What is wrong with her? :(

DD has begun to refuse to settle for sleeps... At any time. She is absolutely exhausted but as soon as you put her in the cot she just screams and screams. The only thing that works is Panadol and even that isn't helping her sleep, it's just stopped her screaming.

I know she's at the age where separation anxiety sets in (she's 7 months) so I thought that might be it. But then yesterday arvo I found the sharp ridge of her first tooth poking through, so it could be that. But she's fine when she's sitting upright, just screams when lying down. Same during the day, but if she lays on the play mat she is fine.

I know it's not just protest cries. Yes, there is some element of that to it, but there is also pain. I don't know what though. I'm tending to think its a combo of separation anxiety and teething but TBH I have no clue and I'm coming to the end of my rope on no sleep! :(

Oh yeah and she was fully arching back too. She has reflux but is on meds for that and hasn't had a problem since the meds, so I'm clueless!

Food issues? Bad cold?

FWIW, I know that there have been some nights when baby Liebling slept almost sat up, as it was too uncomfortable for him to lie down. That was around the teething/evil grandmother giving him "treat" solids he wasn't allowed/ill/needing Mamma constantly time as well.

My first thought is her ears. I would pop along to the GP if you can & get her ears checked.

if it's only for sleeping in her cot that she does this, do you think it could be that she likes white noise etc in the background? Often rooms are so quiet and very different to other living areas of the house and she might not like the change in room kwim? is sleeping her in a portacot during the day an option for her?

sounds like a combo of things.
teething and separation anxieties and some go through phases of not liking the cot.
I think a Dr check would ease you of any physical worries.
some white noise may help too.
dd has always had issues with the cot, she hated being stuck in there. so we have her cot sidecar to our bed and alittle lower then our bed, but for your young one the same height may be better.
we have a routine for sleep. every sleep. a book, a song then kiss and cuddle then in a firm voice I tell her its time to sleep, sweet dreams. and now she knows what's happening and what's expected. (dd is 15mth)
I hope you can find a solution.
teething can.be an awful time :(

TFB: no cold. What sort of food issues?

Efjay: I thought ears too, but she doesn't have any other symptoms and she will happily lie down and play on the play mat during the day, buy lie her down in the cot day or night and she screams blue murder. Up until last week she was happy to go to sleep when put in her cot.

Trillian: Nothing has changed. She's been in her cot in her own room since very early on, about 2-3 months old.

Double trouble: no room in our bedroom to sidecar, otherwise I might try it for sure. We've also had a routine every night for months now. As of last week she still seems to realise it's bedtime and not argue, but then as soon as she's halfway lowered into the cot, she starts :(

She used to quite happily go to sleep at 7pm. In the last 2 nights she's taken 1.5-2 hrs to settle and the only thing that made her settle in the end was Panadol.

Just from personal experience, get her ears checked. DD would do the same, had no other symptoms but had a whopper of a double ear infection, so it had been brewing for a while. Good luck with solving it. :)

Id definitely head off to your GP to get checked. Then if it's nothing, at least you got her checked out iykwim?

It could be teeth, but if it's uncontrollable screaming and it's really out of character screaming/crying, id have to agree with the others who have suggested ear infections. Quite common for little ones.

I hope what ever is making her unsettled goes away soon. You must be so frustrated. :-(

Just a question though. Have you tried nurofen at all? It's actually an anti inflammatory and pain killer in one. I find it works better for teething and ear issues due to it's anti inflammatory properties.

Hope this helps.

Just to add teething apparently makes reflux a lot worse, so maybe that could be contributing regardless of meds.
My DD's reflux has definitely been worse with teething but she isn't taking medication full time.

With the reflux she may need her meds increased with her weight going up. The fact that she is ok sitting but then is in pain lying down points to the reflux pain to me.

But then how is she happy to lie down on the play mat?

CHNs thought from all the info I gave them that she's just resisting sleep and just to persist but they haven't heard her screaming! I just tried and I couldn't do it. But of course she's happy since I picked her up!

Isn't reflux supposed to ease off around 7-8 months, not get worse?

