Needing some SLEEP!

We have a lovely 12mnth old daughter who wakes constantly during the night, generally hourly if not more. I am pretty sure it is because she is unable to settle herself and everytime she wakes she needs me to get her back to sleep. If this only happened a few times in a night I would be a very happy lady, however this is not the case and you can imagine the toll this is taking on the mental and physical wellbeing of us all. I have read books, Save our Sleep and The no Cry Sleep Solution and taken into account all the suggestions and factors for night waking and just cannot seem to come to a conclusion. After taking on the routines etc in Save our Sleep we had a wonderful 3-4weeks of her sleeping through the night but once again she went back to waking. Any suggestions on how to help our wee one would be most appreciated.

Hi there, well those books are two very different methods so I think you need to pick one and stick to it. Both you and your daughter must be exhausted! Waking hourly at that age seems quite unusual and excessive....I assume you've taken her to the doctors to rule out sickness, teething etc? Does she nap well during the day or just do 40min catnaps? If she naps well during the day then it would seem she does know how to resettle so may be another issue at night.

If you do want to do a cry it out here is a simple one that you don't need to a read a whole book for but if you want it to work then you have to follow it properly and be consistent or else you will just confuse your baby: http://www.thesleepstore.co.nz/sleep-informatio....

What time are you putting her to bed?

We went with Elizabeth Pantley. I personally think waking a baby who has trouble sleeping because some book said so is a bit wacko .

We were putting DS2 down at around 7, this was too late for him. We put him to bed an hour earlier, as per Pantley's suggestion; he did 10 straight hours that night after more than 2 months of 5 very broken hours of sleep in every 24. And the sleeping only got 'better' from there; though it eventually settled to 10ish hours overnight with a 2ish hour nap in the day.

12 months is a weird age; there is so much going on developmentally that it's almost like they can't sleep..even when they really want to.

How do you put her too sleep at night?

Thanks for the replies. I read Save our Sleep around 6 months ago as we have been having sleep issues since she was about 4 months old. I have been following the routines from the book since. We thought we had found a saviour in Tizzie as the day after adopting the routines she slept through the night which lasted for around 3-4 weeks so I put it all down to self settling and thought we had taught her an amazing thing, then it all turned to custard again. I then out of pure exhaustion began staying with her while she went off to sleep, this I think is now where the problem lies. I have recently read the No Cry Sleep Solution just to see if there were any other helpful suggestions. Last night I decided to try and get her to settle herself once she woke, that was a marathon effort which lasted 3+ hours only for her to wake an hour later! She is fine if she is with me and when I am there cuddling her back up for what seems the 100th time, but as soon as I walk out of the room she is upset. We follow a routine daily for sleeps, she will sleep generally for 40mins, if Im lucky we might get an hour or more on occassion. So most of the time she does catnap. Night time is the same, we have a routine, dinner, bath, milk, clean teeth, stories, bed. We do have a snug sheet which someone suggested to me awhile back, I think it helped her settle easier to start with as it means she can sit up but not stand but hasnt helped with the length of sleep. I have now taken it off and will try without it for a week or so and see if it makes a difference.

C_hippie_kiwi wrote:
I personally think waking a baby who has trouble sleeping because some book said so is a bit wacko .

I agree!! Never wake a sleeping baby smile. I have loosely followed the save our sleep routines since my son was 6 months old. But really just for guidance on how long to keep him awake between naps and how to space his milk feeds and solids etc as I really had no clue haha.

I totally don't agree with waking him if he is having a long nap. SOS says for his current age he shouldn't nap more than 2 hours a day but he quite often naps for 3 hours and I just leave him. Just means he goes to bed at 8pm instead of 7pm on that day - big deal. I figure if he's sleeping he must need it.

smile

I have to say I cant ever remember reading that piece about waking them, only if they sleep past a certain time in the afternoon and since our daughter doesnt sleep for long waking her is not something we do or even have to think about doing. Those of you who do have good sleepers are extremely lucky as sleep deprivation for a prolonged period is very debilitating and to have support is essential.
C_hippie_kiwi we are currently putting our daughter to bed at 6.30pm, when we first started our routine we started putting her to bed at 7pm and have moved it half an hour so far, maybe we will try for 6pm and see how that goes.

