we are not sleeping well anymore

[Sammiejane]

From about 8 weeks old MJ started sleeping straight through, exclusivly BF, would have her last feed at 8-9pm then sleep 10-12 hours, only ocasionally needing a dream feed.

Since about 6 1/2 mths she has been waking more and more often... Most of the time she would fal back asleep as soon as she was picked up, and we could easily ut her back down in her cot... This has changed and needs heaps of cuddles and wakes as soon as she is put back in her cot
the last 2 weeks out of exhaustion and hoping that it would help her learn to resleep through, we brought her into bed with us when she woke. This seemed to working fine, but now she needs to lie on top of me or be cuddled to go off to sleep and has to have one of my arms underneath her to remain asleep.

I feel like it is getting out of control, she wakes with every cycle, so each 45-60 mins.

Other things to add, she has not yet cut a tooth, so could this be teething pain and needing Mummy around?
She had a high temp at the start of the week (GP said a virus) so this also could be impacting this week
She is wimpering in her sleep a lot - this really upsets us as she is such a happy girl when awake - would her dreams be kicking in yet?

I would like to move her back into her room, i love the co-sleeping, but dont want to do it full time, would rather reserve it for bad nights and not feeling well - i feel it makes it more special that way...

Any advice???
Thanks in advance

[Rahjah]

Ahh sorry no advice - i'm here looking for some LOL

We cosleep with DS 9mths and are having the same issues. It's disintegrated to waking every sleep cycle thru the night too! MY sister is a big fan of "wonder weeks" - I don't know when they are, but the theory goes that their sleep is very disturbed when they are learning something new.

I hope this is true because it means we'll all get our sleep back shortly!

Sorry, no help, but I'm right there with ya.

[Sequoia]

From about 8 weeks old MJ started sleeping straight through, exclusivly BF, would have her last feed at 8-9pm then sleep 10-12 hours, only ocasionally needing a dream feed.

Since about 6 1/2 mths she has been waking more and more often... Most of the time she would fal back asleep as soon as she was picked up, and we could easily ut her back down in her cot... This has changed and needs heaps of cuddles and wakes as soon as she is put back in her cot
the last 2 weeks out of exhaustion and hoping that it would help her learn to resleep through, we brought her into bed with us when she woke. This seemed to working fine, but now she needs to lie on top of me or be cuddled to go off to sleep and has to have one of my arms underneath her to remain asleep.

I feel like it is getting out of control, she wakes with every cycle, so each 45-60 mins.

Other things to add, she has not yet cut a tooth, so could this be teething pain and needing Mummy around?
She had a high temp at the start of the week (GP said a virus) so this also could be impacting this week
She is wimpering in her sleep a lot - this really upsets us as she is such a happy girl when awake - would her dreams be kicking in yet?

I would like to move her back into her room, i love the co-sleeping, but dont want to do it full time, would rather reserve it for bad nights and not feeling well - i feel it makes it more special that way...

Any advice???
Thanks in advance

OMG! This is us right now!

DS has teeth but whimpers in his sleep then builds to a scream, it is driving me crazy. What happened to my baby who used to sleep 12 hours a night? I've forgotten how bad sleep deprivation is.

SJ - have things improved? Please tell me they have.

BUMP!

[Trillian]

Is she having solids? and if so, is she eating a meal at night and what type of food? We had LOADS of sleep issues that we first thought was teething, but it just seemed relentless and giving panadol didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. And when he was asleep it wasn't a *good* sleep either kwim? When he was nearly 9mths, we had a gastro bug go through us all and I was just too sick one night to make him dinner, so he went without solids that night and guess what? he slept for 10 HOURS!!!!! I didn't give him solids again the next night because I was still ill and we got another solid nights sleep! Literally overnight all our sleep issues stopped - even when he did cut other teeth it was nothing compared to what he was doing. He did have reflux issues, so the solids were just making that worse and his gut just couldn't digest it properly at night. Around the same time I also read and article in Practical Parenting magazine about babies sleep and the correlation with high GI foods. If your baby has a diet of high GI foods, it can interfere with their sleep. So when we started to re-introduce an evening meal, we started with low GI foods only and we had no sleep issues. We also realised that potato gives him belly aches and even now he can't eat potato at night.

Maybe something to think about anyway.

[Sammiejane]

THanks trillian, but i am now just sitting here worried about what tonight will bring. She has always been a happy chucker, so slight reflux issues...
She ate a massive dinner tonight as she just kept shovelling it in (honestly if you saw her you would think that i never feed her) i do try and feed her early though, at 430 and she goes to bed at 7- 7.30pm, so hopefully not too much of a full tum..... BUT DSS is here tonight so when we ate dinner, she wanted to sit with us too, and had a bit of our chicken (we do BLS) and *cringe* potato.

Thanks for your reply, i appreciate it and if i have a shocker tonight i will try and cut back on dnner, or ommit it altogether

[Marlene]

How did you go last night SammieJane?

Trillian, what sort of foods should they have for dinner? Jack is having the same problems at night. I thought I might try porridge for dinner. Would that be ok?
Jack always does a poo between 4 and 6 in the morning, so I am thinking that maybe his tummy is given him trouble during the night. I'm not really sure what high Gi and Low Gi foods are.

Any help would be appreciated.

ETA: I have tried no dinner a couple of times, but he still keeps waking and restless, so I thought he might be hungry.

[Sammiejane]

Well we had an awful night!!

