Sleep Problems

[Missy]

I would really appreciate any advice on how to get Sapphire to sleep better at night. She is 11mths and has never slept more than 2-3 hours on the trot since birth. Her daytime naps are OK but her nights are harder to cope with. She usually goes down at about 9pm and will wake after 1-2 hours. I feed her although she is not very hungry and then she wont go back down without a lot of settling. This will be repeated hourly pretty much til I go to bed. We co-sleep part time i.e. first time she wakes after we go to bed she comes in with us for the rest of the night and sometimes she sleeps fine once she's in with us but other times she's restless all night so I get very little sleep. I have to go back to work at the end of June and I could really do with getting more sleep as I'm concerned I won't be able to cope

 

[im_mi]

oh hun, that sounds tough Ive heard that night weaning should never be considered before 12 months old but you're only a month shy of that mark, and you are clearly exhausted. its no wonder you feel apprehensive about going back to work. My son was a bad sleeper (although admittedly by 11 months he was only waking 1-3 times a night rather than every couple of hours like he did until he was about 6-7 months) and i found it very hard to cope with.

Are you nursing? if so, how do you feel about night weaning? do you feel like she is ready for it, or not? There are lots of other things you can try to help settle her in the mean time, if you guys arent ready to go the night-weaning route. You could try:

Weighted blankets
Full time co-sleeping
Adjusting bedtime routine (what do you do at the moment?)
reading and implementing the "No Cry Sleep Solution" by elizabeth pantley
Babywearing during the day (this really helped my son's sleeping habits)

Hope this has helped some xxx

Dont stress too much over

 

[Bayleaf]

Can't offer any advice as Emmett (7 months) is also not into sleeping more than 2-3 hours on the trot (and has done since birth).
I can REALLY relate to how you are feeling

Things we are trying at the moment:

Making sure he's not overtired and then have a really solid bed time/winding down routine (as suggested by some lovely ladies on here)

Have OH settle him (so I get a break)

Make sure he naps well in the day

It runs in our family though, my sister and I didn't sleep through until we were 4 YEARS old

 

[Rachel_C]

Leyla has just started settling herself back to sleep an awful lot quicker/better, because I changed her blankets! Before, she had layered blankets that were tucked under the mattress quite tightly (I didn't want her to uncover herself and get cold). She used to kick her way out of them, which would wake her up properly, then roll around playing. I just put her in a sleeping bag and she has nothing to fight against so she doesn't wake herself up and goes pretty much straight to sleep. Maybe worth considering if there's anything keeping her awake like that?