9 mth sleep nightmare

[Frostygrrl]

My lilltle one has always been bad sleeper. She 9 mth and I've just gone back to work and doing it tough. She wakes up 2-4 times a night.

She goes to bed 7.30pm then wakes 9.30pm, wide awake and had to settle. Will get her down at 10.30pm. She then wakes at 2.00am and 50% wake at 6.00am or wakes 4am, 5am. First off how do I get her not to wake at 9.30 pm

I try not to feed her to sleep but she is so hard to settle and will scream murder every time she is near cot. She has severe separation anxiety, stopped self settling at naps. She sometimes self settled at night but mostly don't. Plus she barely sleeps, during daycare she sleeps 3 times 35 min average.

Plus she is so whingee all say long at the moment. Please any advice would be much apprciAted.

[Kellyjs]

So sorry it's tough right now. Sending you lots of ((hugs)). 9mo is a prime time for separation anxiety.

A few questions if I may? How many days a week is she at daycare? Are the naps better at home? Are the nights worse when she's been at daycare?

Would you mind posting your easy for us to have a look at? Perhaps there's something there that can be tweaked. Are there any teeth coming through at the moment?

Sorry for all the questions, it just helps to try and get the full picture x

[Frostygrrl]

Um no teeth yet. Everytime I think teeth coming out no teeth appears. She does fuss all day long like she having it.

6.15am  awake + bf
8.00am  breakfast
9.30am  sleep (mainly 45 min, sometimes 1 hr 10min)
10.30am formula
11.30am lunch
2.00pm  sleep ( mainly 45 min)
3.30pm  formula
5.30pm  dinner
6.00pm  bath
7.30pm  sleep
9.30pm  awake
10.30pm sleep
2.00am   Wake
4.30am   Wake

Naps are better at daycare she has 3 naps around 45 min. They most rock her in her pram. Night time sleep pattern remains the same regardless of childcare days. She's never slept throughout the night.

Yes separation anxiety is the worst. Here hoping wonder week will finish soon.

[Kellyjs]

Always the way isn't it? Either teething (we think!) or wonder weeks   

I know you say naps are better at daycare but really those 3 45mins naps might be causing a little OT by the end of the day. It's what we call an UT/OT loop. She's going down for her naps UT then that's setting a pattern for the day. Then she's really not getting a restorative long nap. And the day does seem a little long too on those naps.

Average A time for a 9mo is around 3 to 3.5hrs. I think by the looks of it your LO may like a shorter first A if you sometimes get a longer nap, but that might be her catching up from the NW's.

I would aim for at least 1 longer nap and one shorter nap in the day and try and keep the day to around 12-12.5hrs max. To do this I think you're going to have to increase her A times. I would do this slowly adding 15 mins and holding for 3 days. Try and do BT around 12hrs after she woke in the morning too. This may try and go some way to fixing the OT.

If daycare rock her to sleep, do you think she relies on that to fall asleep? If we increase her A times to a suitable level do you think you might want to consider sleep training to help her fall asleep independently? This would mean asking your daycare people to follow it too. What do you think?

Here's a link about pu/pd which you might find useful. This won't help too much nap-wise until the A times are suitable but you could try this at night? The important thing is to be consistent. How to PU/PD (inc age adaptations)

[Frostygrrl]

Hi ya, thanks for your reply.


When she is with me I put her down for two naps and I still get the 45min long. Wouldn't it be better with 3 naps of 45min vs 2 45min?




For Reference here is daycare schedule:

6.30am   Wake
10.15am Sleep (40min)
1.15pm   Sleep (45min)
4.00pm   Sleep (35min)
7.11pm   Bath
7.50pm   Sleep (1hr10min)
10.11pm Sleep (2hr 49min)
2.00am   Sleep (3hr10min)
5.17am   Sleep (2hr)

Non daycare day:

7.17am  Wake
A 3hr30
10.47am Sleep (56min)  Left to ss 8min before distress cry. took 30min to calm down and sleep. tap bed n shss.
A 3hr30
3.17pm  Sleep (35min)   protest cry for 4min. 12min to sleep. was with her.
7.40pm Sleep (41min)

She use to self settled during the day nap, but recently has separation anxiety would be distressed straight away when i put her in cot. so i had to resort with basically staying next to her for the last 3 weeks. At daycare they tap the bed and shss to sleep, but rock her in the pram if they can't get her down. She only started childcare last week, so they are doing still in transition.

do you think her bed time is too early so she wakes early like her 3rd nap?

Do you want me to try do bath time at 6.30pm, and in bed by 7.00?

[Kellyjs]

Sorry for the slightly late reply, I have DH home this week and it's like having two lo's to take care of! 

