Desperate for help

[bluebell568]

My dd is 8 months. She won't nap in the day and she won't sleep at night. I am so tired I just can't function. I go back to work in just under 3 weeks and I don't know how I'm going to cope.

We have never had naps longer than 30 minutes and despite lots of advice from the naps board I have not been able to extend them. A while ago she started to nap in her cot (still 30 mins) but now she's refusing that too.

At night she just keeps waking up and I can't get her to go back to sleep unless I feed her. Then she sleeps for anything from 45 minutes to 2 hours and then wakes again.

Is she ever going to sleep?

[clazzat]

Firstly, can you post what a typical day looks like (what time she gets up, when she naps and how long etc)? Then we can maybe use that as a starting point to move her in the right direction.

I do wonder, though, if the main problem might be that she is used to you feeding her back to sleep and that has become a prop.

[bluebell568]

Yes, I think you are probably right about the feeding to sleep. Tonight I have managed to feed her then bath and massage and then get her to sleep in her cot without being fed to sleep. I am going to put some expressed milk in a bottle and have it ready so that if in the night I feel she definitely is hungry either me or my oh can give her some milk but without the association of falling asleep on mummy. Do you think that might help??

A typical day would be something like

7am wakes up and breastfeed
8 or 8:30ish breakfast
10am nap (30 minutes)
11 or 11:30ish Breastfeed
12 ish Lunch
1:30 nap (30 minutes)
3 or 3:30ish Breastfeed
4:30 nap (30 minutes)
5:30 ish  Dinner
6:15 Bath
6:30 Breastfeed
7 - 7:15 asleep

Unfortunately our day doesn't look like that too often because I fight so much to get her to nap. The A times vary by how long it takes me to get her to sleep. For the 10am nap, I might set off with her in the pram at 9:45 and she might fall asleep straight away or she might not fall asleep until 10:15, or I might try to do a nap in her cot and she might completely refuse for half an hour and then I take her in the pram and she falls asleep at 10:45 and throws the whole day off. Or sometimes she drifts off while I am feeding her and has a 10 minute dose and then thinks she's had a nap and won't have another one and again throws the routine out.

[bluebell568]

She woke at 9.45 (2.5 hours after bedtime) and has had 4 oz of expressed milk. We had put 2oz in each bottle. She finished the first one really quickly so we warmed the second one which she also finished quickly. I then gave her a cuddle while dh warmed the third bottle but by the time it was ready she had fallen asleep. So it seems she was hungry or thirsty or something rather than just wanting to nurse. I'll let you know how the rest of the night goes.

[bluebell568]

Well she slept from 11pm until 4.15 am which is great compared to recent nights. But now she is wide awake. I gave her a breastfeed and after a while she came off and snuggled down to sleep but each time I put her in her cot she wakes up and is wide awake again.

[bluebell568]

I'm not sure but I'm wondering whether dd has been waking up hungry but not actually taking in enough milk before falling asleep again and hence waking up again after just 1 or 2 hours. I was really surprised when she drank so keenly from the bottles last night and that she then slept for over 5 hours. At her 4:15 wakeup this morning I gave her another breast feed and she went back to sleep in her cot at 5am. She then slept until almost 8 o'clock and then chatted happily to her teddy for quite a while before I went and got her up. So even though we had 2 wake ups that lasted 1 hour 15 and 45 minutes I've had the best night sleep in ages and feel much better today.

[clazzat]

Hmmmm, there seems to be a lot going on here.

A couple of things - by 8 months she really should be on two naps, even if they are short. They get to a point where a catnap causes more problems than it solves, and can actually lead to shorter naps because they are not consolidating their sleep, iyswim. Secondly, if she only naps 30 minutes for her first nap then you should probably be bringing the second nap forward. For example, my ds sleeps 9-9.30 and is then ready for his second nap at 12 - if I push him much later than that then I get a very short ot nap. Are you able to ap her back to sleep if she wakes after 30 minutes for the second nap? If you do end up with 2 short naps, then you would need to bring bedtime way forward to keep a lid on the ot.

Re the feeding to sleep, last night would suggest that she was genuinely hungry when she woke at 9.45 and that is why she managed a longer sleep after she had been fed. I think it is reasonable to expect that she only needs a maximum of one feed overnight by this age, so perhaps you can feed her the first time she wakes but then find another way to get her back to sleep if she wakes again in the night - even if you are not feeding her all the way to being asleep, she will be getting used to sleeping with a full tummy so she might be waking because she is not full, not because she is hungry, iyswim. You could try giving her some water instead of a bf. When my girls were this age, I seem to remember I used to split their last feed to get them to take more (it never worked for my ds, though!) and if they had a really good feed at 5.30 and 6.30 then they slept better.

[bluebell568]

Thank you. I think that's a really interesting point about sleeping with a full tummy so waking because she isn't full rather than because she is hungry. I'm afraid I am the same, I always have a bowl of cereal before bed because I like to go to sleep feeling full.
I think it's a good idea to try splitting the feed to see if I can get her to take more. I'll try that tonight.

I have never had any success getting her back to sleep after a short nap but I will keep working on it to try and get rid of the catnap. How early would it be ok to have bedtime if we had a short second nap?

[clazzat]

Early bed times depend very much on the child - I have friends who could put their ot baby to bed at 5.30 and have them sleep until 7am! With mine, I would probably not go much earlier than 6, although I think I would be prepared for 6/6.30am wake up - but to my mind, I would rather wake up at 6 or 6.30 with a well-rested baby, yk?