Is It Teething?

[kdawson]

Hello!  My daughter is 6 months and prior to 1.5 weeks ago was a really good independent sleeper.  1.5 weeks ago she got a cold and she still was sleeping independently.  But now she is really teething and seems alright during the day but wakes up crying in the middle of the night.  For 3 nights in a row I've had to move her in the bed with me to sleep. 

This is how it goes typically....I'll put her to bed in her crib (in my room) and she falls asleep on her own.  THen around 10:30 I bf her until she falls asleep and transition to crib.  She will either wake up right away crying or it seems she tries to get to sleep on her own and she can't and will start crying.  Depending on how tired I am I will keep trying to get her to sleep in her crib for about an hour until I give up and bring her in bed with me.  Last night I let her sleep with me but refused to bf her to sleep because I've gone down that road with my older son where he became dependant on it (not fun).  She did get herself to sleep on her own eventually.

My question/concern, now that I've done this 3 days in a row I am not sure if it is a habit and should stop it right away or should I be more trusting that it is her teeth and it will go away.  Maybe there is no right or wrong answer but it is very important for this not to become a habit because my sleeps are awful and I would rather have a few really bad night sleeps to break a habit than consistently bad sleeps where she has to sleep with me all the time.  If I was to stop this cycle tonight, how would I do it?  Note, I admit I haven't tried advil or tylenol because I've never given it to her yet and didn't want her stomach to become upset and therefore, replace one pain for another.  Thoughts???

[katie80]

Well, my first question before getting to the end of your post was have you tried giving meds? If it is teething pain, those should help some. And, if you give them at BT, they should last through the DF and would be given on a full tummy so shouldn't cause too much upset.

Is her daytime routine still going well? I guess if you're worried it might be becoming a habit, I'd do what you can to get her back into her crib. Can you hold her for a bit after the DF and then transfer?

[kdawson]

So I tried medication and not entirely sure if it worked.  I think it may have been teething or her 6 month growth spurt that started her wanting to be with me more but then right after she needed a new routine change.  The problem was that I was putting her to bed to soon.  I used to try and have her asleep 3 hours after her last nap but it seems almost overnight that shifted to being able to stay up 3.5 hours after her last nap.  This is why she kept crying when I  would put her in her crib and for a few days we were going through a UT then OT phase until I figured it out.  There were two night in a row where she actually slept a full 11 hours!!!  It was glorious.  Then last night she got up twice.  Is it typical to do this?  Maybe I am just used to my son where when he started sleeping all the way through the night he did unless he needed a schedule change or teething etc.  DD is a bit different in that she seems to be slightly random and I don't think I am doing anything different in the day.

[katie80]

Wow, 11hrs, that is great! I do think some kids are much less consistent than others and it's still normal for a BFd baby to wake in the night at 6mo. What is her routine looking like now?

[kdawson]

Right now her routine is like this:
Wake - 8:00
A - 3 hrs
S - 11:00 - 12:30
A - 3 hrs to 3:15
S - 3:30 - 5:00
A - 3.5 hrs
Bedtime - 8:30 and wakes up to twice in the night
She is BF every 4 hours and eating a bit of solids twice a day.  Her schedule may shift an hour earlier but activity time of 3 to 3.5 hrs is always the same no matter what time she wakes in the morning (generally speaking).

[katie80]

Routine looks pretty good to me... how are the nights going? Is she doing anything new developmentally that could be causing her to wake?