Hello again.
I'm glad to see you came back
Sorry it was a few days before you had a reply. We do try to make sure that everyone gets a reply in a timely manner (generally up to 24hrs after posting) but of course sometimes things are missed. If this happens again please feel welcome to PM a moderator or start a new thread as this will likely be noticed.
I am not familiar with the "gentle shuffle" so just googled it. I can't see a thorough description of how the method works but from what i have read it involves helping and supporting your child to learn to self settle and does not involve leaving her to cry alone for any amount of time - this is the ethos of BW too. I'm going to assume at this point that the methods are similar and complimentary.
So it does sound like there were some understandable developmental influences disturbing her sleep but that these are likely to have passed or be passing by now. It is also a great discovery to find she likes the darker room and to sleep without the night light, this can change time to time with LOs as they grow (my own now needs a night light to go to sleep but it must be turned off at my bed time otherwise the light disturbs him). It's also a really good idea to explore and invest in some good blackout blinds to create complete darkness. Many of us here have found even a small chink of light can disturb our LOs sleep. Kitchen foil is a good temporary solution as it can be fitted perfectly to the window and taped up, this way you can judge over time if the total black out helps before you invest in the black out blinds (and research which brands will really black out fully).
I would agree that a LO this age doesn't need food in the night any longer. A gentle wean over a week or so could probably resolve this issue. Reducing the number of minutes you nurse in the night and making sure her daily calorie intake is good (high fats and proteins, eating at regular times in the day) should help with this. When you have reduced the milk intake at night you could then try a W2S 9wake to sleep, I can give you a link on how this works if you are not familiar with it) to try to avoid the waking in the night to encourage a new habit of sleep through - or if the W2S wasn't successful you would then resettle without nursing in your usual way with support and always responding to her.
There are a few things there then that may help your nights overall. The other thing is to look at the daily routine and see if her naps and day sleep are appropriate for her needs. Being OT (over tired) or UT (under tired) for night sleep can also cause NWs (night waking).
If you would like us to look at your routine could you please record a full day of EAS times and post them here.
E eat, include milk and solids, main meals and snacks, with a note of how much she eats or the type of food
A activity, the full time from when she wakes to when she falls asleep including any wind down activity you do
S sleep, the actual time she falls to sleep until the actual time she wakes up. If there is a resettle mid nap also show this with timings and how you get her back to sleep.
If you can post in this format something like:
WU (morning wake up time) 7.00
E 7 milk
E 8 breakfast
E 9.30 snack
A 3hrs
S 10.00 - 12.00 (2hrs)
E 12.30 lunch
E 2.30 snack
A 3hrs
S 3.00 - 4.30 (1hr 30)
...and so on through the day until
BT (bed time)
and include
NW (night waking, what time)
NF (night feeds)
through to the next morning WU. And please do note down the real times rather than what you hope for or plan for. it is more helpful for us to see what is really happening.
I'm so so so tired - everyone told us that after kids turn 1 - they will sleep through the night no matter how bad they were before - but that is not our case for sure..
Whilst I don't want to be the bearer of bad news I have to say that from 1yo to 2yo was likely the most disturbed time for me. My DS was a fully independent sleeper but he was teething the entire year and this disturbed his sleep terribly. Not all LOs have teething pain for so long but it was pretty much constant for my DS. We had a break of 3 days between his canines finishing and his molars starting and in those 3 days it was like bliss for me, proper undisturbed sleep, because he didn't need me and had returned to self settling with no "re-training". If you have times like this you really have to find rest wherever you can take it, sleep during her nap time or call someone in to help you out so you can rest a while. It does pass.
There is lots of support available here at BW. I hope you'll stick around and get to know some of the people in the community.
