11 month old waking hourly :( need sleep training advice

[Sarah Lou 80]

My daughter has never been a great sleeper.thiese last few nights have been the worst. She has been waking hourly. She's not always wanting a feed but she does still feed (breastfeed) a couple of times overnight.

During the day I try and give her formula. He most she's ever had was 5pz from a bottle but now she will have an oz and then pull at my top for a feed.,if someone else tries to feed her she maybe will have 3oz. She hasn't got a big appetite for solids. She will eat. But not much. She's a healthy weight. Not sure how much she weighs but she's definitely well covered.


I think I know that the main problem is her inability to self settle.mshe goes to bed asleep. A few times she has gone down drowsy but awake but it's my fault, I know, for putting her down when she's fallen asleep on the breast or, very rarely, the bottle.

I'm looking for advice as I think her appetite in th day would maybe improvem if she didn't feed at all overnight but how,do,I go about those?mi think I need to start putting her down awake but I would love some advice,on what worked for you. I have a 3 year,old boy who Im mindful of waking him up overnight. Since yesterday I have started trying to replace her first 2 daytime feeds with a bottle. This worked a bit yesterday.
Though she was grouchy.

Anyway, this may all sound garbled but that's because I'm sleep deprived!!!

Help please!

 

[jessmke]

Sorry you are so sleep deprived! My LO wakes constantly at night as well but she is only 6 months old, I can't imagine what sort of state I would be in if this continues until she is 11 months!

Don't beat yourself up over not putting her down awake. I don't think self settling is all it's cracked up to be. My LO is a champion at settling herself to sleep, for every nap and at bedtime I put her down in the crib awake and she plays with her lovey and her pacifier a bit, then settles herself to sleep with no fuss. The number of times she has settled herself back to sleep after a night waking? Twice. And both times she woke up crying less than half an hour later. Self settling doesn't necessarily solve the problem, it hasn't for us anyways.

I don't really have any advice on how we got her to self settle because she just always sort of did it. She always broke her latch when she was done feeding and never nursed herself to sleep. She was content with being put down so we always layed her down to sleep instead of holding her. When she was little and napping in her pack n play upstairs we would put her down and then make sure we were in the room with her. She would watch us for a bit and then fall asleep. When we moved her to naps in the crib in her bedroom she fought that a little, so we would turn on her little crib music thing that has little birds that flutter around on the screen. That distracted her from her initial anger about being put down in her crib. I think the music stays on for about 5 minutes, once it ended she would settle herself to sleep. After a few days we took the music player out of the crib, so she could still hear the music but couldn't watch it. After a few days of that we ditched the music all together and she has been fine settling in her crib ever since.

If she is waking at night but not wanting a feed then hunger is probably not your issue, so giving formula is probably not going to solve the problem either (unless of course you are offering formula because you want to stop breastfeeding).

Sorry, I guess I don't really have any advise except to offer support and know that you aren't alone!

 

[zorak]

I did cry it out with my boys but would not advocate it in your situation. I think you need to sort out the feeding issues before tackling sleep. Are you wanting to switch to formula completely?

For the night feeds I'd gradually reduce the time to allow you both to adjust.

 

[Sarah Lou 80]

Sorry you are so sleep deprived! My LO wakes constantly at night as well but she is only 6 months old, I can't imagine what sort of state I would be in if this continues until she is 11 months!

Don't beat yourself up over not putting her down awake. I don't think self settling is all it's cracked up to be. My LO is a champion at settling herself to sleep, for every nap and at bedtime I put her down in the crib awake and she plays with her lovey and her pacifier a bit, then settles herself to sleep with no fuss. The number of times she has settled herself back to sleep after a night waking? Twice. And both times she woke up crying less than half an hour later. Self settling doesn't necessarily solve the problem, it hasn't for us anyways.

I don't really have any advice on how we got her to self settle because she just always sort of did it. She always broke her latch when she was done feeding and never nursed herself to sleep. She was content with being put down so we always layed her down to sleep instead of holding her. When she was little and napping in her pack n play upstairs we would put her down and then make sure we were in the room with her. She would watch us for a bit and then fall asleep. When we moved her to naps in the crib in her bedroom she fought that a little, so we would turn on her little crib music thing that has little birds that flutter around on the screen. That distracted her from her initial anger about being put down in her crib. I think the music stays on for about 5 minutes, once it ended she would settle herself to sleep. After a few days we took the music player out of the crib, so she could still hear the music but couldn't watch it. After a few days of that we ditched the music all together and she has been fine settling in her crib ever since.

