the only way she drank was while sleepy. She never falls asleep on the bottle now, usually after she's done, she crawls off my lap with force, and plays on the floor for awhile, until I pick her up and hold her so she falls asleep. Otherwise, she'll be all over the place, she can't sit still. Very spirited!! You know, the minute she is in her car seat, within seconds, she falls asleep, I wish she would do that in her crib!
Is 2 hours of nap time a day enough?

[Adriana]

Hi Shelley,
Lots of hugs!!

I also tried PU/PD with my LO at around 7 months and it didn't work, then I tried it at 10 mos and it worked like a charm. I could see improvement right away.

You should also check out a post called "Wonky sleep habits" which talks about the 2 to 1 transition. My Lo will be 12 months in 10 days and we're going through the transition.

By reading your post, I think these might might be your main problems. I also think she's getting a very short A time, but you know her best so also trust your instincts.

Hugs and I wish you lots of sleep for 2008!!!