Hi everyone,
Our now 5month old had been sleeping through the night for months, until we were advised by the Ped a few weeks ago to reintroduce a night feed due to a "failure to thrive" issue. (My original post on this is "Failing to thrive..." under the Breastfeeding thread) Fortunately this was resolved fairly quickly and after a week of being on Gaviscon Infant (she was diagnosed as being a happy spitter) I was able to stop feeding her at night.
The problem now is that for every night for the last two weeks she has continued to wake up somewhere between 2am and 5am. She will normally lay there for a while, then she'll start singing to herself which turns into mantra crys and finally she starts crying properly. Apart from on two occassions when she's got herself really worked up and I did pu/pd I have been able to get her back to sleep by just giving her a dummy. She's definitely not hungry as most mornings I have had to go in and wake her up at 7am for her feed.
At first I though it she might been waking out of habit from being woken the week before, but now I suspect there is more going on. We are in the middle of moving house and have been out and about several times most days so it's very possible she is getting over tired and/or over stimulated. We have tried to stick to her 4hr EASY routine and most days she will get 2 naps (2hrs and 1.5hrs) plus a 45min catnap, but she is still waking up a bit grumpy from some of these naps and seems quite tired by the end of her A time - most likely because she has been signing half the night!
We also have my mum staying with us to help with the move so we have moved DDs cot into our room.
My final theory is that by giving her the dummy at night rather than doing pu/pd I have turned it into a prop, although once she falls asleep it falls out and she carries on sleeping....
So I guess my questions is where do I start? Should I try "waking-to-sleep"? Should I stop offering the dummy and night and only ever do pu/pd? Do I just get her through the move, and back into a more peaceful routine at home before trying either of the other options? Or do I just put it down to being a phase and something she will grow out of when she realises that she can sign as much as she likes during the day?!?!?!?
I realise we have been super lucky so far and that there are many mums and dads out there who have sleep problems far greater than ours, but it would be great to have her back to STTN again especially as she isn't even hungry!
Any advice would be most gratefully recieved!
Sarah