I'd get her checked out, just in case, yeah.
It could well be that she simple doesn't want to be alone. Even though she was happy to sleep like that before, doesn't mean she will always feel that way. Do you have a sling to help her get some sleep for now? Or car or stroller?

You're right. It must be reflux or an ear infection as she's fallen asleep upright in her pram with no effort from me. Can't get a doc's appointment until tomorrow though. I still don't understand the playmat thing though.

My DD is the same with the playmat thing. Also her reflux has gotten worse at 10 months. I've heard drs say it gets better by age one but then I've heard some mum's say it took their LO until 2.

Still might be an ear infection though, good thing to go to dr.

from my experience i'd say 2.
what did the Dr say?

DD1 was a bit similar in that she woke up screaming several times a night every night for a couple months, and not just a bit upset, SCREAMING in pain and if you tried to lay her down in her cot asleep she would wake up and scream again. With her it was a teeth issue, but in your case I would think teeth and ears would be front runners. On the play mat thing....when I was going through this I discovered the role distraction plays. I think during the day when playing they are distracted they can kind of ignore their pain a bit, but at night (or other times in their cot) it just them and the pain and nothing else to get in the way. At night I could distract DD1 with a toy and she would stop screaming. More than once I sat up for 2+ hours playing something because even though it wasn't sleeping it wasn't screaming either :) So it could just be that she is distracted from the pain on her play mat.

Ears are fine, nothing there. He is allowing me to up the reflux meds for a bit to see if that helps cause he said it does get affected by teething.

There is also an element of separation anxiety, confirmed last night when, after trying to settle screaming in cot for 1hr and Panadol I took her onto my bed to see what would happen. Flat on her back she was and happy, trying to eat my pillow and giggling. Little so-and-so! Back to her bed, screaming again, though less. We decided to ignore as a last resort and she was asleep within 10-15 min.

Tonight I put her in bed, said goodnight etc, walked out. She protested about 5-10 min before falling asleep. But that was definitely NOT the screaming of the previous 3 nights, so I'm guessing the teething pain has eased. Phew (until the next one)!

Grr and now she's waking every 2 hours and I haven't figured out how to get her out of the habit of feed-to-sleep yet! (which I tried so hard not to start in the beginning - it became habit after a growth spurt)

Just a quick one hon while I'm up with my DD :)

At 7 months it's still very normal for them to want to feed over night so don't deprive her of that for fear of creating a bad habit. I (and many other BB mums) have just fed our babies when they've needed it and then before you know it, the growth spurt is over or the tooth is through and they sleep well again.

We've just been through a bad run of terrible night sleeping with DD2 (from 5-8.5 months) where she was waking every couple of hours, if not more. I fed her when I thought she needed it or to simply settle her. She's come out the other side now and has recently done several nights of no feeds and only very brief wakeups. She even did her first 11 hour night (no wakeups) a few weeks ago :D

So my advice is run with it and give her Panadol or Nurofen if she appears to be in pain and you're comfortable doing so. She's only still very little and sometimes they just need the comfort of a mummy snuggle too. She will pop out the other side, you won't break her or teach her bad habits :hug:

The 'growth spurt' that became habit was 3 months ago. She was sleeping up to 7 hrs before that. I was quite happy to wake up once a night. But 3 months nonstop of 3-4 wake ups a night is doing my head in. It's actually messing with my body too. Twice this week I've been lying wide awake between 2-4am while DD is fast asleep. It's so infuriating to be desperate for sleep and have perfectly good sleeping time wasted by insomnia. Then of course, when she wants me, I can barely keep my eyes open.

Reflux can continue on for a lot longer than people think. My daughter is 3 years old and still suffers. However, she is not the norm, and most babies are ok between 1-2 years of age. When she is on the play mat she is distracted from the pain so this may be why she is ok with it. Also babies can develop pain association with things, eg, her cot may not be a "nice place " for her if she associates it with pain. My daughter is still traumatised from her reflux issues as a baby and us trying to get her to sleep. She also had pain association with me, as I breastfed her and she started to associate this with pain too. Babies with reflux can also become comfort feeders aswell. This is where some doctors don't believe parents when they say their baby has reflux if the baby is a good weight. Drinking soothes their throat, so they want to drink, but it is only after that the pain comes, when it is refluxed back up again.

