New to BW, advice needed for 14 month old.

[boozal]

Hello ladies,
I am new to this site and feeling quite desperate.  I have a 14 month old who is generally an angel baby but has tendencies towards being spirited where sleep is concerned.  She has always been a sporadic sleeper in that sometimes she will go through the night and others wake often.  She has never self settled and I'm afraid we have got into bad habits which I blame myself for and we have to always cradle her in our arms to sleep and then when asleep put her in her cot which can take anything from 5-60 minutes.  She seems to fight sleep a lot and keeps fidgeting to wake herself up when she feels herself falling asleep which gets very frustrating.  We have tried putting her in her cot awake, back rubbing and talking quietly but she just stands up and starts chatting and thinks its a game.  As soon as we either leave the room or she realise we aren't going to play she starts crying and gets very cross.

During the night she can be awake every few hours or on occasions sleep through, this is dependent on teeth and her daily naps, its hard to get her back to sleep and recently we have been bringing her in with us 'for an easy life'!!  If we do manage to settle her in her cot she often wakes after 10 minutes and can do this up to 4-5 times which is so tiring.  She is cutting molars at the moment and gets very bunged up at night, we put saline drops in her nose before BT but they don't seem to help.  Do we just ride things out when they teeth or are there still methods we can use to try to get them to sleep?

I am 34 weeks pregnant with horrendous SPD and totally panicking now as to how we will cope with a LO in a few weeks time.  I know we have left this late but I guess we can have a bad spell followed by a good spell and each time we think we've cracked it only to regress again.  I plan to co-sleep with baby and just have to get her a bit more independent before LO is born without her feeling neglected by us or traumatised by a massive routine change.  I don't want to go into the WI/WO really as I don't think she would cope with that but thought the gradual withdrawal method might suit her better, I'm still not sure though.  I know that I don't want to leave her to cry.
Her routine is as follows

Wake at 6am (on the dot!)
nap 9am for 1-1.5 hrs
lunch midday
sleep usually 3.30ish for an hour
dinner 5pm
bath
bed at 7pm usually asleep by 7.30-8pm

sometimes if she has had a good night she will only have 1 nap at 1.30pm for 2 hours but I've found it makes no difference to her night sleep.

Can someone please give me any advice about how to go forward with this, I really am feeling very low this morning and know we have to start something else very soon.  DH was up with her 4x last night, I know I need to make changes before LO arrives (if possible and not too unrealistic!)  Sorry there is a lot there!!

Many thanks, hugs x

[*Becky*]

Hi there,
Ok well as far as the routine goes I would cut back one of the naps to begin with. She is having a long day and a short night and ideally we want to lengthen the night out.
I think you could push that first nap out to more like 9.30am at least. At this age we did a short am and a long pm nap so your day might look something like this.
A - 6am
S - 9.30-10.15am
S - 1.15-2.45pm
Bedtime - 7pm
This is just a suggestion - you may prefer to do a longer am nap in which case I would try and push the first nap out to about 10am and then do a 30-45 min pm nap.

In terms of settling she needs to learn independent sleep. If she has never done this before then GW is your best method and I can post a link for you. WIWO is more suited for lo's who are independent sleepers but for whatever reason have gone off track i.e. teething or illness.
GW is very gentle and can be used when teething.
Are you giving meds before bedtime? Molars can be very painful.

xx

[*Becky*]

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=80750.0

[boozal]

Thank you Becky so much, I really appreciate your reply and input.

Today went slightly differently in that she had one nap from 11.30-1.30 and then went down at 6.30.  Sometimes she can handle just one and other times needs two.

She had her routine, ie bath bottle and where I usually cradle her and rock her to sleep I fed her her bottle and put her in her cot.   She went totally hyperactive and thought she was playing and I kept telling her calmly that it was bed time.  I had lights out etc etc, was talking calmly etc etc but I left her in her cot (she was very active and mobile) and instinctively left her to tire herself out (not sure if this is right or not) whilst I pottered in the next bedroom. 

When she started getting tetchy I went in and reinforced sleep and kept settling her back in the sleep position and she was still fidgeting a lot.  I left the room a few times and she didn't cry but was getting sleepy. She only cried twice but these were tired cries and I went straight in and soothed her.  Unfortunately she thought it was all a game and kept getting excited when she saw me so I sat next to her, avoided eye contact and spook calmly "mummy's here" and rubbed her back.  I find that my presence stimulates her in a way as she has an audience and squeels with laughter, disrupts her cot and constantly interacts with me (very cute!)

After an hour and a half of this she was becoming more and more sleepy, I was actually out of the room (as she wasn't protesting or crying) and she settled herself, I checked her 5 minutes later and she was fast asleep !!!

Was that all correct? Am I going down the right lines? At no time was she distressed ie calling for me and me not attending to her and I felt that my presence was somehow overstimulating her because she wanted to play with mummy hence why I left the room a few times. I am surprised it was relatively easy as I thought she would be more distressed not being comforted and held by us if that makes sense. 

I do give her calpol sometimes a few nights running as I agree they must hurt so much and I would hate her to be in pain with them and also give it to her during the night if she wakes frequently.

Thanks for the link I am going to check it out now, I am also aware that she is spirited as far as sleep goes (I think) she can be very easily overstimulated and fights it constantly, I see you also have 2 partially spirited children I am going to have a look around the forum now to see if I can get some advice about settling her and calming her.

Thanks again Becky, very very much. xx

[*Becky*]

yes DS is v spirited and I could never be in the room for him when going to sleep or he would just not sleep! We used WIWO.
It could be that after a good 2 hour nap she can handle more like 5.5 A time and she may have been a bit UT at bedtime.
I think if it were me I would aim to stay out of her room as much as you can so settle her and leave. Obviously if she gets upset then go in and reassure but then leave. It could be that your presence is preventing her from sleeping and she could get OT this way.
Keep me posted how things go
HTH!
BX

[boozal]

Thanks Becky it does help a lot, I'm glad you agree and I feel my instincts were right about staying out of the room. She woke 3x last night but settled again with cuddles but I feel that we have made a good start and I've been reading round the forum and I agree that the 5-5.5 A time before bed might suit her much better.
I think her sleep cues are really subtle too so I need to be more vigilant and move faster at getting her into bed.

Thanks again very much for your advice, greatly appreciated and I will indeed keep you posted
Have a good day x