Night Waking 12mo

[NattysMom]

My lo is 2 weeks past her first birthday, as of a month ago she was weaned from nursing at night and had just started sleeping through the night using gradual withdrawal for the one last night waking. Before that she had never slept through the night. Then she got sick, then she got her first tooth and then we started daycare (I went back to work). Her naps at daycare became mostly 30 mins which equals OT almost every day. So the last month basically all my training has gone out the window. She wakes up 2-3 times a night and at first I nursed her because of the sickness, teeth, being away at daycare so I wanted to give her that extra comfort. I’ve stopped nursing at night but she’s still waking 2-3 times a night and unfortunately I end up bringing her to bed with me if she doesn’t settle quickly.  She has been at daycare for 3 weeks now and she sometimes has longer naps. I was hoping her naps would go back to her usual 2 hours but that hasn’t happened yet. What I’m wondering is can I sleep train again using gradual withdrawal when she’s so OT? Or is there another way I can handle this? I need something fast, when we did gradual withdrawal it was very slow.

[Haribo2012]

Hi there, Nursery for us always caused big sleep disruptions, the NW is prob the need to check you’re there and SA could be kicking in. I’d stick to GW as other methods might upset her if that’s what she’s used to.

Also if she’s OT that can cause the Nw what is WU and BT?

[NattysMom]

Wake up is 630-645 and bedtime is 7-730.

[Haribo2012]

If the nap is only 30 mins I’d bring BT earlier to give her a 12 hour day x

[NattysMom]

We do a bedtime 6/630 when that happens. Today for example wake up at 640, nap is supposed to be at 1 but refused until 3, woke at 330, bedtime 630.

We will try GW tonight and see how it goes. I feel that we don’t make much progress, I do pick her up if she’s very upset, does that confuse her?

[Haribo2012]

GW is really about just using your voice to calm but I’d pick up to if very upset.
Mid she walking yet? Learning anything new? All these things can make sleep a pain x

[NattysMom]

Yup. Just started walking 2 weeks ago.

I have a hard time knowing if she’s in pain or just OT. She was rarely OT before daycare started.

When we did GW previously after a month I was still doing the same thing. I pat her or put my hand in her if she’s really upset and use reassuring sleepy phrase. If she’s not freaking out I sit there with my back to her only reassuring her if she gets upset and try to leave the room.

I feel that when she’s OT she has a much harder time going to sleep without extra help. This week even when I hold her she’s super upset.

She may also not be taking a full feed before bed because she’s so tired.

I just don’t know what to do. It was hard when she wasn’t OT and now it seems impossible. I guess we’ll start Friday night that way if we’re up for 3 hours in the night we can sleep in at least.

[Haribo2012]

They do have birthday developmental leaps so that and new Nursery could all be contributing and it may just be a case of waiting it out for couple more weeks.

[NattysMom]

Ok. I think I will wait it out. Do you think the longer I wait the harder it will be to change?

[Haribo2012]

The OT you can try and manage but EBT, but if it’s down to developmental it can just ease up and go back on it’s own.

How are weekends does she nap better then?

[NattysMom]

On the weekends sometimes she’ll have 2 short naps and sometimes she’ll have a long 2 hour one. At daycare this week she did 30-60 min and today she had no nap.

[Haribo2012]

Ate the nights better at the weekend?

Oh dear no nap, hope she had a good night. What time do they try them for naps?

[NattysMom]

Nights are the same on the weekend even with 2+ hour naps. Yesterday she had a 2h nap. Last night she was up for 2hours, from 1230-230, she really wanted to nurse back to sleep. Today she had 2.5h nap.

At daycare naptime is at 1. Sometimes she’ll keep refusing and finally go down by 3.

On weekends I do 6h A in morning and 4.5-5h A before bed.

[becj86]

Hi

I wonder if daycare would try putting her down first or last out of the group so she can settle a bit more easily? I get that naptime is 1pm but they can't possibly put everyone down at the same time, so someone would go first ~12:30-12:40ish and so on til the last one is down at 1ish then the staff can take their lunches.

Would daycare consider giving her 2 naps? 2x30mins is better than 1x30mins...

Something that helped us was getting DS put into a quiet corner to read/sit/whatever before nap time so he could wind down rather than going straight from the chaos of lunchtime and cleanup to sleep which just turned out to be too hard for him.

It does sound a lot like some of this is 'just' that she misses you - lots of people find babies who previously slept through wake for nighttime snuggles when they go back to work and LO goes to daycare.

I would certainly stick with EBT for those days with no nap or only 30mins - you can even do super EBT at 5pm if she's ready to go down - she may well tack on and sleep 12-13hr, maybe even 14hr overnight at times.

[NattysMom]

She had 2 30 Min naps today since she woke up super early. It doesn’t seem to help though, she stays up later since she refuses bedtime without a decent A time before bed. When I put her to bed early she never does more than 12h. Lately it’s been even less than 11 if you count the amount she’s awake in the night sometimes. She’ll wake up as early as 5 some days and she doesn’t need to be up until 645. The earliest bedtime we can do is 6 anyway after dinner etc. We’re not home until almost 5.
The other kids at daycare are older so they don’t really need to get put Down. It’s possible she needs more wind down after lunch, but I don’t think she’ll be able to bring lunch up earlier because of the other kids. I think her A time before naptime is too long for her. I don’t ask too many details because she’s been looking after kids longer than I’ve been alive.
It’s possible she could just be missing me but I think it’s OT. Shes not really clingy, more that she’s mad I’m trying to make her sleep. Even if I bring her to bed she’s still upset and doesn’t seem to like it. She’s never really slept through the night. She had just started. When she woke up before I was almost always able to settle her quite easily. But now even if I were to hold her back to sleep for half an hour (or sometimes nurse her) she’d freak out as soon as I put her in her crib. Naps are completely fine and have always been way easier to deal with than through the night.
I don’t know how much longer I can wait for things to get better. Having her in our bed is affecting our sleep and she’s spending more and more time in it. I just don’t know if GW is a good idea right now. But I don’t know What else to do. I think that if she woke up less she’d get more sleep so maybe it’s worth it. Maybe I’m not doing it right because it takes so long. 
Tonight she woke up an hour after going to bed, I held her while she cried, she eventually calmed down and got sleepy. I held her for 5-10 more mins and then she freaked out when I tried to put her down. She gestures to leave her room and doesn’t want to sleep. She was still crying so I tried putting her down in crib instead. I comforted her for half an hour as she screamed. Eventually couldn’t take it anymore so I nursed her. She took it happily and got sleepy. She never once indicated that’s what she wanted but I was able to put her down, still awake but very sleepy and left no problem.