Author Topic: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings  (Read 2266 times)

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« on: August 12, 2013, 10:08:04 am »
I posted on here a few weeks back about my LO's night wakings and my task was to try and wean the dummy. Well this hasn't gone well and she's just wailed, not slept and been horrifically over tired. I have also noticed that her night wakings have been when she's had the dummy in as well!

She is currently having around a 1hr 30 - 2hr AM nap and a 45min ish PM nap with3 - 3.5 hrs awake in between which I think is OK but the nights are awful. Last night after going down at 7 very well she woke at 9.00 and her cry escalated so we went in a comforted / rocked her and she just cried and cried and was so tired. We ended up using the dummy. She then woke at 3.15 and I put the dummy in but she just spent the next 2 HOURS!!! making gurgly, squealy, happy noises in her cot, sometimes with dummy, sometimes not. Every so often the noises would change to an unhappy cry but that would then stop and she'd just be making other noises. Sometimes she'll wake up to 6 times and settle quicker or we'll have a big block of awake time - I'm not sure which is worse! Either way we are kept awake all the time. Last night she eventually went quiet at around 5.15 when she eventually went to sleep. She then woke for the day at 7.

She naps well and is fairly happy during the day but very hyperactive and demanding, always on the go, crawling, standing etc. She eats well and isn't hungry at night. She's teethed before and has 8 already and her behaviour hasn't changed.

We've had 9 months of sleep hell with only about 2 weeks in total that have been OK. She has never slept through the night and doesn't take kindly to any intervention to calm her during the night. I just don't know what to do as I just end up in tears or really stressed and angry at night.

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

Offline shirat

  • BW Devotee
  • ****
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 344
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #1 on: August 12, 2013, 18:12:15 pm »
i feel your pain! my lo is 8 months, still naps for only 30 min at a time and never slept thru the night. we got into a habit of feeding her when she wakes immediately during the night, which workes, and she settled back to sleep ,but now she 8 months old and still waking for a dreamfeed plus a 3-4 am feed.
i amjust so tired that anything to get back to sleep i am willing to do (i.e. feed her!)
have you tried feeding her to makes sure its not hunger?
we also did sleep traingin at around 5 moths and at the same time weaned the paci and swaddle. i think she just never figured out another way to soother herself but wont even look at a paci now, so thats why we started the feeds. It is really important to get some sleep with babies like this, so thats my advice! (note, we are not feeding to sleep. just feeding her when she wakes and putting her back into crib awake, letting her fall back asleep on her own)

Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #2 on: August 12, 2013, 23:43:36 pm »
Hi there,

She could be waking up for several reasons and I've listed some that come to my mind:

1. Dummy - if she relies on it to get to sleep and it falls out at night and she needs it to get back to sleep, then it is a prop and you might need to either look at weaning it or teach her how to replug it. Which method were you using when you tried to wean the dummy and how long did you give it/before you gave her the dummy? It sounds like she doesn't know how to self soothe without the dummy. During sleep training, you are no doubt going to get horrible naps and overtiredness but with consistency, it should only take about 2-3 weeks before she learns how to put herself to sleep. Does she have a comfort item?

Here is a link that might help How to PU/PD (inc age adaptations)

2. Food - if she is on solids, there may be discomfort...is she constipated at all?

3. Hunger - my girls (the 2 older ones) still had a night feed at this age. Both of them and I wouldn't rule out that she's NOT hungry. If you don't think that the dummy is an issue then I would honestly try and feed her (bottle or breast, whatever you're doing) and see if that will help her settle...as her being awake for THAT long, could also mean that she's just hungry. Would you be prepared to introduce a feed at night to see if it will help?
« Last Edit: August 12, 2013, 23:52:45 pm by Layla »



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #3 on: August 13, 2013, 08:04:11 am »
Hi Layla,

Thanks for the feedback. As for the dummy, it's really frustrating as when we put her to bed she doesn't have a dummy and can self settle but during the night it seems like she can't. She is able to replug herself sometimes but there are also occasions when I will go into her when she cries and she is holding the dummy, putting it back in and then taking it out again and crying!! We have also had night wakings when she has her dummy in. I do agree though that she has got used to us going to her. We have tried not going in and she just cries and cries, PU/PD makes her cry even more as she gets angry that she's been picked up. Putting our hand on her is even worse as she scratches, pulls and plays with it!

As for the hunger, she's never that hungry when she wakes up and goes at least 45mins before having her bottle and even then only drinks half so I was thinking that she couldn't be hungry in the night - would you agree with this? She really hates her milk though so the small morning feed is due to that too She hasn't had a night feed since she was 4 months and her night wakings haven't always been this bad.

Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #4 on: August 13, 2013, 10:59:40 am »
So if she can plug it in herself and you say that she sometimes cries with the paci in her mouth, then I would try feeding her to see if she will go back to sleep as she may be genuinely hungry. When you say she hates milk, what do you mean by that? I don't think her waiting for 45 mins before a feed necessarily means she's not hungry at night? I would try and feed her at night to see if she'll take a feed and if she doesn't, then you could rule hunger out.

