Author Topic: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore  (Read 1461 times)

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Offline Pumka

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Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« on: March 28, 2016, 08:28:20 am »
Hi there. We've been in EASY routine since 6 weeks, and everything went well. I didn't even know what it is not to have enough sleep during the night. Now my daugther is 8,5mo and she wakes up at night several times, trying to settle herself back with no success, so I need to come up to her, hold her hands and give her a pacifier, in 2-5 minutes she'll fall asleep after that. That lasts for a month already. She can wake up 3-6 times during the night, she immediately starts crawling and stands up, after that it's too hard for her to fall asleep by herself. Sometimes she settles herself though, but that happens fairly seldom(( When she wakes up, I don't rush to her, and wait for several minutes until I understand, that she needs me for sure. She sleeps in a separate room. For the last 4 nights I tried swaddling her to prevent wakings while crawling. That helped a little -- for the 1st 2 nights she slept almost thru the whole night, and should she wake up, she settled herself and didn't need me. Now it looks like she learnt how to get out of the swaddle, and today she woke up many times again and totally woke up at 7am which is too early...

Our routine looks like this:
8am WU
9am porridge and formula
11am sleep
1.30pm solids and formula
4pm sleep
5.30-6pm formula
9.30pm formula
9.45 NS

I'm confused and honestly don't know what I can do with it now. Please help me figure out what I do wrong.
Thanks in advance!
« Last Edit: March 28, 2016, 15:37:14 pm by Pumka »

Offline MasynSpencerElliotte

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2016, 17:57:43 pm »
Hi and welcome to BW!

A couple of questions - has she always had such a short night sleep? (Looks like 10 hrs from what you wrote?) And how does she fall asleep for naps and at bedtime?

Also I would caution against using the swaddle if she can roll and crawl, that was the point that we stopped using them completely. We did go through stages of nw's every time they had a new development - they woke to practice so we tried to incorporate more of that in the daytime.
Heidi




Offline Pumka

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2016, 20:04:48 pm »
Thanks for your reply!

It hasn't always been like this, but I don't remember how long ago it started. I think it started to be this way around 2 months ago. Before that she slept at least 11 hours. When I was feeding her early in the morning, it could be even 13 hours, but that was several months ago.
She falls asleep by herself w/o a pacifier for naps (she sleeps in the stroller in the street -- I just put her there and go to do some housework or whatever), and at bedtime I stay with her and hold her hands before she falls asleep (normally it takes several minutes), no pacifier again. I give her pacifier only if she wakes up and I cannot calm her down using shh and holding her hands.

Today I haven't swaddled her, let's see how the night will go thru. I think I give her all opportunities to practice crawling during the day, but these wakings last for a month already, and it seems to be too long for practicing new development, no?

Offline MasynSpencerElliotte

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #3 on: March 29, 2016, 03:08:26 am »
Hmm the fact that you stay with her at bedtime to sleep makes me wonder if it is partly that she started waking due to developmemt disturbances and just didn't knw how to get back to sleep? I had a hand holding prop with DD3 and I finally had to stop it cold turkey...was a rough few nights, I stayed by her bed and kept repeating a sleepy phrase (she was quite upset with me, but I kept at it until we cracked it).
Heidi




Offline Pumka

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #4 on: March 29, 2016, 05:20:25 am »
I thought about it too. I'll try not to hold hands, although pretty sure it will be hard)
What do you think I can do to her early wakings? 7am today again((( 9 hours bedtime total which is definitely not enough (at least for me). Do you think it might be enough for her?

Offline Pumka

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2016, 05:32:23 am »
Actually I'm pretty sure that she needs more sleep at night. At 7 she wakes up very sleepy. Today I tried to get her back to sleep for an hour. She fell asleep and woke up i 5 minutes again and again. That was no fun((( Maybe it's worth trying to get her to bed earlier? 

Offline MasynSpencerElliotte

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #6 on: March 29, 2016, 06:10:52 am »
7 am is a pretty natural wake time (well in our home anyways!) so I would go for an earlier bedtime. The A time after her last nap is quite long, mostly we tried to shoot for a 12 hour day but at this point where they still need two naps and more A time the day can be more like 13 hours to fit it all in.
Heidi




Offline Pumka

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #7 on: March 29, 2016, 06:55:03 am »
I also thought of trying to wake her up at 6am so that she doesn't wake up at 7... 7 is fairly early for us. So I will put her to bed today at 9pm and will try to avoid 7am waking. Will keep you posted)) thanks for your advice! :)

Offline MasynSpencerElliotte

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Re: Please help! 8.5mo, no good sleep anymore
« Reply #8 on: March 30, 2016, 20:58:26 pm »
Fingers crossed for you! I hope you can tweak to get lo to suit your routine (I remember doing that with DD2 - luckily she went along with it, sometimes their internal clock is too strong to change!).
Heidi