night wakings

[oleary]

Ladies,

I need some help please. My daughter has just turned 5 months and in the last 6 weeks or so has started waking alot at night time. She used to sleep from 7.30pm to 7.30am with once wake for a bottle at 3-4am. Now she wakes every 1.5-2 hours.

the last 2 nights its been every 2 hours and wakes up for the day around 6.00-6.30am. the night before that she only woke up once. Have no idea what is going on with her.

I tried to take the dummy away as I am told this could be causing the problems. But she went completely hysterical when I did some controlled crying and couldn't listen to her cry so I gave it back to her.

I have even started her on solids as was advised by the health nurse she could be hungry. I am also giving her teething liquid in case it is her teeth.

Can anyone tell me if they are going or went through the same thing and how they coped. Feel very sleep deprived at the moment.

thanks heaps

[Claire_A]

Hi Oleary,

I could have written that exact post a few weeks ago. After about 6 weeks of constant waking I finally booked into sleep school as I jsut couldn't take it anymore. Our problem was that we were rocking DD to sleep in our arms and then transferring her to her bed, so whenever she woke she needed us to resettle. We now put her in her cot awake and pat her until she's almost asleep (and shhh or sing to her aswell) but leave so she puts herself to sleep. Now I hear her wake in the night (not crying or anything just a few grunts here and there) but she can now resettle herself. She still wakes once (sometimes twice on a bad night) for a feed but it's such an improvement from what she was like a few weeks ago.

How do you put your bub to sleep? If she already self settles I'm afraid I can't be of much help. But if she doesn't, maybe it's something worth trying. I don't agree with control crying either and I never let DD cry herself to sleep, I was always there comforting her.

HTH!

[MantaRay]

Oleary, I know how exhausting this is. This is really common around the 5 month mark and usually settles down by itself after a few days or a couple of weeks. Another thing it could be is the change of weather - is your baby's room warm enough? Do you use a gro-bag or similar in case she squirms out of the blankets?

If she is warm enough, my guess is it's just development with the age. Around this time they learn to crawl or at least become more mobile, and when they wake instead of resettling as they used to do, they practise their new motor skills instead. They tend to do it again when they learn to stand too. It is temporary though, so if you can, try to get by with day rests etc and wait for it to pass. All the best - I hope it doesn't take too long for you.

[Sammiejane]

Same thing happened to us at aound 6 months.
I tried EVERYTHING, what ever someone suggested i tried it, i tried all the things that i agreed with first and if they didnt work or stopped working i moved onto methods that i wasnt as comfortable with.

You know what, there wasnt any one thing that actually worked with us, it was a matter of baby changing and us learning to know what the problem was.
sometimes it was pain, heat, cold, needing comfort, tummy ache, growing pains, teething, bad dream or all of the above.
After a month i decided that i could make one of two moves.
1) stress each and every time she woke, counting the minutes that i was up, begrudging the time and worrying what was the matter
OR
2) go with the flow, resign myself to the fact that MJ is a baby and she is crying for a reason and she NEEDS me at that time and go and help her get to sleep....

I choose option 2..

At the time it is awful and i was very sleep deprived and would be a bit snappy at times... BUT i kept rationalising that this was a stage that she was going through and she would come out the other side, what i decided to do was focus my attention on being soothing and there for my little girl, after all, its unlikely she is going to do this for years and years and the time, effort and just being there for her IS likely to pay of for years and years.

I know that this hasnt realy been helpful, just go with your gut, get sleep when you can and help your little one through this stage, you will find that the more relaxed you are, the easier it is for her.

I do know what you are going through, i sympathise, but it deos get better... hang in there

[oleary]

thank you claire.

it does help. just need to hang in there i guess. hopefully this stage wont last long.

[BabyQ]

For what it's worth, my ds who has just turned 4 months last week has been doing the same to us for the past few nights... constant grunting and moaning til he wakes himself and us up..once I get him back to sleep I put him down and juuuuust enough time goes by for me to fall back asleep then we start all over again! LOL ..brought ds in bed with us last night and it didn't stop his waking...one thing I have found helpful though is, no matter how much you want to, DON'T look at the clock...just take each time as it comes...then tell yourself you DID get enough sleep...let me know how that works for ya...hehe, here's hoping!