14mo Not happy, Not Sleeping, Please HELP! (long)

[Vivismomma]

Hello Everyone,

I'm new to BWing, and have been searching for advice for my 14mo DD, Vienna.  I have quite the story, and I don't know where to begin, so please forgive me if I forget to mention important information- I'm quite sleep deprived:) My issues are both with feeding and sleep, but I thought I'd start here....

My daughter, Vienna, has slept through the night only a handful of times in her short life.  I'm 27 weeks pregnant, and don't sleep well anyway, so my DH and I have decided to forgo sleeping together and share a two-day on, two-day off, schedule so we both can get some much needed rest.
Now I'll start from the beginning:

From the time before she was born, I wanted to exclusively breastfeed.  However once she was here, I had troubles, and it took us nearly seven weeks to figure out she was not getting enough to grow.  My midwives were not concerned because she was an EXTREMELY alert baby.  They figured that even though she was always at the breast, she was using those calories taking in the world.  She never slept for more than two hours at a time.  Then I gave her a bottle at 6.5 weeks, of pumped milk, and she, for the very first time, had a contented "Milk Drunk" look and sighed.  Oh My Goodness, I thought.  She's been hungry this whole time.
We started to supplement with formula.

Both my husband and I also wanted to co-sleep with our children.  We have good friends who did this, and I loved the philosophy of Attachment Parenting, so we tried.  And tried. And tried.  But everytime we rolled over, we woke her up.  Then I had to nurse her back to sleep.  As soon as my breast left her mouth, she'd wake up.  And on went the cycle.
She was nearly 5 mo old when my chiropractor and good friend asked me, "what is more important, getting sleep or co-sleeping?"  The answer, of course, was a resounding, SLEEP!
I turned to Weisbluth's, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.  Not bad as far as the information about children and sleep, but definitely from the Cry It Out camp.
My heart broke as we "taught" her to fall asleep by herself.  She was exhausted, and in all honesty, our presence in her room was just keeping her up.  Mommy and Daddy were there to play.  Not comfort.  But either food, or play.  She slept- in four hour chunks- but more than she was getting by being in our room.  I still nursed/bottled her before sleep.  Not TO sleep, but before going into the crib.

As the months went by, it would get better, it would get worse (as it always does).  By her first birthday however, she was in a fairly consistant routine of only waking once, in which we'd bring her a bottle, she's down 2-3 ounces, and go right back to sleep.  She has never been one to want to play in the middle of the night, just see us (she reacts the same to DH or me), get a sip of watered down formula, go right back to bed.  All-in-all, awake for 15 minutes, tops.  Not even my pediatrician was all that concerned at her 1 year check up.  And best of all, once a week, sometimes more, she was sleeping 12 hours straight through!  We thought we were on our way to consistant sleep!
Then the molars started moving.
For two months now, she has a new schedule that has DH and I frustrated and sleep deprived:  She's up every four to two hours, awakens with a very steady, loud, incessant, "come get me NOW!" type of cry.  From 0 to 80 in the blink of an eye.  Motrin doesn't work.  Homeopathics don't work.  What does?  Bottle (now even diluted more to 1/4 strength), momma or dada, and back to sleep.  It's just more frequent.

And to top it all off, she isn't happy when she wakes up for the day.  Nor have any of the molars actually popped through yet.  ACK!

So, What can we do?  DH and I made a plan to really taper off the bottle: 1/4 strength for four days, then limit # of ounces to two oz for four days, then decrease it to 1 oz for four days, then water.  But my thought is that what if she's scared to starve again as she was when she was a newborn?  She grazes through the day, too.

HELP!

Here's her (usual)daytime schedule:
630 Wakeup, gets full-strength bottle (1-3oz)
730 Breakfast
playtime
9/930 Snacktime
10/11 Nap, 1-3 oz full-strength bottle (usually about two hours long)

12/1 Wakeup, full-strength bottle (1-2oz)
1  Lunch
playtime, run errands
3/4 Snacktime
5/6 Dinner
Bathtime, Quiet play, Read book, bottle (1-3oz)
630/7 Bedtime

Lately, her overnight schedule looks like this:
11pm awake
3am awake
5am awake
630 awake for day.

From what I've read of the BW books, she is a Textbook baby, but Spirited in terms of anything sleep related.

Please help me out!  We all need some much needed sleep!
Thanks soooo much in advance- and sorry this is sooo long:)
Shauna

[Florencia]

Hi Shauna, welcome to Baby Whisperer!

