Help with improving night sleep

[Hayleys]

Hi

I just wanted to get some support with improving my little girl’s night sleep.  She has just turned 15 months and although she hasn’t been a bad sleeper she has never slept through the night (only on the odd occasions) so I’d like to see if I can help her with this.

This is her current EASY:

W -  (depends, usually anywhere form 5 am – 6 am)
S -  11:30 am (always has a minimum of 1 and a half hours, will often have 2 or even more, it changes every day).
BT - 7 pm

She is an independent sleeper and at the moment she go downs fine for her nap, but we’ve been having problems with bedtime.  She used to go to sleep independently at bedtime too, but when she dropped her second nap she inevitable got overtired and would consistently fall asleep on her night bottle and it has been like this for months now.  On the rare occasions where she hasn’t fallen asleep on it, it has been really hard to get her down.  I’ve been wanting to break this habit and over the last few days, I have been sitting her up when giving her milk in the bottle and this seems to have really helped with stopping her from falling asleep on it, so I can now  work on putting her down awake again.  This seems to be going well, it has only been 3 nights, but she seems to be getting used to it.  At the moment I am sitting by the door with my back to her and verbally given her reassurance if she does any ‘I need you cries’, she will then lay herself down.  This is what I did when we went through a difficult time putting her down for her nap recently.  As she got used to her new set nap time, I found that I was able to leave the room as soon as I put her in the cot and I now never have to go back in as she settles herself.  My plan is to keep to what I am doing at night and then leave the room when I feel the time is right and start WI/WO, does this sound ok?  It worked well for her nap and it just feels like the right thing to do at the moment.

Also during the night she will wake once, and the time of this can vary.  This is because she is still in the habit of having some milk in a bottle at night.  It has been a long slow road with solids with her, but over the last month or so she has progressed massively and I feel that now is the right time to wean her from this night feed!  I have been reducing the amount by an ounce over a 3 day period and I’m hoping that this will help to wean her from it.  In a week or so, we will be at the end of the bottle and I’m hoping that she won’t wake up for it anymore and if she does then I’ll just resettle her without offering milk.

The other thing is she is waking early from her night sleep.  I’m realising that she is definitely an 11hr a night girl and has never done a 12 hour night, so I think an 11 hr night is realistic for her.  I was getting her up even if she woke around 5 am but over the last few days I have stopped doing this and will now tell her that it is still night time and that it’s time to go back to sleep.  The first morning it took an hour for her to go back to sleep and she then only slept for 20 mins.  The second morning she woke at 6:10 am so we started the day then.  This morning though she woke at 5 am and it took an hour and 15 mins to fall back to sleep but she did then sleep for an hour!  The times of the early wakes really vary, I’m just wondering if she does this out of habit or if it is routine related?  She does seem to be tired in the mornings, but I’m sure that it hasn’t helped her if I have been getting her up any time after 5 am.  I really want to try to help her now to get better sleep!  Do you think by doing what I am doing  when she wakes early could help her to sleep for longer naturally?

Does anyone have any thoughts about any of this?

[ZacsMumme]

Hugs lovely. I think you sound really onto it with your plan

Re ew, definitely don't start the day at 5 - esp if BT is 7. I would only go in if she escalates crying for you. Then do wi/WO if you can. If she goes nuts you can sit I n her room in the dark with her till a reasonable WU time. Then WO and back in and day 'good morning' open curtains etc. this will pass I'm sure.

Personally I would opt for a 6.30 BT with that day, but if you don't think she will tack on maybe try 6.45 for a few days to help her catch up a bit. You could try feeding with the lights on then turn off and hum a lullaby then pd in the cot? - would this help her stop falling asleep?

Dyt she is OT or UT at nap time? Sometimes EW can be if the nap is too early, but also that nap could be OT if the ew have been going on a while YK?

[Hayleys]

Hi

Thanks for your support.  I’ve left it a while before responding as I thought I’d see how things go with the changes I was making.  It’s been a week now and we have had some successes but my lo is still not sleeping through the night so I thought I’d see if you think there is anything more I could be doing to help with this right now.

So her bedtime has been going great.  Keeping her upright whilst giving her the milk stopped her from falling asleep on the bottle (wish I had thought of this earlier).  The past two nights I have been able to put her in her cot, leave the room and she has been asleep within minutes, no crying or any issues!! I’m so pleased, this is how it is for her nap as well so she is back to going to sleep independently now, hope it lasts!

