14 Month - Consistent NWs Need Help

[alfredw]

Hello fellow parents,

Here is her current schedule:

7:15AM to 7:30AM - Wake up
8:00AM - Breakfast
10AM -12PM - Activity Time
12PM - Lunch
1:00PM - 3:00PM Nap time (Usually 2h to 2.5h naps)
3:30PM - 4:00PM Snack
4:00 - 6:00 PM - Dinner
6:00 - 8:00 PM - Activity
8:30PM - Sleepy Time
12:30 AM - 1:00AM - NW1
4:00AM - 4:20AM - NW 2
5:50 - EW where I put her back to sleep
6:00 till 7:30 - Repeat

After 8 months of breast feeding to sleep we've decided enough is enough and with another in the oven we need her to get to sleep on her own. So we started doing PU/PD with her and it's worked great because now we give her a hug, turn on her sleepy music, and put her down and she'll go to sleep within 5 to 10min. It's been only 4 days since we've started PU/PD with her so I'm not sure if it's part of the whole process or not but she'll consistently have NW/EW and I'm not sure what to do or to fix it? Maybe she's OT?

Another puzzle to this whole issue is that she'll have NW and all I have to do is go in the room, where she's usually standing in her crib, and I'll just put her down and turn on her sleepy music again and she'll sleep right away so I'm literally in there for like 2 or 3 min. I wonder if this is a bad thing because she's using me as a crutch to get to sleep. Is there anything I can do to prevent this?

I just want to make sure we're not moving from one crutch to another haha.

Regards,
AW

[sianie]

Hi there...

NW's are usually due to OT/UT or some sort of pain/discomfort. Is your LO teething at all? Does she have her 1st year molars through yet?

Are the NW's happening at the same time she used to be fed during the night? If so then they got have become habitual. It can take some time to sleep train & it's great that you are already seeing results with PU/PD...I'd carry on with this as it's working, consistency when sleep training is the key.

When she wakes during the night what does she do, cry? babble? etc....do you leave her to try to self-settle or do you go straight in? I would only go into her if she is crying a distressed (rather than mantra) cry....if you do have to go in then you can carry on with PU/PD if that settles her quickly.

HTH?

[alfredw]

Hi there...

NW's are usually due to OT/UT or some sort of pain/discomfort. Is your LO teething at all? Does she have her 1st year molars through yet?

Are the NW's happening at the same time she used to be fed during the night? If so then they got have become habitual. It can take some time to sleep train & it's great that you are already seeing results with PU/PD...I'd carry on with this as it's working, consistency when sleep training is the key.

When she wakes during the night what does she do, cry? babble? etc....do you leave her to try to self-settle or do you go straight in? I would only go into her if she is crying a distressed (rather than mantra) cry....if you do have to go in then you can carry on with PU/PD if that settles her quickly.

HTH?

Hello,

Any advice is greatly appreciated and I thank you for that. I suspect she is probably OT and will try tonight to see if a 7:30 put down will help her sleep through the night better.

She was teething couple of weeks a go but doesn't seem to exhibit any of those signs any more during the day. When she does wake up at night it usually crying and it usually goes from slow like a mantra cry to a more distressed cry if I don't go in after sometime so what I have been doing is going in right away. I'll try leaving her a bit and hope she can put herself down to sleep.

So homework for me is:
 to try earlier sleep times because I think she's OT as she gets really cranky around 7 to 7:30 but we wait until 8 or 8:30 to put her down
 leave her in her room to try to calm herself before going in there. She usually gets pretty worked up if I don't but I'll give it a try.

I'll report back later =)

Thanks again,
Alfred

[sianie]

It's certainly worth trying an earlier BT to see what happens, it's always a process of elimination as to what's causing the NW's......how long has she been on 1 nap for?

The only point I would make about teething (especially if she hasn't got her 1st year molars through yet) is that teething is generally much worse at night when LO's are lying down, also molars tend to move around a lot in the gums before they start to break through so you may not see an obvious signs of teething.