Always wakes 3x a night.....at 12mo!

[Hannah's Mom]

This kid has only slept through the night 2-3 times.  Any advice greatly appreciated!

How old is your child? 12mo
What’s his/her daily routine?

On a good day it's something like this:
7 - nurse
8 - breakfast
9/10 - nap ranging from 45min to 1.5hr
10:30/11 - nurse/snack
11:45/12:30 - lunch
usu around 2/2:30pm - nap for 1.5 hr to occasionally 2hr
3:30ish/whenever she wakes - nurse/snack
5:30 - dinner (this is new--We used to eat around 6:30 but we're trying to get her to bed earlier)
anywhere from 6:30/7 - get ready for bed: read book, turn off lights, nurse, cuddles/songs
anywhere from 7 to 8 - asleep (would like to have her down by 7, but the earliest we've had her down consistently is more like ; However, on crazy days, it's not uncommon for her to be up until 10:30, which is BAD.

From that point, her wake up times vary widely.  She usually wakes 3x a night, her first one being between 10 and midnight. (Although only wakes me 2x cuz I'm usually still up for the first wake up). It tends to be 1.5 hrs after we put her down, so we did do wake2sleep once recently and she didn't wake till 1am and then at 4, but then the next 2 days she woke at 1 & 4 regularly, and then hubby took her for a couple nights (Fri/Sat) so that we could break her from nursing during those 1 & 4 times (which she had been doing since Oct due to travel chaos, she got up to nursing 4/5x a night at that point!). Sunday bedtime took about 2hrs (asleep by 10:45), as did Monday--had dr appt & vaccines @ 6:45 that night!! (asleep by 9:45), Tues she was WAY off from her shots, and today we're getting back on track.  (Guess I shouldn't be too upset about bedtime taking over an hour tonight w/ all she's had going on, huh....oops.)  Hopefully tomorrow will be more like the outline above!


What’s nap routine? turn off the lights, cuddles/songs
Do you bottle or breastfed?? breastfeed
How much? or how long? I don't know....5/10min?
If breastfed.. one side or both?? (at each feed) both
How many wakes per night? 3
What’s your LO like when waking at night? How long is he/she up?  She is one mad cookie.  Even madder if I say "No nursing."  Woo!  Typically varies from 5min to 20min...often up to over an hour when I was trying to break her from nursing in Oct/Nov/Dec...if we both crash while nursing, then maybe 5?  (at least that's how long I'm awake for)  Don't know how she'll be tonight...Have to do an update post.

When you go to him/her is she fussing or crying? Or is it a mantra cry? Sometimes she'll just be fussing, sometimes crying.  It's been crying lately.  She's in my room, so if I don't jump to get her, any fussing does turn to cries very quickly!
What have you tried to settle??
I used to pick her up, give her paci, hold her for bit & put her back down.  Then Sept(? maybe Aug?)  she'd wake and just scream and fight, so I was wondering if it was reflux or night terrors or something???  October travel (in Utah for 1 week, Idaho for 1wk, UT for 1wk) started the all night nursing routine b/c nursing was the only thing that would calm her down quickly and I was staying with fam/friends. Nov I got her down to 2 nursings (those 2 early morning wakings).  Over Christmas I got her down to one (usu 4am)!!! (In Washington for 3wk but family around to help during the day, what a difference that makes!).  I'd hold her while she cried and then do pu/pd (10.5/11mo old at that point).  Usually took about an hour to an hour & a half to get her down, at least at first?  Everything went down hill after returning home, though, waking 3 times (after I went to bed, so really 4x) and I just couldn't get her back to that single early wakening due to my own exhaustion.    Then, once I was ready to get sleep training, she got sick for 3 wks, and then she got her shots!  We'll see what happens tonight, as she's recovered from her shots.  There will be no nursing night! (wish me luck!!!)

I have to insert that there've been many a time when she's woken in the early evening and I've just let her stay up for a few hours because I've not wanted to deal with trying to put her to bed again.

What do you do for A time? she plays, eats, reads books, whatever until she is starting to show the sleepy signs.
 
Are there developmental issues such as teething or milestones?  Didn't teeth until Christmas, but she's had silent reflux that I keep saying is and isn't the problem....it comes and goes, but her night waking is consistent!

Do they have a prop? If so what is it? she controls the paci
Do they have a lovie? snuggles w/ her blanket and sucks on paci when I lay her down if she's ready to sleep.

My current plan, assuming she doesn't get sick (dr said she had potential ear infection brewing, cross our fingers here!) and nothing crazy happens that throws off our schedules:  No night nursing, make sure she eats well during the day, and hopefully have her asleep by 7 or 7:30...or at least by 8 consistently.  If she starts waking up 1.5 hrs after we put her down for two nights in a row, I'll start doing wake2sleep for that. 

What do you all think?  Should I stick with my current plan or do something different?

(p.s. sometimes I think I programmed her brain to wake in the evenings because when she was tiny and woke in the early evenings, we'd just keep her up until we went to bed between 10:30 and 11:30pm.  I didn't know better!  I didn't read BW till she was 5 mo or so!)

[momofclaire]

Well it sounds like you know the first thing you need to do.  You need to stop the night nursing.  It seems like it has become somewhat of a prop for her because she wakes, can't fall back asleep and then cries for the breast. 
Another thing I notice is her inconsistant bedtime.  I know sometimes this can't be helped but if she is overtired when she's put to bed you will more apt to have night wakings.
How do you plan on dealing with the nw instead of nursing?