I am still weaning the night bottle which she still waking for.  The past three nights she has been only having 2 ozs and getting upset when the milk runs out.  I’m thinking of just trying to settle her without any milk tonight instead of reducing it to 1 oz as I don’t think she will respond well to this anyway.  I have noticed that since she is now going to sleep on her own at bedtime, it has also become a lot easier to settle her in the night if she wakes or struggles a little to get back to sleep after the milk.  Again, I can leave the room and generally she settles very quickly so that also is an improvement!

So the early wakes seem to have improved too but I feel that this is still an issue as it does vary.  Generally she is waking around 6 am, however from 4 am onwards she does seem to wake, settle herself and then wake so I’m not sure what quality sleep she is getting at this time.  She is also very noisy when she does this so I’m not really getting any extra sleep either! Do you think this could be routine related?  I have actually moved her nap now to 15 mins later.  Since doing so she has not had any 5 am wake ups, but I’m not sure if this is because she is now better at settling herself or if the change in routine has made a difference, hard to know, isn’t it!!

This is here EASY now:
W 6 ish
S  11:45 - ? (the amount of sleep varies at the moment)
BT 7 pm

Ok, so the other thing is that the last 2 days she has only been having an hour and a half sleep for her nap.  On both days afterwards she has gone to sleep at bedtime within minutes.  Before it could take half an hour for her to fall asleep and I’m not sure if this was because she was having a longer nap usually between 2- 2 hrs 30 mins.  As her night sleep has improved it does make sense that she is having less nap sleep, but is an hour and a half enough for a 15 month old? She does seem more tired in the afternoon.  Also when she was taking 30 mins to fall asleep on the days after a longer nap, we were still in the middle of the sleep training so perhaps that’s why.  Well when I say in the middle really she was very settled but I do wonder if she was perhaps UT.
As the clocks are due to go back at the weekend, I thought perhaps it would be best not to make any changes right now, but just wondered if you had any thought about these issues?  With regard to an earlier BT, I’m reluctant to change this at the moment as we did do EBT for a while and it just didn’t work well for us as she didn’t tack on sleep!

Thanks for your help!

[Hayleys]

Hi!

I just wanted to update you with what happened today. This was her EASY

W:  6:10
S: 12:10-2:10
BT 7 pm

My sister had her today as I was at work and said that her nap time got delayed so much as she took so long to eat her lunch. However she did sleep for 2 hrs and woke much more refreshed as opposed to the previous days when she us only slept doran hour and a half. When I heard this I thought maybe the later nap time he helped to make her more tired to sleep for longer and that perhaps this is the way forward as it could also help with the EW's too.

However at bedtime, despite seeming tired it took her 30 mins to fall asleep. She did cry towards the end and I did WI/WO. She settled quickly and then fell asleep. It felt like she was straining to fall asleep if that makes sense. Could she have been UT. The last two days when she has had an hour and a half nap ending at 1:30 pm with a 7 pm bedtime she has drifted off to sleep within minutes but when she has woken after her nap she has been grizzly.

Just thought it may be worth noting

[ZacsMumme]

It's tough one. Teeth 'could' be causing the ew - they often do here. Any on the move?

Her day looks good really...maybe try a 12 hr day - so slightly earlier Bt? But, as you say of she settles better with the longer A it may not be OT.

What about giving the later nap a chance to work and keep Bt the same. (3-5 days) see how the nap and nights go? What do you think???

[Hayleys]

Hi

So it's been so long since I've replied as my daughter has been unwell with a bad cough and cold. 

Regarding the early wake, she has now stopped doing this - yippee (hope it lasts).  I moved her nap later to 12 pm and this seemed to have done the trick - thanks for the tip!

Things are still not great overall though although I do feel that there has been improvement.  She is certainly teething at the moment so for sure this is in the mix!  She is in the process of getting more molars coming up.  There has been some nights when she has actually slept through the night.  However we have also had some very long night wakes.  The other night it was actually 3 and a half hours long!!  Ugh!!

I'm just wondering if these long night wakes are due to her teeth or if perhaps they could be routine related.  It seems that she just can't get herself back to sleep and can even be laying there happy and chatting at times.  It's this which has got me wondering if perhaps she is getting too much day sleep now.  She turned 16 months yesterday and this is how her usual day looks:

W:6 am- 6:30 am
S: 12pm (anywhere from 1 and a half to 2 hr 45 mins)
S:: 7 pm

As you can see her day nap does vary in length and I'm just wondering if I should think about capping it if the night wakes are related to this.  She is very much is an 11hr a night girl and I have noticed that the night wake does seem to follow a longer day sleep.  That being said as teeth are in the mix it's really hard to make a judgement call.