All of what you have described can have other causes. Some babies do just like to feed often, regardless of growth spurts or reflux. Some babies do just like to be held all the time. Some babies hate to sleep. So you can take what I have written as a grain of salt, just wanted you to know what I have found with having 2 reflux babies of my own. Its is a tough gig!

Also you may want to get involved and get support from RISA - it is a support group for mums and dads experiencing reflux with their babies. I have only just joined, but wish I had years ago.

Best wishes :)

Thanks :) I might do that. She's been really tired the last few days too. Like yawning her head off only 30 min after waking up in the morning. I put thee down for a nap 30 min ago and she's spent all that time wriggling around, making noises and getting annoyed. it's only in the last 2 mins that I can't hear anything happening.

do you have a sling? I couldn't have survived 2/3 of my reflux kids with out my sling.
upright, snuggly and happy. baby will relax and sleep and be less bothered by reflux.

I know your pain hon. Like I said, I've just done 3.5 months of awful nights with DD2. She also has reflux. DD1 had silent reflux but was always a good night sleeper (well nearly always). I certainly don't recall a stint like we've just been through with DD2! I second the sling advice. I wouldn't have survived my first born without my sling, it was her second home!

Have you tried a baby chiro? I did early on with DD1 but have only just done so with DD2 - started about 6 weeks ago. The chiro has been fab! Not sure where you are but we are in Perth and can highly recommend Young Chiropractic in Wembley. Magda has been amazing with DD2.

I agree with Taurean, maybe get her checked by a baby Chiro, they can do wonders, my boys first went at 3 weeks old and were all out of alignment and go regularly now - every 6mths - and even though they are 16mths old at the last check up DS1's neck was out of alignment and she said he must have been cranky as he has probably had a constant headache.

Also if baby is teething laying down flat increases the blood flow to the gum area and makes it much more painful, same my DS1 is a shocking teether so he has a sleep wedge under the head of his cot to raise his head and shoulders up at a slight angle to help.

Oh, and the night feedings I hear you on that. My boys started sleeping through at 10weeks old (10hr stretches) but everytime they hit a growth spurt they would want a feed overnight. Now if they wake during the night they automatically want a bottle of milk to resettle, this occurs about 5 out of 7 nights a week which is tiresome but they will eventually grow out of it.

baby chiropractor, that makes sense dd back clicks awfully every time I pick her up

:hug:
She'll grow out of feeding to sleep on her own, when she doesn't need it anymore. If it's the easiest way to do things right now, just go with it adn give yourself a break.
Where does she sleep? Sometimes the best way to get through these phases - and yes, it's a phase and it will pass, though sometimes it takes a while - is to just do whatever is easiest.
Slings, feed to sleep, bed share, drive around the block, whatever makes things easier on you for right now. Forget about habits - she's a baby, she'll make a break a load of habits in the next year or two. Try not to fight things when you're exhausted.

Slings and driving are fine for daytime but not night. She has settled a bit last night. Tonight's messed up cause it's dinner at in-laws night (weekly) so we'll see what happens.

Btw breaking habits etc is what I want for my sanity more than her benefit, lol. If I can get her to drop at least one feed then yay, more sleep! I don't think she needs it. She's very fat, happy and healthy.

I understand Phebee, and sometimes that works, but sometimes they are extremely resistant to change and you end up making things harder on yourself. Just putting it out there as she is very young, yet.

Her sleep is also suffering cause she keeps getting tired 30 min - 1hr after waking up in the morning. I had to stop her solids this morning & put her to bed cause she was all glazed over and yawning her head off.

I've decided it's definitely got to be the reflux increasing because of teething. I've doubled her dosage of Losec (approved by the GP of course) so we'll see what happens. Fingers crossed it helps!

hope you both.can get a good night sleep
dd almost totally goes off her food when she is teething but I will pay attention more to her tummy then, its interesting.
ds who's 6/7 gets worse when he's tired
sounds like u got it all going on

She eats more when reflux is bad. The milk soothes it but then makes it worse later on. Poor bubby :(