Author Topic: Need Advice on Sleep regression  (Read 1010 times)

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Offline albers30

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Need Advice on Sleep regression
« on: August 22, 2016, 18:09:14 pm »
Our little girl has had her fair share of sleep struggles since birth but I really thought we had gotten it all worked. She just turned one and we made it thru the 2 to 1 nap transition fairly easily and her schedule was good and consistent and as follows

Wake between 630 and 7am
Nap  generally goes down between 12 and 1230 give or take 15 minutes and sleeps anywhere from 1.5-2.15 hours
Bedtime 730 give or take 15-20 mintes give or take energy and activities

She sometimes has a wake up about an hour after going down, quickly resettles with a pat more often though its a wake up around 11pm that settles fairly easy with a pat and shushing then she generally wakes around 2 am that's much harder to settle and we had conceded to just bringing her to bed with us at that wake up because of a more important need for sleep at that time. 

However, the past week she has started waking at that 11pm time and not resttling frequently. It starts out that she'll settle when we come into the room but if we try to leave, even it she appears to be sound asleep she starts crying, as time passes she gets restless and whiney tossing and turning and crying out then she reaches a point where she just wants to play and this carries on for 2-3+ hours before we can get her back to sleep trying everything possible.

She has never been a completely independant sleeper.  As much as we have tried we have not gotten to a point where we can go through bedtime routine lay her in her bed awake and she goes to sleep, we still have to stay in the room with her.  She is better at nap time but not consistently.  She still gets a bottle of mild at bedtime and sometimes nap time but she has not other props.  She is currently getting a whole mouth full of teeth and has had intermittent fevers and occasional diarrhea but no obvious illness so I don't know if that is playing a part of not.  Thoughts on why she suddenly is having so much trouble sleeping and how to handle it?

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Need Advice on Sleep regression
« Reply #1 on: August 22, 2016, 18:38:33 pm »
She is currently getting a whole mouth full of teeth
This would be my first bet for sure.  Wakings for us in that 'middle' period of the night that are long and unsettled have always been related to discomfort.  I know we all have different levels of comfort regarding using meds but I would personally give pain meds straight away at all but the briefest of night wakings if I knew teeth were moving around.  It might still mean a longish waking, but not usually 2-3 hours if I got on top of the pain early.  Poor thing, teeth can be totally horrible :(

Offline albers30

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Re: Need Advice on Sleep regression
« Reply #2 on: August 23, 2016, 03:11:28 am »
So how do I handle these wake ups.  Do i just sit in her room with her while she fusses/plays, do I pick her up, take her to bed with us, let her get up?  The biggest problem is at the beginning around 11pm I'm still taking care of house/work stuff and can't just sit in her room with her and sometimes at it progresses she wakes up her sisters across the hall then I have to deal with them and can't just sit for hours in her room. 

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Need Advice on Sleep regression
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2016, 07:15:13 am »
I would give pain meds then settle her as usual. Unfortunately as she's not an independent sleeper I think realistically that's going to be you in her room like you would at bedtime. I know it's tough when you have other things on but that's the reality of kids, they need you sometimes and other things have to wait. Even my independent sleepers sometimes need mummy in the room if they are ill :(  I personally would avoid picking up/letting her in your bed as that just gives you more props to deal with. It may be a case of hang in there and put up with the fact she needs you right now, then get on with gradual withdrawal once she is better so she has those independent sleep skills when the next blip comes along x

Offline albers30

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Re: Need Advice on Sleep regression
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2016, 18:27:40 pm »
So things have settled down a bit and are nearly back to normal.  I'd really like to get her to be an independant sleeper but I feel like we're getting no where with sleep training.  For months now, like at least 4 months if not longer we've been doing gradual withdrawl and we've been stuck at the we can stand at the door and she will settle herself, granted it might take a few trips back up to the crib to get her to lie back down, but I can't even get out the door before she starts screaming at the top of her lungs and she'll carry on like this til you go back to her and lay her back down with a few pats.  Even if its totally dark and she appears to be sound asleep the minute I step out the door so many times she's up and screaming.  I've tried the go back in quickly settle her down the exit repeat as needed and it turns into a constant repeat for we've gone for several hours before finally giving up and staying in the room with her.  She is a very spirited opinionated big personality 1 year old so I know this is part of it and I'm sure the co-sleeping in the middle of the night is another factor which I think I can muster the energy to address if it will resolve other issues but what other suggestions do you have for the sleep training?  I feel like at this age there's always some new issue, teeth, illness, new childcare, etc as to why they won't sleep so I also don't know what things to push through and when to cut her some slack.  My twins were much more laid back and sleep trained fairly easily so I'm really struggling with her.

Offline jessmum46

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Re: Need Advice on Sleep regression
« Reply #5 on: August 25, 2016, 11:55:40 am »
I will ask around as I have no personal experience of using GW at that age - hopefully someone will pop along with some good advice soon :)

Offline Martini~

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Re: Need Advice on Sleep regression
« Reply #6 on: August 25, 2016, 13:17:29 pm »
I know kids for which a traditional withdrawal doesn't work. So what I usually advice is just a wiwo. So you go out, she screams, you come back, put her down and go out. And that endlessly. You react on her cry so no cryitout and you don't do any time limits so no controlled crying. What is I guess important that I would wait until she calm if that takes ages. So I would come in, put her down, stay 15-20sek and go out. After 15sec or similar you come back and do it all over again.
~Marta