Am I missing something?

DS was a shocking sleeper, and didn't sleep thru till he was over 2. With DD I thought things might be different as I am/was a lot more relaxed this time round. She was pretty good as a newborn, going down relatively easily. She has only ever done 45 min naps, but woke up happy so I just went with it. At one stage she was doing about 8 hours at night.

Then 5 months hit (Jan) and the sleep regression came into force! She started waking more frequently at night. Again I just put it down to a phase and went with it. She also practised crawling, and started a few weeks ago at just over 6 months. I also put the sleeping down to that and her 'wonder week'.

However, we are now two months old at just about 7 months and the sleeping is just as bad if not worse. She is doing 3 or 4 30-45min naps during the day (and feeding two-three hourly during the day too), going down after 7pm but taking as many as three times to actually go into a 'deep' sleep, and then waking two or three hourly over night. Also at the 3-4am wake up she is AWAKE. Wide awake, and doesn't go back to sleep for about an hour. She is fully b/f and I feed her at wake ups, however she is awake when she is put down. She sucks her fingers when 'up' and sometimes when going to sleep but seems to forget when in bed. We are doing BLW so she is having a bit of food but not heaps.

On top of that, she spends most of her day 'grizzling/whining' and seems unhappy but I can't really figure out why except perhaps that she is tired ;-) She has two bottom teeth, but can't see anymore coming.

So my question is, is this a phase that will end? Or am I missing something? Should I get her checked out? It is really beginning to get me down and I am not enjoying her as much as I was.

I won't do CIO/controlled crying and I don't expect her to sleep through the night (I don't mind getting up), I just want her to have better quality sleep and let me have at least a 5 hour stretch :-)

Oh and we have tried sleep drops and are currently trying Weleda relaxing drops which appear to be doing NOTHING.

Hello!! I've been wondering how you were going. Sorry to hear it's not all plain sailing for you either.

Grizzly all day certainly sounds like something is up, but it may well just be lack of sleep. Can you babywear/pram her to sleep during the day just so that she gets some sleep?

My second was a hideous refluxer just like my first. So this time I just went with it. She had every single day nap in the manduca either on me or my hubby until she was 8 months old, at which point she wouldn't sleep through my toddler's games anymore. By then I was back at work a couple of days and hubby had the kids those days. He took to going for a pram ride to get her napping and we still do that now (she's 16 months). She naps in the pram once she's asleep. Our cot has become toy storage! For the first 14 months, I co-slept and fed on demand all night. ALL night! I suspect she woke more because I was right there, but it was so, so much easier on me than getting up to my first baby had been. We ended up side-carring a single bed and DH slept there so we all had enough room for decent sleep. At 14 months I did the jay gordon night weaning, and then moved her to her own bed. She still comes into my bed when she wakes, but often that is now 5am. (we get up at 6, so 5 is awesome!).

I won't say it's been a walk in the park, but relative to baby number 1, it's been much much easier. I'm now preggers with number 3, and not scared at all!

I know that probably isn't much help, and all I can really suggest is have you checked her ears? (lol, i had to say it!) But odds are you aren't missing anything, so find a way to make it liveable until it changes. We certainly had phases where the day started at 4am.

Glad your number one sleeps these days. So does mine, woohoo!

I would also suggest getting her checked out - could well be her ears. Also, you could try pamol of you think she is teething. When my kids' molars were coming thronugh they were HORRID, and needed pamol and/or nurofen every night.

Also, with food - I found that my kids hungry at this age! So, esp with my second one, I did a lot of finger foods but also a lot of homemade pureed baby food. They needed quite a bit of protein to keep their tummies full, so lots of chicken/fish etc lunches and dinners (as well as veggies and carbs of course). I was quite anti commercial baby food for a main meal - just because they do not contain as much protein as baby needs or you would put in homemade food.

Good luck!

Maybe she is getting over tired? I know with my daughter she could only ever handle being up for a very short time right up until she was one. I think an hour was her maximum. Then again too the heat could be affecting her? Do you swaddle her still?   

Hi there,

I understand you are not prepared to do CIO but are you prepared to do *some* kind of sleep training? There are plenty of gentler approaches you could try. I think the sleep store has some good advice. Also I found this website really helpful when I was dealing with a sleep regression at about 5 months old: http://www.troublesometots.com/ basically she talks about doing 'whatever it takes' to get through a sleep regression but then where some parents go wrong is not recognising when the regression ends and continuing to do all those things that cause bad habits. Also at about the age your baby is now they start to form object permanence, basically they understand that when you are not there you still exisit somewhere, also they expect the same sleep conditions they went down with to those they wake up with. She likened it to you as an adult going to sleep in your bed and waking up on the lawn...very confusing and messes with your sleep! She might be genuinelly hungry too, would you consider doing some mushy food for her?

Anyway, it sounds awful. You are not a bad person if you want to sleep better, you don't have to be a matryr to the sleep gods! Both you and baby need decent rest to function and enjoy things, especially if you are back working and can't catch-up during the day. Sleep deprivation makes things so much worse. Good luck!