My first thought by seeing your post was that Vivi might be sleep deprived and overtired during the evening and that can contribute to night wakings along with the teething. Her nap is too early in the morning and i notice she has a long nap, so let's not move that one but instead let's try for a catnap in the early evening (say 2-3 pm) even if it's for 30 mins that should help her to get to bedtime more rested. Also if she won't take this catnap or if the catnap ends before 3 pm, you might want to move her bedtime earlier (you'd be surprised to find that in most cases, an early bedtime means solid and longer sleep at night). I would suggest even 6pm if she's awake since 1pm.

Another thing that comes to my attention is that she's taking bottles more as a snack than as a full feed. 2-3 oz mean she's having an intake of 8 oz of milk a day. She should be getting a minimum of 16 oz a day or even 24. This ones should be divided in 3-4 bottles (that is bottles from 6 to 8 oz). Even with 2 bottles of 6 oz each she should be satisfied. I don't think the "starving" she suffered in her first weeks of life is the reason for her wakings, i would tend to think she really needs the calories so you might want to try a bigger bottle for bedtime to tank her up. I would suggest to cut off the snack at 930 and instead offer a bigger lunch at 10, then nap at 11. If you gradually introduce her to full meals instead of snacks, she might forget about her nightly "snacks".

You also mention that during her night wakings she doesn't seem to be comforted by anything. That pretty much describes teething related night wakings (at least from my own experience and some others around this forum). What we have found to work better is a combo of Motrin + Tylenol at bedtime and some others have upped the Motrin dosage after talking to their peds. YEs, molars take up to 3 months to pop and babies are annoyed and upsed because of them mostly at nights.

I also had to restort to sleep on ds's room during this process. As you describe, he'd wake crying hysterically in the middle of the night and would get wilder if i attempted to leave the room. So I just put a mattress on the floor next to his crib and everytime he woke (or even fussed and stand and tried to start to cry) he'd see me there, i would reassure him that i was there, it's ok, go to sleep, it's night time... some awful nights i had to rub some oraljel in his gums to comfort him. Since i put the mattress on the floor, his wakings started to improve to the point that he'd wake, see me and go back to sleep (that took me 2 weeks). Then, when i was confident that he was getting better i started moving the mattress far away from his crib every 3rd night until i was definetly out. Then, nightwakings reduced to 1 at night when i would go, lay him down, reassure him it was ok and either wait 5 mins in the room and leave or leave instantly and try wi/wo but i was able to try this only when i felt they were getting better.

I'd start cutting the bottles at night (even if it just plain water) cold turkey. since you say they no longer comfort her, it's obvious she doesn't need them. Even when she was getting only 1 bottle with 2 -3 oz that was pretty indicative she was not waking from hunger, more like an habit. So we have to work on both, her snacking habit and her sleeping habits.

What Vivi's going through is a very common phase for her age and it's more likely to stop when she finally pops her molars out. It is pretty important to not give in during this process and to avoid stablishing habits that will be later harder to deal with.

I don't know if i've been of any help, let me know if you have more questions and we'll be here for you during this process.

Good luck!

[Vivismomma]

Thank you Florencia!

I had a few thoughts while I read your post.  First, Vienna (Vivi, as we like to call her:)) absolutely refuses two naps- we've tried cat naps- early cat naps to try for a later longer nap, and cat naps as a second nap.  Unfortunately, neither work.  I will definitely try the bedtime earlier- before daylight savings time, she was going to bed at 5 or 530!  But, equally distressing, was then getting up at 5 or 530am... We'll give it a few consistant days going to bed at 6- see how it goes...

