Need advice - sleep issues

[gingajewel]

My dd is 7 months old and has probably slept through the night twice. She is so unsettled in the night and wakes up constantly. Sometimes she is happy when she wakes up and sometimes she is screaming the place down, for an example last night she was up four times crying her eyes out for about 45 mins each time, she is inconsolable and nothing will calm her down. She has a great bed time routine and will fall to sleep in about ten minutes, she just doesn't stay asleep! Things we have tried:
- feeding her, but she is 100% not hungry, she won't touch the bottle
- co sleeping, she still cries and cries and cries
- white noise
- items that smell like me in her cot
- giving her water
- cuddles
- ignoring her

Literally nothing works and I'm running in empty, does anyone have any advice please?

 

[LDC]

I'm not the best person to reply...we have a terrible sleeper too!

Have you spoken with your health visitor?

Mine has been brilliant with offering me advice with ds. He's almost six months and power naps through the day, he wouldn't sleep anywhere but in bed with me and still woke every two hours at least.

I have started sleep training since Thursday, he's now in his own room and is learning to self settle, which was his biggest issue. He cried for about 40 minutes the first night but we did go in every few minutes and shush pat him but after that night he settled so quickly. We have a nightlight and he likes to watch that.

He does still wake but he is going longer stretches at times, he's been down 2 hours now, although I know he will wake again in the next hour or so!

My daughter didn't sleep through until ten months so I'm not holding my breath with ds but I think our routine has helped him to know bed time means bed time and keeping it consistent that he is in his bed and that's it (for us means not coming into my bed!)

I am due to get him weighed on Tuesday and will chat with the health visitor again to check in and see if I can do anything else with him so would really encourage you to speak with yours if you feel you can. Mine was so non judgemental it was lovely xx

 

[jessmke]

I don't really have any advice except to wait it out. My DD was much the same, she had never slept through the night and the best she had ever done was only waking 3 times, but that was rare and it was usually 5+ times every night. According to the "sleep experts" we had done everything right as far as not having any "sleep associations" and having her self settle so I couldn't figure out why she was up so much. We tried a few gentle sleep training techniques but they just resulted in everyone getting even less sleep. We were recently on vacation and she was up at night and screaming every 45 min for the two weeks we were away. The last few days it's like a switch has flipped. Three nights ago she woke up only twice for a feed and was in bed for 15 hrs. Two nights ago she woke up once for a feed and again was in bed for 15 hrs. Last night she didn't wake at all (yay our first STTN!) and she is still sleeping now and it's been 14 hrs since she went to bed (I'm really hoping this is unrelated to me dropping her on the stairs yesterday). I'm pretty sure this is the 1 year growth spurt so I don't expect these 15 hr nights to last, but I am really hoping the STTN lasts! I know how exhausted you must feel but it will get better, just nap whenever you can and have faith that this will pass.

 

[SummerMother]

Does her room have a night light? I know my 5 month old stopped screaming if he woke up at night once we had a nightlight in there. I'd hear him get up but he would just talk a bit and then be out again. Before the night light he'd wake up and scream until we went in and said "it's ok". I honestly think a lot of it was he would wake up and almost not know where he was?

Another thing he has is a planet/star ceiling projector (it's built into his baby monitor) and he seems to love looking at the ceiling when he's about to fall asleep.