Desperate for help! Nearly 8 month old still waking up frequently at night

[PaulsMom]

Hugs.  I know it's so hard to tell what's going on.  With that frequency of nw's, I do think its discomfort.  Teething may likely be the issue.  It may be a ways off but the molars start to move up through the gum early (even though it may be months before they cut).  So they are in pain but you can't really tell.  I can't recall if you have tried giving pain meds but they may help with the teething. 

[albers30]

We've tried giving pain meds before bed and at night if they are really fussy but no improvement.  Most of the time they will calm down with a bottle if nothing else works.  Claire lately has been waking up once around 1ish eating 4-8 ounces and going right back to sleep only to wake up about an hour later wanting to play.  She doesn't cry or get fussy but won't settle back to sleep for an hour or so which is a problem because if we leave her in her crib she wakes sister up if we take her out we're up with her for that time.   Any ideas on that?  Any tweaks you think we need to make in our schedule?  The afternoon nap is actually more like 145-2 and we just can't seem to get it any later.  Maybe they're getting too tired by bedtime although they generally don't act like it.

[PaulsMom]

The 4 hr A before bt may be a bit too long.  Have you tried an earlier bt?  May be not super early but around 7 pm might help decrease the OTness.  Also keep the play before bt, relatively low key so they are not getting OS as well. 

If the 2 am wu is habitual, have you thought of trying wake to sleep?

[albers30]

What's wake to sleep?

[PaulsMom]

Wake to sleep is a technique used to stop habitual waking.  So if she's waking every night at 2 am, the idea is that you would go in and just gently rouse her around 1 am.  Don't fully wake her.  Then you let her sleep.  By slightly disrupting her sleep, she *should* sleep through if the nw was habitual rather than due to hunger, discomfort, etc.  here is some more info How to address habitual wakings (w2s and other methods)

HTH

[albers30]

That's an interesting technique, I've never heard of it before.  The problem with Claire is its not the same time every night.  For instance last night she went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 12:30 not fussy or hungry just awake and wanting to play.  After 20 minutes of rocking and taking 4 ounces of formula she still was wide awake and wanting to play but I was tired so I snuggled her in bed with me and after a while of squirming she fell asleep and slept until 5 am when she woke up and did the same thing only this time I couldn't snuggle her in and get her back to sleep she just played until she fell asleep again.  Not sure how long it was because I fell asleep first.  If I leave her in her crib to just play til she falls asleep she either wakes Lilly who is our bigger sleep challenged baby or just plays for hours and doesn't go back to sleep.  The night before this occurred at 2 am only.  Thoughts?  She's our better napper out of the two but it doesn't seem to matter if she naps a lot of a little and if she goes to bed at 7 or later.  While Lilly often wakes up more frequently she generally goes right back to bed with a little soothing so Claires issue is almost more frustrating.

[albers30]

I've got 8 month old twin girls and I have concerns regarding their naps.  Their typical schedule is as follows.

Wake 7-730
Activity 30-60 minutes
Breakfast 8-830 ish
Activity
Bottle and Morning nap 945-10ish
Lilly typically sleeps 30 minutes here, Claire sleeps anywhere from 30minutes to 2 hours
Activity
Lunch 12-1230 ish
Activity
Bottle and nap anywhere from 130-230 depending on how much they slept that morning
Lilly will generally nap 45-60 minutes here while Claire naps anywhere from 30-90 minutes here, generally if she takes a big morning nap she only naps 30 minutes here if the morning nap is short she'll generally nap longer here
Activity
Dinner 6ish
Activity
Bedtime 7-730

They both have issues with night wakings, I've asked for help in the night wakings forum on this and we've been working on it with no success so I thought maybe their napping was playing a part.  Claire wakes at night wanting to play Lilly wakes at night crying and wanting to eat or just be soothed.  They can wake anywhere from once or twice a night to every hour all night long.  Early morning wakings are also an issue.  Are they not napping long enough?  If not any idea on how to get them to nap longer?  Is this effecting their sleep at night?  They generally go down for naps and bedtime easily and they generally play fine although somedays they can be a little needy.

[PaulsMom]

wrt to crib parties, I usually figure this means an increase in A is needed.  what is Claire's A now?

[Layla]

Generally speaking, if your LO has had poor daytime sleep, that can affect their nights too. I noticed that Lilly sleeps less than Claire during the day - how does she fall asleep? When she wakes, do you try and extend her nap? Would you say she knows how to go to sleep independently?

With regards to Claire - if her afternoon nap is only 30mins long, do you offer her bedtime earlier?

I'll have a look at your post in the NW forum

[albers30]

Usually 2.5-3 hours before morning nap, 2.5-3.5 before afternoon nap and generally around 4 hours before bedtime.

[albers30]

Generally she falls asleep with a little rocking after a feeding. Sometimes you can lay her down drowsy and she'll fall asleep on her own but no she's not the best independent sleeper. 95% of the time she wakes up with a giant grin planning in her crib and my attempts to put her back to sleep are futile. If she wakes up drowsy I can pat her on the back or rock her back to sleep but this drowsy waking is rare.

We do try to put them down a little earlier if their afternoon nap is short but this doesn't always work usually because we have something come up for us that delays bedtime routine.

[Layla]

That may just be part of the issue - her inability to put herself back to sleep and because she has short naps and is then overtired.

Are the girls in the same room? Could it be that they are also waking each other up?

I am going to try and merge this topic with your NW post to see if we can keep all the answers in one place

[albers30]

Still struggling with Claire's crib parties. For instance the Thursday night she woke up at 4 wanting to play, tried to get her back asleep but couldn't so we left her to play in her crib. Didn't fall back asleep til nearly 7 am. Slept til 8 then up breakfast play down for morning nap around 1030. Slept about 45 minutes then up lunch play down at 230ish for afternoon nap. Slept til 445! Activity, dinner, activity then down for bed around 8. All naps and bedtimes were pushed back a bit due to sleeping late and long nap. Slept til 11 pm then up and playing, couldn't settle her back down til 1145 ish. Slept til 4, this time with a bottle and some rocking went back down in about 20-30 minutes then up at 630 playing ready to go for the day. Ideas on how to nix thd crib parties? Our usual schedule is listed above.

[PaulsMom]

If the A in the morning is only 2.5 to 3 hrs, I would start to increase that so she's up for 3.5 hrs.  She may start to show some preference for a long am or long pm nap which is fine.  The increased A should reduce the crib parties.

[Layla]

Also I think perhaps limiting daytime sleep to around 2.5hrs would help. So if you prefer the long am/short pm nap option, try not to let her sleep longer than 2hrs for the longer nap and about 45mins in the afternoon (or the other way around).