With pu/pd, if you follow that link, it talks about not picking up unless really necessary as PD works best. If putting your hand on her agitates her even more, what about just staying by her side and trying to settle her with words? 

My other thought is that she's overtired from the short pm nap and might be too tired to put herself to sleep at night in between sleep cycles. For example, my DD3 is a thumb sucker and knows very well where it is and how to plug it but on the odd days where I complete stuff up her schedule (due to school runs for example) and she gets overtired from being awake for too long, she won't be able to self settle and I have to help her out. So I wonder if that may be the case with your DD.

Would you be able to post what her daytime sleep has been like for the past couple of days?

Can you think back to when night wakings did start happening and what changed around that time (change in daytime sleep or introduction of solids for example?)



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #5 on: August 13, 2013, 14:14:10 pm »
With regards to the milk, she only has 300ml per day, if that. We have been referred to a dietician with regards to this as my LO just refuses to have any more most of the time and never really enjoys it when she does drink it. She has plenty of solids though and eats well. This is why milk in the night probably won't go down well although I won't rule it out.

Her daytime naps over the past few days have varied slighty as follows -

Sunday
am 9.30-11.30
pm 3.15 - 4.00
- Night time was terrible with her awake on and off for 2 hrs. She woke at 7.00

Monday
am 9.40 - 11.10
pm 2.50 - 3.50
- Night time wasn't great but better than the night before. We got up 5 times and she woke at 6.20

Tuesday
am 9.00 - 10.20
pm 2.10 - 3.00
- I'm crossing my fingers for tonight although am holding out precisely 0% hope.

Her awake time in between the naps is sometimes quite long as she fights being up down in the afternoon and it sometimes takes me quite a while. I've found that even if she is tired it is impossible to settle her once she wakes from a nap.

With regards to when this all started, well she's always been a v bad sleeper but it got slightly worse when she started solids but not massively and then really bad when she learnt to crawl, around a month ago.

Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #6 on: August 14, 2013, 01:34:14 am »
I think she may be fighting the afternoon nap because her morning nap is too long and sometime around this age, some babies need to have a shorter morning nap in order to have a longer afternoon nap. How would you feel about cutting her morning nap to 1 hr...keep the A times in the morning at 3 hrs for now and about 3 before afternoon nap and around 3.5 hrs before bedtime. Sometimes if the afternoon nap ends too late in the afternoon, it can affect their night sleep.

So something like this:
7am - wake
10-11am - morning nap
2-3.30 - afternoon nap
7pm - bedtime

With regards to crawling and other developmental things, it is not uncommon for sleep to be disturbed as they tend to want to practice it at night too but it all depends on how you handle things at night. Try and keep things very low key when you go to her at night and as I mentioned earlier, you don't PU, you just PD but I actually found my girls responding best to me shushing them and rubbing their back around this age or just staying by their side and shushing.

I wonder if she's having tummy issues though because you mentioned it started getting bad when solids were introduced? Is she constipated at all during the day?



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #7 on: August 14, 2013, 13:39:30 pm »
Well today I've had to give her a very short AM nap as we had a class to go to. She went down for 40mins from 9-9.40 and then I put her down for her PM nap at 1.15 and she'd still asleep now at 2.35. I know I strung out her A time in between naps but I was concerned that she would wake from her PM nap and have a much too long A sessions before bedtime (she never has a later PM cat nap and would fight it all the way if I tried!). I'll see how she gets on tonight now although my gut tells me it'll just be the same. I've tried changing things in a variety of ways and nothing seems to make a blind bit of difference!

I think your suggested timings sound good, the only problem is that she wakes up more like 6 than 7 which would then bring everything forward an hour and mean her PM nap would end at 2.30. Hopefully over time she can manage a consistent 7am waking though!

She has had constipation in the past but at the moment I think she is OK and she greets us every morning with a rather large poo!

Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #8 on: August 15, 2013, 00:30:17 am »
If she wakes at 6 then offer everything 1 hr earlier and do an earlier bedtime. Don't hold her up until her usual bedtime hour (7pm) because that in itself can lead to overtiredness... staying awake too long before bed. If the routine change helps with nightwakings then we can look at shifting her day forward, starting with the morning nap.

Let me know how last night went :)



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #9 on: August 15, 2013, 08:53:56 am »
Last night was ok but not great. She cried out at 1 and we had to go in 5 times before she settled - it was the dummy that settled her but every time we gave it her she spat it out after 5 mins and started crying even though we know she can replug. She did cry out at some point after that but I think it may have been in her sleep as she went quiet again. She woke for the day at 6 and went down for her AM nap at 9 which I'm going to cap at 10.30 if she's still asleep.

I just have a feeling that nothing will change her!

Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #10 on: August 16, 2013, 11:45:25 am »
Sounds like she might be in some sort of discomfort. Are there any issues with food? intolerance? Also you mentioned earlier you tried pu/pd but that was with the dummy, right? Pu/pd doesn't go well with the dummy because independent sleep isn't really achieved as the prop is still there. How did her afternoon nap and night she go last night? What milk is she on? Formula or breastfed? If she's on formula, do you think that formula is making her tummy upset?



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #11 on: August 16, 2013, 13:38:26 pm »
Her afternoon nap was good although she took a while to go down after fighting it. When she eventually did she slept for 1 hr and woke at 3.30. Last night she cried out a few times but went back to sleep - without dummy - she cried and woke herself fully at around 3.45, we resorted to dummy and had to go in twice in 20mins, she stirred quite a lot after that but eventually went back to sleep without her dummy. She then woke for the day at 5.30 and chatted / dozed until 6.45. Whenever she self settles w/out dummy in the night she wakes up within 2 hrs. I know I should do pu/pd without dummy but I am just terrified. We are so sleep deprived anyway after 9 months of poor nights so the thought of having a week or more of even worse nights and bad days (she naps with dummy too so would have to take that away) fills me with horror.

She's formula fed and has been since 3 months. She was on a colic and constipation milk but we changed this to follow on at 6 months as we started to wean and thought we needed a formula that had the necessary nutrition. Come to think of it it was around then that her nights got worse but she hasn't got colic or constipation anymore therefore I am reluctant to keep her on the other formula. Maybe I should move back to it. I can ask the dietician this as we have an appointment on the 5th Sept.

It's so hard because if it is discomfort then wouldn't her wakings be more consistant? At present she could have 1 full on NW and a few cry outs or 5 full on NW, there's just no pattern!

Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #12 on: August 16, 2013, 20:37:55 pm »
Milk is really supposed to still be the main source of food up until 12 months and i am sorry i don't know enough about formula to make a comment and it might be a good idea to wait until the appt with specialist. I'll see if someone else can chip in and offer some advice in case I might have missed something  :-*
« Last Edit: August 17, 2013, 03:31:29 am by Layla »



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline Lolly

  • Bottle Feeding, Discipline and Socialization
  • Forum Moderator
  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 318
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 11227
  • Location: Neath, South Wales
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #13 on: August 17, 2013, 14:02:21 pm »
I would switch her back to the original formula you had her on and see if it helps. The follow on formulas have a different composition to the first formulas and the extra iron in them can upset tummies. The Easy Digest forumlas (what you describe sounds like this is what it was!) are also much lower in lactose than ordinary formula so that could be contributing to her discomfort (it does sound like discomfort).

The first formulas are perfectly ok to use until they are 1. The 6 month+ formulas are really a marketing gimmick as the first formulas can't be advertised to help breastfeeding rates but anything for 6 months plus can be so they like you to believe they are necessary - they aren't.

Does she show any symptoms of reflux at all  Reflux 101 - General reflux information. You say she doesn't seem to like milk, what are her feeds like? It would be unusual for a baby not to like milk - it's all they know and they have nothing to compare it to, it's more likely there is a reason she isn't feeding well.

HTH!

Laura
« Last Edit: August 18, 2013, 21:24:08 pm by Lolly »


Offline Layla

  • Resident BW Chatterbox!
  • *****
  • Showing Appreciation 362
  • Gender: Female
  • Posts: 8770
  • Tiramisu - my favourite cake
  • Location: Australia
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #14 on: August 18, 2013, 23:25:55 pm »
Just checking to see how things are going?



20/06/2012 - my angel baby

Offline ChocolateyClaire

  • New & Learning The Ropes
  • *
  • Showing Appreciation 0
  • Posts: 29
  • Location:
Re: 8 month old driving us crazy with night wakings
« Reply #15 on: August 20, 2013, 13:16:11 pm »
Well things have been a bit all over the place over the past 3 days as my LO has had a horrible cough and cold and therefore has barely been sleeping! Last night she was a bit better though so I'm crossing my fingers for the rest of this week.

Hi Lolly - her original formula was the comfort, low lactose one. I don't mind going back onto this but we're also giving her infant gaviscon for potential reflux and I can't use this with the comfort formula as it is slightly thicker than normal formula. I'm not sure whether she has reflux but I've been to the doctors 4 times now about her cough and reflux is one of the things they said it could be. She's not bring anything up and her cough isn't particularly after food but it's so much worse when she's lying down. To be honest the gaviscon isn't really doing much.

I've spoken to the health visitor about her lack of milk intake and have a dietician appointment on the 5th. Since starting solids she only ever has about 90ml of a 180ml morning bottle, 60ml of a 180ml mid afternoon bottle and about 180ml of a 210ml evening bottle. Sometime this is more sometimes less but this is the average. Once she decides she's had enough she smacks the bottle away and spits milk everywhere. She never seems to cry for it or seem hungry for it. She's always been fussy with milk, I think part of it is she hates being still and is always on the go so to get her to sit on my lap is an effort in itself. I'm going to see what the dietician says and take it from there