Night wakings
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Category: Have A Baby?
Forum Name: First baby? Second or more?
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URL: https://www.ohbaby.co.nz/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=24398
Printed Date: 10 September 2025 at 9:32pm
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Topic: Night wakings
Posted By: blondy
Subject: Night wakings
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 10:06am
So my little 6 month-old girl has gone from sleeping through 12 hours straight a couple of months ago, then waking once a night and now we've escalated to 4-5 wakings every night... It started at 5 months, with the immunisations (which always unsettle her for a week or so), then she had a mild cold, then she developed eczema, and a tooth has also popped up in that time! Poor wee thing  but we obviously got into a habit of being up with her during the night....
She is a bit up and down with her food, but generally is having 1/2 a jar/can of food 3 times a day, plus about 5 BF's during the day (although she has greatly reduced how much she's BFing at each feed). I try and avoid feeding her during the night, but usually resort to it once a night. She is put down sleepy but awake for all her naps and at bedtime, and manages to put herself asleep. Ocasionally during the night, she will put herself back to sleep after a quick cuddle. The issue is that for most of the wakings, she doesn't settle back to sleep easily, and even with feeding her, it can take up to an hour to get her back to sleep. I'm not totally anti-CIO, but from experience she just gets absolutely hysterical, her nose gets stuffed up from all the crying, and then her eczema gets itchy, and it's even harder to get her to sleep after that. I guess what I'm wondering is if this is a phase that we just have to ride out, or if anyone has some advice? It's just so frustrating because she does self-settle during the day, but just seems to want cuddles all night long! (which is lovely, but the sleep-deprivation is really starting to kick in!  )-------------  
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Replies:
Posted By: JoJames
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 10:40am
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Have no advice because my little toad has been doing this for 3 weeks (yours won't do it for 3 weeks), but I completely sympathise, and hope it gets better for you. It might just be the extreme heat in her case with the excema irritating her? Good Luck ------------- http://www.alterna-tickers.com"> 
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Posted By: busyissy
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 12:19pm
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It sounds like your little girl has a lot going on at the moment with teething and excema. It may be the heat? I've noticed that my little girl's excema is much worse on the hot days and nights and often wakes her up. Are you using anything to help with the itchiness? We are using QV products (a solution for in the bath and a moisturising lotion for after bath and a cream for itchiness that you can use instread of steriod creams) and find them very helpful.
She may also be waking up because of the teething, maybe a drink of water to rule out thirst and then a bit of bonjela on her gums? |
Posted By: newme
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 12:48pm
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I have just got out a great book from the library called 'The No Cry Sleep Solution' by Elizabeth Pantley. It is brilliant. Has heaps of tips for getting baby back to sleep during night wakings. I have read lots of books, and this is a good one!
One thing to consider, if the sleeping has got worse since starting on solids it is possibly a food intolerance or allergy. This happened when I put my baby onto solids, his sleeping became terrible. |
Posted By: lilfatty
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 3:16pm
I think I recall (since Im such an old wise Mummy now)  that Issy went through a period like that.
In the end we just used to pick her up out of her cot, plonk her in our bed and the whole clan would go back to sleep! It didnt do her (or us) any harm (although she takes up loads of space for a little person) .. and it was a passing phase .. I relied on the fact that kids dont sleep with Mum and Dad when they are teenagers .. so its something that isnt habit forming. Although that was the cheats way out .. we could have stayed up for hours and walked, rocked, sshhed .. but just didnt have the energy. 
And .. she outgrew it ... and went back to sleeping through after a couple/few weeks (its hard to remember exactly how long, but it wasnt forever)  ------------- Mummy to Issy (3) and Elias (18 months) I did it .. 41 kgs gone! From flab to fab in under a year  http://www.femininefitness.co.nz/category/blog - LFs weight blog
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Posted By: tishy
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 3:26pm
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We did the same as lilfatty Our logic was 'we don't want to wake the other baby'. It was a rare night that we had 4 in the bed.
For us it was around 7 months and lasted for a couple of weeks too. |
Posted By: blondy
Date Posted: 09 February 2009 at 3:53pm
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thanks for your replies.
after numerous GP visits, we seem to have the eczema under control (go the lemnis fatty cream!), and while i'm guessing the heat has something to do with the early evening wakings, because we have a heatpump and DVS running to cool her room down, the temp generally isn't too bad after 10-11pm. we are also rapidly running out of energy to settle her during the night, so we might be instigating the 3 in the bed routine. 
hila - i also have the no cry sleep solution, but for the most part it seems to deal with issues involving self-settling....and it's becoming apparent that while Natalie is quite capable to putting herself to sleep, she just doesn't want to during the night. We have been using some of the ideas in it though (i.e. me not feeding her). I keep getting *helpful* advice to just let her cry herself back to sleep, but i'm definitely not in the right headspace for that!
i think for now we'll either plonk her into our bed, or try and re-settle her, and just hope that this will pass -------------
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