Having a shocker - any thoughts?

[graciesmum]

We have been having a bit of horror at night for the last couple of weeks and are desperate for any thoughts as to what's going on.

Our 6 month old 'very spirited' LO is generally very happy by day, but is having increasing difficulty getting, or staying asleep after nighttime wakings (and many of them). She has always loved motion (awake and to get to sleep) leading to a few bits of accidental parenting along the way (e.g. daytime sleeps in pushchair) - but we are trying to do everything by the book in the evening (PU/PD) and seem to be getting nowhere. We have gone onto solids in the last 4 weeks (our daughter was grabbing at every bit of food in sight, and we were hopeful that it would help with sleep.. pah!)

The day goes roughly like this...

7am - BF (dependent on the end of the night's fun!)
7.30am - SOLID FEED (e.g. banana, weatbix, etc)
7.30 - ACTIVITY
9am - 45mins - SLEEP (in flat pushchair)
10.15am - BF
10.30am - ACTIVITY
11.30am - LUNCH - SOLID FEED (e.g parsnips, sweet pot's, carrots - range of veg AND fruit) - generally eats well
12.15pm - SLEEP (in flat pushchair)
Will sleep for for 45 mins, and we will then have to do some serious chair pushing to get her back down again for further sleep cycle
2.30pm - FORMULA (c. 4oz)
2.45pm - ACTIVITY
5.15pm - TEA - SOLID FEED (e.g. as lunch)
5.30pm - ACTIVITY
6.00pm - BATHTIME
6.15pm - FORMULA (c. 4oz)
6.30pm - SLEEP (settled in cot with a bit of fuss, but generally very well)

This is when the fun begins....

EVENING
This varies greatly - our aim is for...
11pm - DAD FORMULA FEED (c. 5oz)
3/4am - BF

The last week or we've had her waking at 9.30pm - she's then VERY difficult to get down so we resort to the feed at around 10pm and then she'll hopefully be down by 11pm ish
She then tends to be asleep till 1.30am (on the dot) when she wakes crying which will work into a frenzy so we try PU/PD which will often mean we don't get her down till about 3.30am. Will generally try to do the breastfeed at 4am(ish) but this will often be 2.30am if settling has failed. We will generally have intermittent waking and PU/PD with Gracie staying asleep for between 20 and 45 mins at a time. Often resort for a further comfort/feed in our bed at about 6am, which may result in a sleep till 7-7.45am

Hope this doesn't seem to muddled, and apologies for the length... but we're really beginning to suffer with some prolonged sleep deprivation.

All help gratefuly received.

[graciesmum]

anyone out there?

[Mom to M&M]

Might she have an upset tummy waking her at night? That is a LOT of foods, along with mixture of BM and formula at her age - her digestive system might not be able to handle it. Perhaps try cutting back to just 2 solids meals/day and limiting foods to maybe just cereal and 1 fruit and 1 veggie per day for now, and also increase BFs or formula feeds and see if it helps? Keep a food log and see if you can pinpoint certain foods that trigger bad nights.

[tinytatsmom]

  Sorry to hear about your troubles.  I too was having nights from hell and ended up resorting to having our lo in bed with us.  Well after several nights of bad sleep and getting sick of being kicked I decided to follow the easy routine with our  8 month spirited lo.  I took 10 days off work and started.  I followed Tracy's routine for older babies to the T (from The BW Solves All Your Problems).  That was 15 days ago and things have greatly improved.  Don't get me wrong things aren't perfect, but we are getting there.  If I was  you I would do easy and pu/pd all day not just at night.  good luck
tinytatsmom

[Sylvia.]

how did last night go, much of the same i am sure, 6 months is a common age for things to start going wrong/happening, the best advise i can give at the moment is to ready tracy's books, the last one really helped me and then read as many post as possible, others have had similar problems to you, i still fed my dd twice a night at 6 months but not for much longer, i think you have some habitual wakings, at this age i also gave dd a soft animal to sleep with, keep reading and posting and things will improve

[graciesmum]

thanks for all your kind responses. this is actually Gracie's dad today - we posted our initial rant together! It's so nice to know people are here to help... we've agreed a plan of how we're going to tackle the next week or so, and we're going to make sure one or both of us keeps posting to let you know how we're doing, with more questions if needed!!!

a bit of an update sp far - we felt we had a massive breakthrough on Sunday night (after posting the message) - Gracie slept so much better, with few wakings and was easier to settle. The difference: we put her on her front for the first time ever. However, last night was not so good with mum up patting and sshh'ing for two hours between 1.30 and 3.30 and Dad doing the same 3.30 to 5.30. gracie did then sleep till 7.45 which was comparitive bliss.