Next, the bottles:  I don't know if it's habit or what, but she has NEVER taken more than 5 oz at a sitting.  She grazes. We used to allow her a bottle whenever she wanted it- because she was never getting a full feed.  But then she hardly ate anything at meals.   Even when we watered down the bottle she had in between naps to half-strength, I tallied the onces of formula, and in a 24 hour period, she was getting the equivilent of 18-24 oz.  Now, we are offering whole milk at meal and snack times, but she's only consuming maybe an ounce each sitting.  We still give her a bottle during the day if she asks for it- but we've cut it to 1/4 strength, to hopefully give her more incentive to eat at mealtimes.  She does eat more than she used to, but NOTHING like the "suggested" amounts in baby books that I've looked at.  A good meal for her is about 1/4 cup of anything.  She does sign language, and tells us "all done".  We even make her sit with us longer to see if she'll take an interest in the food again, if she sees us still eating.  She'll pick at what's in front of her, but usually it is handed to the dogs   Before naps and bedtime, i give a full strength bottle, and allow her to have as much as she wants.  It's usually no more than 3-4 oz.
In the middle of the night:  the only thing to comfort her IS the bottle.  That's why I cringe at the thought of taking it away cold turkey.  I will definitely try the doubling of Motrin and Tylanol (darnit, I was just at Target this am... ) I don't know if sleeping in her room will help any- but I will keep it in mind.  She had such a hard time co-sleeping with us a little one, I don't know if she'll be okay with it now.  Also, the mornings I have tried to stay in her room to lengthen her wake up time (like this morning when she was convinced that 510 was a good start to the day...) she would settle, then stand up and start launching her blankie, her toys, etc at me to turn around and play.  Hmmm, I'll consider it an option...

I am thankful that this is pretty common for lo's her age, but I had a feeling we were getting towards some bad habits.  Please let me know if you think of anything else, based on my clarifications.  It's a good thing she's pretty easy going most of the day!  If she were a grumpy child, I don't know how I'd handle it!

thanks again,
Shauna

[Florencia]

Hey Shauna,

You mentioned that she was sleeping through from 5 to 5 before daylight savings. Although i'm aware 5 in the morning is not a human hour to start the day, it was more than enough for her having 12 hours straight at night, some kiddos are early birds and just can't manage to stay late at night and still wake early, so if an early bedtime makes her sleep longer stretches, by all means, give that a shot, cause if she likes to wake early, she will do so even if she went to bed super late. Maybe in a couple of months, when she's used to make solid 11-12 hour stretches we can start working on aplan based on 15 mins increments to see if we can make her last till 6 am at least.

Another thing that comes to my mind that would help a lot with her snacker habit (this is a dangerous one too) is to stop watering down the formula and by all means start trying to increase her calorie intake during daytime. IF she's needing a bottle in the middle of the night and given her record of not eating much during the day i'm pretty sure she's needing those calories, so you should try to encourage her to take them during daytime, closer to bedtime to tank her up. Watering down formula is only indicated during nightwakings to get rid of thad feeds. During daytime is no use, you just fill up her belly with water and all nutrients and calcium that milk contains get diluted and are not much of a nutrition source for her.

You might also want to post on the "Feeding Solid Food and Weaning" or "Eating for Toddlers" forums, you will find more useful and focused advice on this subject, and certainly working on both issues (sleeping and eating) will help to solve them both, cause they come together.

I hope you had sucess with the early bedtime and be sure to come here for anything else you might need. GOod luck!

[imsmum]

If she won't do 2 naps then I think you have to work on moving her nap later in the day.  I learned through exhausting experience with my lo that some kids are sensitive to the interval between wake up and nap time ie.  they won't take that nap if the awake time is too long, while others, like my dd are sensitive to the interval between np wakeup and sleeptime.  any longer than 5 hours and we had multiple night wakings for 2 hours at a stretch.  Did the night wakings coincide with the switch to 1 nap?  You may want to try a combination of slowly pushing the nap back and moving the bedtime earlier until she can catch up on sleep.

[Vivismomma]

Both of you have great ideas- I never thought that she might be sensative to nt wakeup compared to sleeptime- but I think you might be onto something.  The night wakings did not coincide with moving to one nap- she's been fighting to go to one nap since she was about 9 mo! ACK!

I have good news, though!  Yesterday she only had one wakeup!  We put her to bed by 610, and she awoke at 1045.  My DH accidentally grabbed bottle that had whole milk (which she doesn't much like yet,) and so she had a sip, then pushed it away.  SHe snuggled on DH chest for a little bit, then he told her she had to go back to sleep.  He laid her in the crib, and out she went!  She slept then, straight through until 530!

So, Florencia, I think you might be right that her "golden hours" might be 530 to 530.  Hopefully soon we can get her to 6 to 6!  Also, I think we were thinking the same thing today about watering down her formula.  She hasn't taken any watered down bottles, and she's eatenm like a champ and had approx 12 oz so far of formula- and we're getting ready for bed now.  I think I will post in the eating area for more info- thanks for all of your helpful advice!!

   I hope this trend continues!!
Shauna

[Florencia]

YAY shauna! that is such great news. Keep us updated on your progress!!!!!!! congrats on your good job!!!!!!!!