Any thoughts on this?

[ZacsMumme]

At 15 mths my DS nap was capped at 2 hrs so he would do a solid night, so yeah, it could be worth a shot

Great to see things have settled for the most part.

Long NW are so awful aren't they! sounds like teeth. Does medicating help?

[Hayleys]

Hi

Thanks I think I will start capping it at 2 hrs then as it may help!
The nights are very mixed at the moment.  Like I said she is definitely teething so this is certainly in the mix and probably explains a lot of the problems we are having!  3 molars are cutting and moving right now.

Just a few things, I’m noticing that when she does have a better night or perhaps wakes around 7 am instead of 6 am, due to night wakes and needing to catch up on sleep, she tends to take longer to fall asleep for her nap.  Yesterday it actually took 40 mins but it is averaging around 20 mins.  She isn’t crying, but just takes so long to drop off.  Do you think it is worth changing the nap time, currently it is 12 pm?  Or do you just adjust the nap time on the day if she has slept in a little? I’ve always just stuck to set nap time regardless of how things are, but I’m not sure if that is the best thing to do?
Also the last few nights we have been having more problems at bedtime than usual.  Again it could be teeth but I’m wondering again if any routine tweaking could help with this?  Her bedtime is always at 7 pm.  She has always had a 13 hr day and an 11 hr night which has worked fairly well, although she has never consistently slept through the night.  I’m just wondering if on the days she wakes at 7 am, does she need longer than a 12 hr day, do you think?  I don’t really want to change the bedtime but if it helps then I can.  Last night for instance she only had a total of 9 hrs sleep so she was under her usual 11 hrs so I’m thinking maybe it would be good to keep her bedtime at 7 pm.

Any ideas? 

[HenaV]

If it were me, I'd leave BT at 7pm. My DD is 28m and we still have a 7pm BT. That said, if you think she's not tired enough then I'd do as Sara has suggested, cap the nap at 2h and keep BT the same for 1 week and see how you go. if that does not get you the result you're hoping for, Id look at tweaking her day iykwim?

HTH x

[Hayleys]

Hi

Thank you for your response HenaV!

My DD has been ill again with another cough and cold and also some new teeth have popped up too!  I think I’ll wait and see what happens once she is fully better.  I have been capping her nap at 2 hrs though and so far we have not been having long NW’’s although still some wakes which I think may be due to teething and OT due to not sleeping as well whilst she is ill.
There is something which has been puzzling me - even though she has been ill, I have been able to put her down for her nap fine.  She will lie down happily and I can leave the room and she will then just drift off without a problem.  It’s the same every time even if she may is a little OT or UT, ill or not.
However, bedtime is a different matter.  We have been plagued with illness and teething during the last few months, so it’s been very hard to be consistent.  As you can see in my original post, she was in the habit of falling asleep on the bottle at bedtime for a long time.  I then managed to stop her from doing this and have been working on putting her down whilst she is awake (the same as her nap time).  I’ve been doing this for two months now and it’s only rarely that I have to not go back in the room and do WI/WO.  Like I said, illness has meant that I haven’t been able to always be consistent but over the last two months I have had spells where I have been, but she has not got to the same place where she doesn’t start crying, like she does for her nap.  Do you think that she is just not used to going to sleep at bedtime like this and she needs consistency to help her do this?  I’m wondering if it may be something I am doing or if it is EASY related?

What I have been doing is laying her down and leaving the room.  She will often then fuss or chatter.  She may stand up in her cot and moan or shout a little.  I leave her when she is like this. However, if she cries then I go in.  I sit by the door and calm her with my voice, usually she will then lie down and I can walk out again.  Sometimes I may sit there for a while, depending on if she has just got better from illness (where I may have cuddled her to sleep) and wait until she falls asleep.  I guess I am doing a cross between gradual retreat and WI/WO depending upon how things are and how recently she has recovered from not being well.  Perhaps this is confusing her, I don’t know?  Also if she wakes during the night, I have been doing the same thing but there are times when if she is teething then I would cuddle her and try to encourage her to lay back down by tapping the mattress.  I just find it so hard to know how to respond right now and I think that I may be confusing her.  Nap time I have been doing the same thing regardless of illness and teeth and she has not been getting upset so this is why I’m wondering if consistency is the problem here or is bedtime just more difficult.

Any ideas?