If she is waking at night but not wanting a feed then hunger is probably not your issue, so giving formula is probably not going to solve the problem either (unless of course you are offering formula because you want to stop breastfeeding).

Sorry, I guess I don't really have any advise except to offer support and know that you aren't alone!

Thank you for this. It's very helpful and reassuring to know it's not just me! And that's interesting regarding the self settling at g. Not going to beat myself up about it now!

 

[Sarah Lou 80]

I did cry it out with my boys but would not advocate it in your situation. I think you need to sort out the feeding issues before tackling sleep. Are you wanting to switch to formula completely?

For the night feeds I'd gradually reduce the time to allow you both to adjust.

I think you're right and the feeding needs to be sorted first. I'm definitely wanting to finish breastfeeding but not sure whether to start the switch to cows milk rather than make one change followed shortly by another?

 

[gingmg]

My son did this too at this age. It was by far the worst sleep period for us. He was up hourly, if not multiple times an hour for weeks and weeks on end. It was awful. But it passed. We didn't sleep train. We just waited it out and it got better on its own. I think the whole 'drowsy but awake' thing is silly. I still don't put my son down awake but he now sleeps through.

 

[Sarah Lou 80]

I think I'll probably end up waiting it out too. I just feel like I'm dying at the moment!!! We had a 3 hour solid stretch of sleep the other night and it actually made me feel refreshed!!! That's how rubbish her sleep us, that 3 hours refreshes me!!

 

[ruby83]

I know how that feels! When my baby was waking hourly, a 3 hour stretch felt amazing! Just like 6am now feels like a sleep in! 😝

 

[sunnydee]

I went through this a few months ago. What I did was offer a small bottle of 3oz instead of breastfeeding, then I reduced it each night until it was only 1oz. The next night he didn't even wake cause he wasn't getting bf! any of the other times he woke I just rocked or lay down with him till he fell back asleep.
Now that he is night weaned I have been working on getting him to fall asleep without being rocked to sleep, as he is 10 months and very heavy now! I pushed a bed right up to his crib and lay there until he fell asleep, and move further away each night. He has never slept so well, 12 hours straight!

 

[minties]

I don't have any advice, but lots of sympathy. Sophie did this from 8-12 months and it was horrendous. Nothing I tried worked or even helped. She did grow out of it, still doesn't sleep through every night but that's a whole other story (needs help at night to figure out how to get up and pee).

 

[Sarah Lou 80]

I went through this a few months ago. What I did was offer a small bottle of 3oz instead of breastfeeding, then I reduced it each night until it was only 1oz. The next night he didn't even wake cause he wasn't getting bf! any of the other times he woke I just rocked or lay down with him till he fell back asleep.
Now that he is night weaned I have been working on getting him to fall asleep without being rocked to sleep, as he is 10 months and very heavy now! I pushed a bed right up to his crib and lay there until he fell asleep, and move further away each night. He has never slept so well, 12 hours straight!

Thanks for this. I did at one point, try offering the bottle at night but she was having none of it. She will have the bottle in the day. She will drink some or most of it and then start clawing at my top for me to feed her!

Thinking I might just ride it out but it's hard in the day with a toddler (who resists bedtime!) .

 

[noon_child]

She might be learning something new (language development and becoming mobile are two top ones around that age). Her active brain will be waking her up and if she's over tired she'll find it harder to sleep too.

I feel like transitioning to bottles at 11months could cause more trouble than it's worth. Dentists say formula at night needs to be brushed off the teeth (if there are any) whereas breastmilk doesn't seem to cause the same issues. You've also got to do all the prep which keeps you awake longer. Plus, like someone else said, if she doesn't want a feed it isn't hunger that is waking her.

 

[Sarah Lou 80]

This makes sense. She's been teething on and off since 6 months and she is still working on crawling. Before that it was obviously rolling and sitting up and I have wondered whether this has been affecting her. She's been fidgeting in the cot lots when I go in.

Thank you