Vixclan1 wrote:
I have to say I cant ever remember reading that piece about waking them, only if they sleep past a certain time in the afternoon and since our daughter doesnt sleep for long waking her is not something we do or even have to think about doing. Those of you who do have good sleepers are extremely lucky as sleep deprivation for a prolonged period is very debilitating and to have support is essential.
C_hippie_kiwi we are currently putting our daughter to bed at 6.30pm, when we first started our routine we started putting her to bed at 7pm and have moved it half an hour so far, maybe we will try for 6pm and see how that goes.

It is exhausting isn't it? My son was a terrible sleeper when he was younger and I remember walking around so tired that my face hurt. I can't really explain it except that it felt like I had been hit in the face. One day I was so exhausted that my legs felt like jelly and I could hardly walk.

I really feel for you...I hope you can find a way that works for you and your little girl so that you both get the rest you need. Keep us updated smile

I went through the same thing with my son, i read all the books, took everyones advice. One thing that work for me was going to "tresillian" i think thats how you spell it. depending on where you live... This one is in Canberra, its like a sleep clinic with nurses and midwifes there to help you. They teach you what the different crys are and get your baby to settle by themselves. After going it took about a week after and he soon learnt to settle. They also give you a break....

I'm not sure we have those sleep clinics in NZ as I am in a similar situation Vixclan1 and I can totally empathise. Hourly wakings really are tough especially over prolonged periods. I have been trying to follow Elizabeth Pantley's ideas, but everytime our wee one gets sick its back to square one. At present our wee one is still breast fed, and she used to have tummy issues which the only way we could resolve was through feeding. So now she comfort feeds. Also my husband is a very deep sleeper who sleeps just like that, but can startle awake and send things flying, which means he can't really settle our wee one in the middle of the night. She also won't self settle, if I leave her to cry she escalates rapidly and to the point where she can make herself sick, so I'm against the whole cry it out method. I've been trying to space out her feeds so that I feed her only every 3-4 hours and not inbetween. Settling her (by rocking or cuddling) was a battle initially, but now if she realises she isn't getting fed she will settle quite quickly and the time between her wakings is spacing out. Though its a slow process and I realise the next step will be to try and find a way to self settle her. I must also admit I do fall asleep sometimes when trying to settle her, as there is only so long you can cope with the hourly wakings at night. This does counter the success we have when I can stay awake. If you find a magic solution, I'd love to hear it. In the meantime hang in there. People do reassure me all the time it will improve. Thinking of you x

They say sleep deprivation is a form of torture!

DS1 was a terrible sleeper for a long time. It took two visits to a day stay clinic then a 3 night stay at a residential clinic to sort him out! We've followed their methods since with our next 2 kids and haven't had sleep issues since.

Can you concentrate on practicing self settling during the day first? At that age, l'd say 40min naps aren't enough and your DD would be pretty exhausted. And when bubs get too tired, they find it extra hard to get to sleep and stay alseep. Also, 'sleep promotes sleep' so the more they get, the more they want!

And consistency is a key. Which is pretty hard when you can't even keep your own head upright!

We were taught a technique that involved doing the normal bedtime routine, and then waiting a progressively longer time before going in to pat and shush if they were crying. So, initially 2 mins, then 4, 6, 8 and then 10 mins. l found it worked for me and my son as l could watch the clock and knew exactly what l had to do. And you do have flexibility to change up the times if needed. Let me know if you'd like some more indepth info.

Good luck.

Thanks for the kind thoughts Bythesea. Our daughter also used to comfort feed which I managed to get her out of after reading Save our Sleep by Tizzie Hall, all in the aid of moving into self settling. It did take awhile but we managed to get her to self settle which was brilliant and we had a blissfull 3-4 weeks of her sleeping through the night thinking Tizzie was an absolute genius and our saviour! However this was months ago now and we have not had any success since. It sounds like you are doing well with your little one and you have managed to get past that first hurdle of moving away from the comfort feeding so good on you. I also cannot leave our daughter to cry for long and most certainly not to cry herself to sleep and I do understand the concept of the difference between crying and protesting or grizzling and the difference in cries. Have you read Save our Sleep? If not grab a copy and have a look at it even if you dont want to follow the routines there are some great ideas and information in there, particularly with regards to self settling. It doesnt advocate leaving them to cry either and stresses the importance of going to them when they are crying an emotional cry. You never know you may find this of some help. Know that there are others out there going through sleepless nights and all the emotions that go with that as it is a very lonely situation to be in. Keep smiling and try to enjoy the days, I know it is terribly hard. If I have any success with anything else I will let you know. smile