DH and i were talking before we went to bed and we realised that her bad sleeping pattern only started at 6.5 months and that was when she started consuming foods instead of playing (we are doing BLS).
MJ has also started pooing early too, either sometime after 4am in her nappy (which i am sure is why she grizzles early morning) or as soon as she is sitting on the potty (doing EC part time) in the morning anytime from 6.30-7am

here is a link to a list of GI foods... it is a diet website, but it was the better list that i could find with evrything listed.... Glycemic Index Food Chart
Think we may try just veggies and pasta and maybe no later than 4.30pm so that she has a chance to use some of the energy.

Also Marlene, you probably know this as you have had kids before, but around this age, BF babies can pick up an extra milk feed overnight (even if they previously slept through)... i tried dream feeds and the worked for a while and then it go worse, but thats probably with the extra and later foods that we had also tried. so maybe thats worth a try too?
I might go back to them...
I will give the low GI foods a go first and demand feed o/night to start with to see if that helps, maybe she wont need the extra feed (thats sounds hopefull doesnt it )

Shoegal - things got a bit better with the dream feeds, also we tried playing soft music when she went to sleep and each time she woke, that helped (stopped now - playing that is) she is sometimes sleeping longer stretches, sometimes not.
I also dont feed her directly before bed now, let her play for 30-45 mins before bed. i have to rock her to sleep, but she is not feeding herself to sleep (and at times not finishing the feed) and waking in a diff place. She is going off quicker most days now, but it is taking a while to impliment....

[Trillian]

Marlene, I would give Alister a combination of rice cereal and quick oats (not the flavoured ones though) and then just oats when he was used to it and a little bit of green veges (spinach, broccoli and peas - I started with the raffertys one and then just made my own version of this) when I started reintroducing a night meal for him. At this stage too, some of what they go through is developmental as well. You would also have to expect that when they poo at that hour of the morning, that they would feel a little discomfort as it is moving through the intestine/bowel kwim? A lot of Alister's problem too was lower wind pain and how it moved through his stomach.

Sammiejane, so it makes sense to you now does it? Also at this age they don't need a huge variety in their diet either, so if you have a day where it's only 1-2 different things, then that's fine. They have the rest of their life to experience all the food on offer, and it certainly wont create a fussy eater.

[Marlene]

Jack was doing huge farts this morning, not even sure what time it was I was that tired, LOL. Probably about 3am.
When he is waking at night if he doesn't settle easily (put his dummy in and a bit of a pat on the bum) I give him a BF as I do find he is not drinking quite as much during the day as he is just so active, even when I take him into his room and close the blinds it is nearly impossible to get him to stay still for more than a few minutes. I dont mind waking for a feed at night but its the waking every 2 hours that I cant handle.

Jack is great at getting to sleep, Self settles perfectly, its just the staying asleep and self settling during the night that is a problem.

Sorry to hijack yor thread Sammijane.

[Sammiejane]

No problems Marlene...
No dinner last two nights, not unsettled waking, but waking for feeds overnight still.
Last night was two feeds and then after the 4.30am feed she wouldnt resettle well.
Took an hour and finally we bought her into bed with us, then she slept soundly until 7.30am

Could this be a growth spurt? is that why she needs extra night feeds?
She is still having 5-6 BM feeds throughout the day, and now 1 or 2 over night....
Man im tired this morning

Its such a change from the baby that slept through the night (needing no feeds, not even dream feeds) from about 6 weeks old..
Will she ever sleep through again?

[Sequoia]

Its such a change from the baby that slept through the night (needing no feeds, not even dream feeds) from about 6 weeks old..
Will she ever sleep through again?

My DS slept through, no night feeds, from 8 weeks and it's killing me too.

At 12.30 last night his whimpering built up into a scream, he had a feed which only settled him a little.

DH ended up pulling the single bed up alongside DS's cot and holding his hand through the bars!

And then he slept til past 7.00am!

If only I knew there would be an end point. How long does this behaviour last???

Gosh, I sound so incredibly selfish but it is such a shock to go back to sleep deprivation land....

SG
xo

[Sammiejane]

Gosh, I sound so incredibly selfish but it is such a shock to go back to sleep deprivation land....

Im hearing you on all counts

[luey]

I have never left sleep deprivation land, I guess that makes it better. But beleive me it still hurts - 1-2 hourly all night is just wrong. What I hate is it settles for a bit then it just goes pera shaped again.

Some interesting ideas here. I might try giving DS no tea and see what that does. Except he wakes for feeds anyway, only way he settles

[onthefly]

Well, I guess it's reassuring to hear others having the same problems....
DS never slept through either Luey but he was getting so much better at 5 - 5.5 months. Then all of a sudden, just before 6 months - constant waking. At that point we hadn't really started solids though, just giving him the ocasional taste of things. At around 6.5 months started having regular solids. I experimented giving him more and less and none to see if it made a difference. one 5-day stretch with no solids seemed to help for a bit, but then he went back to waking lots. Have just gradually increased the solids since then (on 2 small meals now, never dinner).
He also seems to need an extra feed during the night now.

Last night he rolled over and went to sleep on his tummy and slept 6 hours straight, the best he's managed in over a month!

I pulled the spare mattress into his room and have been sleeping in there for most of the past month
Also, found that leaving a dim light on seems to help (think it's becuase i have it on when I'm in there so maybe it's a signal to him that mummy's around)
Tried Brauer's stomach calm, which has helped him before, but no dice. Same for the brauer's teething relief.

[Marlene]

Have tried no dinner the last few night....hasn't made a difference. Have tried almost everythign ever made by Brauers, LOL...didnt make any difference. Infants Friend.....didnt help! Oh well....looks like I'm just going to have to get used to it.