Extended night wakings & refusing to settle. Please help!!

[catht]

Oh someone please help me, I'm exhausted. Charlotte is nearly 13 months old & has never been a good sleeper. She had bad reflux until we got it under control at 7 months with some heavy duty meds. Until that point, she was waking every hour.  Once the reflux was under control, I did PU/PD to wean her from all her props & after an awful couple of weeks, things settled & she started sleeping much better, sleeping through most nights, just waking once on the others. After about a month of that, we hit the cold/flu season & she's been constantly ill or teething ever since so I havent been able to do any real sleep training. Gradually, things have regressed sleep wise & she's now waking 2 or 3 times a night & one of those will be a  big wake-up, anything from 90 mins to 3 hours long. During that extended wakening she will sit up in her cot & alternate between wanting to play & crying. I can get her to lie down (sometimes I just pat the mattress, other times I have to do PD) & then shush her while rubbing her back and although she settles, she just lies with her eyes open, she wont go back to sleep until she's ready, no matter what I do. If I lift my hand off her,even just to scratch my nose, she's up & it all starts again. We havent gone back to her old props (cosleeping, dummy, BFing to sleep) really, apart from we've been feeding her because she's been off her food at times and I was worried she was hungry. Feeding her or not feedng her makes no difference. We've been doing PD for nearly 2 weeks & there's been absolutely no improvement at all. Last time, things gradually got better night by night, I could see a difference within a couple of nights.

Her daytime naps seemed to naturally settle into a pattern of a 2 hour nap in the morning & around 90mins in the afternoon. I was worried the afternoon nap was eating into her night time sleep so I've started to push back her morning nap & cut the afternoon one out & just have one nap from 10.30 or 11am. So far, we're on day 5 of this & it doesnt seem to have made any difference at all. I honestly dont know what to try next, somebody please help!

[babybarr]

Massive ((((hugs)))) from a mummy who's LO also frequently does long NWs. They really suck

Have you weaned the reflux meds?  Could she need an increase in meds? 

Can you post her wake and bed times and what she eats during the day to help give us the bigger picture?

[catht]

Thanks for posting back. I'm pretty sure its not reflux related, she's no other symptoms & she can do 4 hours sleep at a time, something she couldnt do when her reflux was bothering her. She also doesnt do the screaming when led flat any more. She's still on 20mg Omeprazole daily & I was going to start weaning her down to 15mg in the next couple of months but dont want to do anything yet as I dont want to add a reflux flare-up into the mix. She's normally a really good eater & still has quite a few bottles of cows milk & formula(we stopped BFing a month ago)
Her morning wakeups can vary depending on what she's done in the night. I refuse to get up before 5am(she has been known to wake up at 4am & want to get up for the day) so it can be anywhere between 5 & 7am, although since we cut out her afternoon nap, its going more towards 7am.

A week ago, an average day was like this:
5.30am wake up & bottle cows milk
6.30am cereal & fruit
8am morning nap
10am wakeup, bottle
12pm lunch (sandwich or omelette)
1.30pm nap
3pm wakeup & snack
5pm reflux meds with yogurt
5.30pm bottle
6pm dinner (usually whatever we have, spag bol, roast dinner etc)
then bath, bottle(toddler formula milk) & bed for between 7 & 7.30pm

Now its like this
6.30pm wake up & bottle
7.30pm breakfast
10.30am nap
1230 or 1pm wake up & bottle
1.30pm lunch
5pm reflux meds
6pm dinner
then bath,bottle & bed although its usually now dead on 7pm, cutting out the nap has pushed it earlier.

[babybarr]

Ok, it looks as though she doesn't *need* the food at night.  She is certainly eating and drinking enough.  So I would quit the night feeds altogether.

Is she cutting teeth?  Have you tried paracetamol in the night and does that make any difference?

I would suggest she is over tired going to bed, that's a very long afternoon.  I would push the nap back to 11.30am and then move bed earlier if necessary - so something like]
6.30am wake
11.30am nap (for 2hrs or more)
6.30pm bed.

[catht]

Thanks, will try that. I'm pretty sure she's not teething, we tend to get all night screaming sessions when there's teeth involved and she recently cut 4 at once so I am hoping she's done for a while. I have tried ibuprofen as a couple of times, it seemed like something was bothering her but it doesnt seem to make any difference.