In answer to your points..

- LOVE the idea of moving the night feed to 10 - are going to try this tonight - fingers crossed!!
- we feel you could well be right about the food issues... we actually dropped the final solid feed on Sunday and yesterday (and replaced with formula) so hopefully this gives her more milk in her tum, and less digestive probs
- we've tried to give her a toy, but she's not really gone for it - we will persist!
- we tried to settle in cot in the day yesterday, but it was SUCH a nightmare we gave in - are going to try to get a better blackout blind, as fear this is the problem
- if we leave her she will get herself VERY upset very quickly, so we feel our best route currently is to soothe in her cot and avoid picking her up
- our settling in truth is probably more of a pat/sshh - we try to avoid picking her up at all costs and will gentle soothe until she goes quiet and then stop all touch/noise unless she starts to wind up again, and slowly re-introduce a noise or light touch
- we've only got the first book - THe BW solves your problems duly bought!!

Thanks so much again... feel bouyed by your postings.. keep em coming!

In particular, do you think our soothing method should give us results, or is replacing one piece of accidental parenting with another?

[graciesmum]

that's so helpful - we're going to try to adapt the dayly routine and extend the morning sleep if poss (A BEAUTIFUL BUNCH OF VIRTUAL FLOWERS COMING YOUR WAY!!!!)

Gracie now has a cold and seems to be teething (joy!) - inadvertently last night she had a sleep at 4.30ish and ended up asleep at 7.45pm (after quite a lot of fuss!). I got in early to do the (pseudo)dream feed about 10.20pm... which went beautifully. We alternated 'duty' last night which went well. She still woke at 1.15am, but with about 45mins soothing was asleep again. Then awake again at 3.45ish, and zonked by 5.30 (that was the tough bit of the evening, had to resort to settling on me for about 15mins - any less and she would soon be screaming again). She was up at 6.30 again. But that was ok.

We also had a breakthrough this morning of her first sleep of the day in her cot(!)

It still doesn't seem great describing last night... but we coped an awful lot better... and feel we know where we're heading.

Thank You Thank You Thank You...

[graciesmum]

you know - I'd actually been reading about this on the site today - but I thought it was only for night sleep (ie. the one hour before thing). a great idea to try for the day sleeps. do you do this every time... or just for a couple?

had a tough time at lunch - went for 45 mins but then cried for about 1 hour while trying to get her down for longer. ended up asleep for 5 mins!! apart from rare times in the evening... she's basically waking after every 45 min sleep cycle. who knows what tonight will bring.

thanks again stacy... you're a treasure.

[Sylvia.]

it seems things seem to be slowly improving, well done, great about the cot success in the day, when i was at this stage with my dd she screamed for 2 hours with me or dh at her cot, never looking at her doing shh/pat, the next night was short and the next shorter again, it took less than two weeks, hang in there you are doing a fine job,

[graciesmum]

hopefully despite (rather than beacuse of) a bad cold, we had real progress last night.

gracie was down at about 7.15pm, awake at 8pm and 9.30pm. I woke for a df at 10.30pm and then she woke twice during the night... once at about 2.15am and then again at about 4.45am. Both times she was comparitively easy to get quiet, but took a little while to go back to sleep (about 45mins both times) - this is the best night we've had in about 3-4weeks!!

Sincerely hoping that she wasn't easier to settle as she was worn out from being ill... we remain obtimistic!!

[graciesmum]

but then again...

just a tough time for morning nap. just wouldn't go down but instead screamed and occasionally played. after about 1hr 15mins of trying we've given up and got her up.

is this the right thing to do??