Could she be getting ready for one nap?  Some are getting close at this age and others ar not.
Hope this helps.

[Ami ~ 3 girls' mom]

That was us until about a month ago.  Many nightwakings, lots of ear pain, questionable reflux...  She was definitely in pain some nights then others I wondered if it was just out of habit.  She'd also wake up about 9pm and stay up for a few hours.  Are you doing any meds for the reflux?

Can you keep her naps of consistent length?  Morning is either 45 minutes or twice as long, which is hard b/c of all the nightwakes she needs some sleep, but the time variance might be part of the problem. 

Does she put herself to sleep?  (I bounced Savannah to sleep the first year.)

[Hannah's Mom]

"Another thing I notice is her inconsistant bedtime.  I know sometimes this can't be helped but if she is overtired when she's put to bed you will more apt to have night wakings."

Yes, I'm pretty sure her inconsistent bedtime isn't helping.  And as AMoore96 said with her little girl, sometimes Hannah would wake and we'd just let her stay up because she was so up-and-at -it or I was putting off the inevitable.  I'm sure letting her stay up didn't help either.

"How do you plan on dealing with the nw instead of nursing?"

Good question here.  Tracy said to do pu/pd, which I did a few nights and I can pull off alright if I'm not brainlessly tired, but it doesn't work when I don't get enough sleep, such as at 5:20 this morning, and I feel like I can't even move, not to mention get up and do pu/pd.  I nursed her partway and by then was starting to feel like a normal human being, so I put her down w/ pu/pd.  She then woke promptly at 7 as usual, but I just gave her 1/2 a nursing since she'd nursed just 1.5hrs before.  I did one day last week go to bed once she was down, and pu/pd was SO much easlier, naturally!  I think I'm just going to have to do that this week in order to get both of us some decent sleep.  (Sleep depriv Momma can't help sleep depriv baby, huh....)  My husband's not able to help much since 1) he sleeps through EVERYTHING and 2) he's crammed with his graduate studies.  This week is midterms so he can't be up with her at night (which would only happen in the 1st place w/ me waking him) but maybe we can work out something where he'll do the dinner clean up or something so that it's easier for me to get to bed right after H's down.  (Usually I rush to get her to bed after dinner and then clean up once she's down.) 

"Could she be getting ready for one nap?  Some are getting close at this age and others ar not."

I'm not sure.  I can get away with keeping her up when I have errands, etc that have to be done in  the mornings, but she usually needs to sleep by 1pm if not earlier when I do that.  Maybe not...?

"meds for the reflux?"
Okay, here, talk about a pain. This kid si the most resistent child to medications that I have ever seen.  She will fight tooth and nail to get out of it, so we pretty much gave up back in Oct (which was when I went to UT without my hubby, visiting family/friends).  We tried to get Zantac efferdose, which is supposed to have a different and milder flavor than Zantac's overwhelming mint, but a month's worth ended up being $200!!! and insurance wouldn't cover it.   So, we have all this Zantac she refused to take laying around.  On top of that, we're in the middle of changing insurances.  (reflux would be a pre-existing condition)  She's been refluxing all this past week, and it seems she does for a week or two, and then she's fine for a week or two and I tell myself she's out grown it, and then she starts refluxing again.      I'm thinking now that it's been a few months, maybe she'll be more willing to take it?  Probably not?  Oh, what about bribery?  I'm willing to try that at this point so that we could get a decent medicine trial in. (We never really knew if the Zantac made a difference in the first place because we couldn't get the correct dose in her long enough to tell!) What if we gave her some kind of treat afterward?  I wonder if she'd stop fighting it quite so much. . . .

nap length:
Not sure....prob should work on a consistent bedtime first, and if that doesn't help, have that be a part of Plan B

"Does she put herself to sleep?" 
If she's ready for bed, she is now going down amazingly.  I used to have to keep my hand on her until she was totally asleep or she'd keep getting up and keep getting up, but when I started being serious about pu/pd this past week she quickly adapted to my letting go of her after only a moment.  YEAH!!!  So, we're taking one step in the right direction when it comes to her going back to sleep on her own at night!

You know, consistency is a definite all-round problem.  I guess it's bad to have parents who are both softies!!!  Time to go discuss a plan with the hubby. . . . Wish me luck!   

[momofclaire]

Sounds like you know the right thing to do!  It's just about doing it, or getting the strength to do it. I would suggest you visit the PU/PD section of this website. There you will find info on how to do it correctly and what things will ruin your efforts.  (breastfeeding before you start  )

A good way to tell if she is ready for one nap is if she if fighting her am or pm nap.  Also if she has a short nap but wakes happy then maybe she doesn't need it. 

As far as the medicine. I know how it can be trying to give meds to a kid who refuses.  This week my dd has been very sick (rsv, ear infection, pink eye  )  We have resorted to holding her down and forcing it.  It's not pretty but when nothing else works she has to have her meds.  You may also want to check out the reflux board. There are plenty of other moms who are dealing with reflux.  I have not had to deal with it in my lo so I can offer no advice there. Sorry.
Let me know how the talk goes! 

It is best to pick a plan and stick with it.  If both of you are on board with the plan the results will come much sooner than if you are not.