night weaning my 10 month old, help!

[Acacia]

Hi TM - what a rough gig at the moment! My DD was the same, until she was about 9 months old she was sleeping through with just a dreamfeed before I went to sleep myself - but since then she usually wakes 1-3 times a night (mostly once now) and it can sometimes take up to 3 hours to settle her back to sleep.

Two things I've figured out have been going on:

~ She's been getting separation anxiety at night (not necessarily in the day time though) and really just wants to be around me until she feels sleepy again. It's a really common age for it to be happening.

~ At the same time as the separation anxiety she's been going through teething at night. Not many symptoms during the day, but the pain has woken her at night and takes ages for her to be ready to settle back to sleep due to the discomfort (sometimes when it's been an hour or two I offer her nurofen or panadol), and she wants to be comforted and have me there when she's in pain. Don't blame her! Since she was 9 months old she's cut 5 teeth and she's cutting another 3 at the moment (she cut her first two easily when she was around 6 months). The worst of the pain has happened when there's no indication of any teeth imminent - it's only after when I see her cutting the teeth that I realise that's been the main cause of her night waking. She has been having these nights pretty consistently for 6 months now, with the odd break here or there.

Could this be happening to your DD? Some babies show lots of teething symptoms as their teeth are still deep in their jaw and start moving, yet there is nothing visible in their mouth. And it can be a reaaaaaally long drawn out process - so far it's taken my DD almost 2 months with these current teeth that are just cutting to get to this point.

Just some thoughts - sorry I can't offer a solution but I hope you can get some better sleep soon and figure out what is happening for her and that you're DD is feeling better soon.

ETA - I was just thinking - I've not tried it myself but would you consider an amber teething necklace for her and see if that has any affect after a bit of time?