I think it's really difficult with nursery. Many lo's don't sleep as well there. As she's only been there a little while, it'll probably take a while to settle in.

I can totally see what you mean by the 3 or 2 45mins naps. Technically, yes, she's getting a little more sleep in total but I think as it's such a long day she's getting OT by the end of it iykwim?

I think I would work on that first A personally. Perhaps extend to 3hrs 45mins and do w2s at around 30 mins to see if that helps the transition to the next sleep cycle. I will post some info about that in a min. But basically you go in at the 30mins point of sleep and very gently stroke their cheek until you hear a little sigh and the breathing pattern changes. Then I would do as you usually do to soothe her back to a deep sleep softly for 10 mins or so until you feel you can quietly back out of the room. What do you think?

Then I would keep that second A at 3hrs 30 and if she takes a 45mins nap, that's fine. Then I would try around 3hrs to BT. I would try this for about a week and see how it goes. Sometimes w2s doesn't work, it takes a bit of trial and error to get it right for your LO. I think we just need to concentrate on getting her to have one nice long nap by teaching her to transition over to the next sleep cycle. My DD was a chronic 45mins napper for months. The only thing that rectified it was a very long first A and w2s for around a few weeks to teach her that a longer nap was expected.

It does take time and patience to get this right. Maybe speak to your daycare people to see if they'll be up for doing this too?

How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods)

There's also some great info about separation anxiety taken from Tracy's book BWSAYP here Separation Anxiety

[Frostygrrl]

Hiya

I'll try w2s tomorrow. The strangest thing happened. She wouldn't go don't yesterday as her last sleep was 5.10pm. So she wasn't tired so ended sleeping at 8ish and slept until 1.30pm. So I gave her full bf and she slept until 5.10am. Then slept until 6.35 woke her up.

Do you think it's because she wasn't ut or ot for a change?

She did 2 x 40min sleep & 1 x 35min all in cot.

[Kellyjs]

Who knows?  it might be she's just crashed and is trying to catch up on some sleep??

Hope it goes well today x

[Frostygrrl]

Hi Kelly,

I think the 3 rd sleep in daycare must be helping. She went to bed 7.15 and woke 10.49 pm. Then 3.45am then 5.49am. It's a bit early but I guess it's ok. She then had two sleep yesterday.

1st nap 7.45am - 1hr43min
2nd nap 2.03pm - 48min   Wake to sleep

It's not as long as I wanted but longer thAn expected. I'm guessing any sleep is good sleep.

With the two sleep she did the 9.30pm wake up (1hr30min sleep).

This morn she woke 2.48am then 6.28am. She had two naps

1st nap 9.20am - 2 hr 12 min
2nd nap 2.30pm -  29 min ( was out, slept in pram )

Even though she seems to like 3 naps, I'm not sure I can get her to nap at those times. Daycare seem to get her way more tired. What do u reckon. I'll keep trying w2s tomorrow.

[Kellyjs]

They do find daycare a lot more tiring as it's very stimulating! Those naps look loads better though hun. Well done you! I'd try and stick with it for a little while and see if she settles into it.

[Frostygrrl]

  omg I want to cry... I thought yesterday was near perfect routine and she still woke 9.30pm on the dot right after 7.30pm sleep. Then woke 12.30am, 3.15am and didn't settle until 4.45am. Then 6.30am. She must be tired as she feel asleep on morning breast feed. I let her sleep to 8.30am

The wake to sleep seems working. I got 1 hr in the morning nap and 45min in the afternoon. It's almost night, in her bed and refuse to go to sleep. Grrr.

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

Try wake to sleep at 8:30 pm??

[Kellyjs]

I've had days like that too hun, where technically it was the 'perfect' day then the NS goes wrong! ITA with Sarah, how about trying w2s at 8.30pm?

(Hugs)

[Frostygrrl]

Hi ya just got this message will try w2s tonight. Just wondering am I doing it wrong. She takes like 40 min to settle to sleep. I put her down 2 hr 56 awake, read 5 min story. Walk out. She whinge cry 20 min. It use to take me forever for her to stop crying ( or not at all) but last night I found out she likes tummy rub, so today she stop crying in 5 min. The she whinge cry on and off til she fell asleep 3hr 44 min. Then she whinge cry in her sleep for two min.

I was in room hiding behind cot. Shssing every so often.

Should I put her down later. I've done it before but she gets over tired and goes straight to distress cry.

[Kellyjs]

I'm thinking she may need to go down a bit earlier perhaps? 3hrs to bed after a short nap might be a tad too much. Do you want to try 2.5hrs maybe? Wdyt?