8 month old continual night wakings

[ChocolateyClaire]

Thanks for all your help!

My LO has a comfort item, a bunny rabbit/blankie and she holds it every night but she wants that and the dummy in the night!

When we've sat with her and put our hands on her to comfort when she's crying she picks up our hands, pulls them about, puts them in her mouth, scratches etc.....! I've sat there for 45mins before and she was no more asleep at the end as she was at the beginning!

With regards to our routine, I'm always slightly confused how to approach it because she wakes up so early. Today she stirred at 4.50am but we didn't actually go into her until 6.15, I know that she was chatting to herself a lot during this period but I fell asleep so am not sure whether she did as well. I usually count 3 hrs from waking up before first nap but if I'm unsure of when she finally woke for the day this is tricky. She doesn't have any obvious tired signs apart from being v grumpy and that's when she's over tired. Also, I was told to never wake a sleeping baby and as her nights are disrupted I always leave her to sleep during the day - maybe I shouldn't? We haven't done an early bedtime and to be honest I'm terrified of it in case she wakes even earlier. She went down straight away at 7 last night which was half an hour earlier than the day before.....but then she woke half an hour earlier as well!

Sometimes in the night though she really doesn't seem like she's massively tired. Hmmmmmph, who knows what to do....

[PaulsMom]

 

when she's crying she picks up our hands, pulls them about, puts them in her mouth, scratches etc.....!

. I think that when I was doing this with my DS he was still swaddled.  He could break out of the swaddle but for the initial part it helped to keep his arms down!  Not sure if you want to try that as it may be too upsetting if she's not used to it.  I would also limit eye contact because DS would always try to "charm" his way out of a nap.

When your LO is in bed but awake, some mom's count that has a half A time.  So if she was awake for 1 hour before you got her up, then that would count as 30 min of A.  You could try that. 

Wrt waking a sleeping baby.... Lots of moms do if the naps are running too late or will start to push BT too late.  It does depend a bit on your LO.  For example, I should be nap capping with my dd but she's a good sleeper and does handle longer As as the day progresses so its usually not a problem so long as I can get a 2nd nap in.  However other moms will start to cap the am nap at around 1 hour and then have an earlier pm nap which can be up to 2 hrs and then a normal bt. 

Katherine may have different views on this but if it were me, I would tackle the paci weaning before making any big changes to her routine as you are getting decent naps.  Once the prop has been removed and she can self settle or if you start to get short naps, then I would start to tweak the routine more.  Does that make sense?

[jessmum46]

I'd agree