Hi all
I was hoping someone could offer me some advice as my 8 month old is waking a lot at night and I'd like to get it sorted because I'm going back to work in 5 weeks. I'm wondering if it's separation anxiety - my eldest daughter never really suffered with it so it's all a bit new for me.
She has a set bedtime routine and all other areas are pretty sorted (ie. food/naps). She slept through from her dream feed at 10.30pm/11pm until 5.30am ish for a week when she was about 6 months old but has stopped again and now wakes anything from once (rare) to every hour from when she goes down at 7pm ish, to when we start the day at 6.30am ish.
Most of the time she is easy to re-settle and goes straight back to sleep once she realises I'm there and give her her dummy back, but the last few evenings she has woken absolutely inconsolable. The first time I ended up resorting to the quick fix and breastfed her to calm her down, hoping it was a one off I suppose. Last night it happened again at about 9pm and my husband was determined to settle her himself as he rightly says he needs to be able to in case I'm not there! He is convinced she is calling for me so told me to stay out the bedroom which I found hard, but I did it. It took him half an hour though and resorted to feeding her too.
Last night she woke at 3am babbling to herself which escalated into full blown screaming and didn't re-settle until about 5am. I didn't feed her - I realise that doing so is likely to create more long term problems, and I didn't pick her up either. I also left the light off once I'd changed her nappy (just in case it was that). I just stood by her cot and she was fine as long as she was holding my hand but as soon as I took it away, all hell broke loose again. I genuinely think she only fell asleep because after 2 hours she was knackered. This is unusal though, normally she wakes many times but goes back to sleep easily. It's just constant up and down for me.
I spoke to my HV about this yesterday and she suggested some form of controlled crying. But we are at a disadvantage because she is still in our room with us so we can't really leave her for certain periods of time. We only have a two bedroomed house, and there is no point moving her in with her sister until she is sleeping through as she'll just wake her too. I think I do tend to pounce more quickly when she wakes in the night because of this, as I am very conscious of the fact that my husband has to get up for work in the morning.
I'll have a stab at answering the questions now, but please bear in mind I've stopped breastfeeding in the last 2 days in preparation for my return to work and her naps and food have very recently improved so our routine has changed a little, particularly in the afternoons and we are still finding our feet. Until very recently she was having 3-4, 40 minute naps per day after being awake about 2/2.5 hours and solids were touch and go.
How old is your child?
8 months (still quite small - just hit 16lb)
What’s her daily routine? What’s nap routine? How long are naps? What's bedtime routine? Time?
Start the day at 6.30am ish with 1-4oz milk, breakfast at 8am of cereal, nap for an hour and a half/ two hours at 8.30/9am, 3-4oz milk at 11am, lunch (savoury + yogurt) at 12.30/1pm, nap anywhere from 1pm-2pm for 40 mins-an hour and twenty minutes, 2-4oz milk at 2.30/3pm, dinner (savoury + yogurt or fruit) at 4.30/5pm, if we are out as we often are, she will often nap on the 20 minute journey home from 5.30ish, bath at 6/6.30pm once she starts rubbing eyes, into PJ's and sleeping bag with lights dim, bedtime feed of 3-4oz milk and then into bed by 6.30pm/7pm. Sometimes she will be asleep within 5 minutes, other times it takes about 20 minutes - I sit in the room with her until she is asleep otherwise I find I'm just going in and out.
Do you bottle or breastfed??
Breastfed until two days ago but have been dropping one feed and replacing with a bottle over the last two months in preparation for return to work.
How many wakes per night?
1 - every hour
What’s your LO like when waking at night? How long is he/she up?
Nearly always wakes crying and if she doesn't, she only babbles for a little while before starting to crey. Normally she will resettle immediately with her dummy but occasionally, like last night she can be awake up to 2 hours.
When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry?
Sometimes inconsolable, other times probably a mantra cry but which will escalate if not attended to.
What have you tried to settle??
Milk (but am determined not to do that again), change nappy (rare), cuddle if inconsolable, dummy.
What do you do for A time and how long is it?
See above times. Bella loves rolling and is not far off crawling so she spends a lot of A time on her mat on the floor, or in her activity centre. She likes cuddles too.
Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones?
She is near crawling I think. Has no teeth yet - keep wondering if she is teething but then nothing happens. My elder daughter didn't get her first tooth until her first birthday so may be the same here?
Do they have a prop? If so what is it?
Dummy - I do think this has developed into a prop but not sure what to do about it. And me?
Do they have a lovie?
Not unless that's me too!
Any help gratefully received!
(off to post second query in potty training forum!)
