Our DD is 8 months and use to be a great sleeper. Slept well on her own during the days and would only wake once a night but was able to put herself back to bed. She was sick about 1month ago and got into a pattern of being rocked to sleep. Its not something i can keep up so we've resorted to patting.
I pat her for sometimes 1-2hrs to get her to sleep. She now wakes up every 2hrs and i feed her and sit and pat her to sleep for 30-60mins. I am now getting very little sleep and reaching the end of my patience. I need sleep. I've gone back to rocking and patting but now that wont do. I've just spent an hour rocking and she's still awake and screaming.
I have tried the pram, back rubs and having her sleep on me but she just wont.
What's going on? I'm thinking that i've tried all i can and what i have tried is not having any affect and she's forgotten how to sleep herself...Have i done enough?
Can you introduce a lullaby machine or bedtime toy? DS chats to himself then screams too. But if DS wakes up while I'm putting him (already asleep - we're working on getting him to go down alone!) down a cuddle with his bedtime bunny or a hum of his lullaby works. Now when he's tired he starts trying to hum his lullaby, it's so cute! So if your DD associates a lullaby with sleep and can press the button on a machine herself it may help you all.
Hmmmm, how did you teach her in the first place? Before she was ill i mean? Perhaps you could try doing exactly the same thing again, see if it jogs her memory? It sounds as if you ALL must be exhausted only getting 2 hours sleep at a time.
I didn't do controlled crying per se, because i never left the room, i sat next to the cot and stroked/patted/sang, and then just sang and then just sat and murmured if she was grizzly.
i didn't do controlled crying either, but i guess what i did was similar. I put DS in bed then left the room, he would sook then cry and i could tell when the cry was was just stating to get serious i would go back in and pat/stroke/rock then when he was settled again i'd walk out and do the same. it took a couple of weeks but worked in the end, he never ever got left by himself long enough to get really upset or feel abandoned though.
Goodluck i hope you find what works for you and bub, big hugs
Its getting worse! she use to go down after a feed at night and just put herself back to sleep. If her dummy popped out i could just pop it back in and she'd go back to sleep but now EVERY time she wakes at night she wants to be sung, patted, rocked to sleep.
I tried sitting by her and patting while she grizzled but it just got worse so that she was crying so i picked her up. When i put her back down she would wail!!! At 3am i rocked her for 40mins last night. DH got up and did another 20mins and she finally went to sleep!!
How i taught her originally was to slowly reduce the rocking and go to patting. (which is what we did) and then reduce the patting until she could sleep by herself. I've been trying this for ages so i'm not sure if it affective anymore.
Some babies just do become really restless for a while and then go back to sleeping. Is she teething? Is she still feeling a little ill? These are things which wake DD when she's like that - especially the teething.
Best of luck and more to you, it's so hard when they don't sleep well.
When is enough enough?
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