Won't lie down

[jessmum46]

Posting on behalf of spughe - text below copied and pasted
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hi there

I'm really hoping you can help us.  My 10 month little girl has a beautiful temprament and is super contented and happy (except when she is hungry or tired).  She sleeps through the night consistently, so we are extremely lucky. The only problem is that she can't put herself to sleep anymore. I can't get her to lie down to go to sleep; she constantly sits or stands up and cries when I lie her down. I was trying the pu/pd method for over 8 month olds, lying her every time she pulls or stands up, for the last two nights and nap time this morning. Each time it's taken 2 hours to get her to sleep. I can see she's exhausted because she shows clear signs of tiredness and most of the crying is frustration at not sleeping, I think. I just can't see how different this is to crying it out. Nothing I do seems to calm her (holding her does only a bit), even though the method says you should be able to with your voice by now. And if I touch her she pushes my hand away. 

I know you're meant to give this time to work, but I can't see that anything I'm doing will have an effect, when, in effect, she's just crying until she can't keep her eyes open anymore. And two hours a time seems extreme, especially for such a happy little girl. This morning it was two hours with no result in the end.  Also, both nights she's woken and wailed about 3-4 times in the middle of the night, which she never does usually, as well as doing this a few times just after she's gone to sleep.  She also seems less happy today and seems to be developing a fear of her bedroom! I think I am too!!

In her pushchair she won't lie down now either and is restless in her car seat too.

Any advice you could give would be great.

Thanks
Sophie (spughe)

[jessmum46]

Hi spughe, sorry you haven't had any more replies yet.  Hopefully this will bump it up a bit for you!

Before the standing up started did your LO go to sleep independently?  Is there any chance she could be teething or having trouble with her ears right now?  The reluctance to lie down anywhere just makes me wonder if pain is an issue.

Could you post her routine for us?  The other option is that her routine may just need a bit of tweaking  

(((Hugs))), if she's slept independently before she will do again - don't exhaust both of you doing PUPD for hours on end.  If she needs a bit of extra help then give it and we'll hopefully be able to work out what the issue is and get you back on track soon x

[Shiv52]

With my DD I did as you have described and it was useless for my DDs. In the end I just sat beside her and didn't let her get up. So I lay her down and she got up and I just said 'time to sleep baby, you have to lie down' and then when she went to get up again and I put my arm across her and repeated our phrase and didn't let her continue the up/down carry on. She was not happy for about 5 mins and within a few days we were back to normal. She had plenty of time to practice those skills during the day but sleeping was for sleeping and she needed that help.

[koe2moe]

Hi Spughe.  I remember DS doing that back when he was standing up.  PD was not helping us.   What helped us was that I sat next to the cot and pat on the mattress and tell him to lie down and he got it and did lie down himself.  It still took a while before the phase passed but it was much less stressful for us.  HTH