Let's talk about sleep again

[redfraggle]

So DD has come leaps and bounds in the last year when sleep is concerned. She more or less STTN most nights and self-soothes unless she's teething and needs some Tylenol. We've been using the Sleep Lady Shuffle and are really happy with it, except for the fact that she almost always wakes around 4:30 every morning. She's done this as long as I can remember. As an infant, I usually nursed her a that time and for a long time, rocked her to keep her sleeping later. About 3 weeks ago, we night-weaned, using the Shuffle, and are mostly happy with the results, but she is still waking at that same time almost every night. Occasionally, she self-soothes and is quiet until 5:45, which is the earliest we go in to get her up. (This is a fine time for us, as DH and I are both awake anyway at this time, and she can eat breakfast with DH, though in an ideal world, she'd get up between 6:30 and 7 with DS.)

Unfortunately, most mornings, she fusses a lot between 4:30 and 5:45, off and on, not really crying but making enough noise to wake DS and me and sometimes DH (who is a heavy sleeper). If I go in and give Tylenol, she fusses less, but I can tell from the noises she makes that she isn't always in pain, so I don't want to medicate unnecessarily or give her a new sleep crutch. If I go in but don't give her anything, she usually gets upset, so I usually wait a few minutes and go to her closed door and say "It's night time; we are quiet and sleeping," and go back to my room. It isn't very effective, but neither is letting her CIO, which I've also tried for a few nights. Last night I added a few additional toys to her crib, which worked well for DS at this age, but I think if anything, that made her wake up more because she woke us up at 3:30 screaming with a toy making noise but self-soothed and awoke at her normal 4:30 and fussed off and on until we got her up at her normal time. DH couldn't take the noise at 4:30 and went in to rub her back, which wasn't very effective.

We've adjusted her bedtime in the past and have it at a time that works well for everyone around 8 PM. She is just transitioning to 1 1.5-2 hour nap in the last week, after I noticed she wasn't sleeping during both naptimes anymore. She is doing well with this transition. I know this sleep total is less than recommended and significantly less than DS got at the same age.

Any ideas to help us get her to sleep later in the morning? Even if she doesn't sleep, any ideas for getting her to stay quiet for an hour by herself? TIA!

ETA: I added a little more information about 3 comments down.

[krose]

My LO started doing this around 14 months, up every day at 4:30. The advice I got was actually very contrary to what you might think- to make her bedtime earlier. The sleep specialist said that babies who are overtired might have a hard time self soothing back down. She had also very suddenly gone from 2 - 90 minute naps to1-45 minute nap. Very skeptically I moved her bedtime from 7:45 to 7:00, and it worked for her. She started taking a longer midday nap and sleeping later. Sleep is so different for every baby, but that's what worked for us!

[redfraggle]

To clarify, she is usually in bed around 7:45, asleep by 8. We used 7 PM for her bedtime for several months, per the Sleep Lady's recommendation, but she would just lay there screaming for 30-45 min., even if one of us sat in our shuffle position to soothe her. This made getting DS, who has always been a good sleeper and who needs his 8 PM bedtime, to bed on time much more difficult. It also did not get her to sleep any later; if anything, she was up earlier. (For a long time, pre-sleep training, her bedtime was 6 PM because it was when she needed to go to sleep to prevent over-tiredness. This did not work well for anyone else in the family. It did not make here sleep later, either.) She also adjusted her wake up with the time change in the fall.

7:45/8 PM is working well for us to get both kids to bed willingly.

I also have not noticed any stimulus that would be waking her around the same time each day. She does it regardless of her curtains being shut over the blinds or just having the blinds shut. There is not a consistent noise at that time.

ETA: Thank you for the suggestions, so far! They sound like they work well for you.

[redfraggle]

Feb 22, 2015 16:45:56 GMT -5 jnetx said:

Does she like white noise? We leave our sound machine on constantly while he's sleeping, but it has a setting where it will come on when it detects noise. She might be too old for this to work now if she doesn't already like it.

We usually do a fan during naps so that I can get housework done without waking her. I hadn't thought to do it at night because it's usually pretty quiet. I'll give it a try tonight. (The fan is pointed away from her at a corner this time of year.)

[princessvespa1]

I'm just throwing this out there. What time do your neighbours get up for work? Is she hearing a car start/doors banging that might disturb her? I know in my kids room, I can hear the neighbours cars in their driveway. I would definitely try the white noise and see how that goes.

*disclaimer- this suggestion coming from the lady who can't get either kid to STTN in their own beds

[redfraggle]

Feb 22, 2015 17:20:51 GMT -5 princessvespa1 said:

I'm just throwing this out there. What time do your neighbours get up for work? Is she hearing a car start/doors banging that might disturb her? I know in my kids room, I can hear the neighbours cars in their driveway. I would definitely try the white noise and see how that goes.

*disclaimer- this suggestion coming from the lady who can't get either kid to STTN in their own beds

I haven't found a noise stimulus around that time, but that doesn't mean she can't hear something I can't.

Also, thank you for sharing that last part. I needed to hear that I'm not the only one with a sleep issue. Hugs!

[legitsince86]

No advice here. LO wakes up everyday around 4:30-5:30. I got into the bad habit of going in there at 5am and going to sleep in the guest room for another two hours.

What about books instead of toys? I would have freaked out more than LO of a toy started making noise in the middle of the night lol

[princessvespa1]

Feb 22, 2015 17:25:46 GMT -5 redfraggle said:

Also, thank you for sharing that last part. I needed to hear that I'm not the only one with a sleep issue. Hugs!

*i tried to edit the quote on mobile so hopefully this isn't a giant mess*

Trust me. You are not alone in your quest for sleep my dear. We are so far away from sleep in my house it is crazy. They both fall asleep fine, but they just don't stay asleep. Ever. Like V has only STTN 3 times her whole life. (A glorious 3 nights might I add). We have tried every.single.thing. We are just giving in to the fact that our kids are not sleepers (didn't get that from my DNA, I can assure you) and that eventually they will learn and sleep on their own. Right? Like my kids won't be teenagers still waking me up, right?

Anyway, I hope you guys find something that works for you guys. Hang in there. It always feels like it is so much more of an issue when all you want is sleep.

[happymama]

We have also been dealing with some sleep regression with DD. She was sick with a stomach bug over a month ago and was waking up crying between 2-3am. Since I was concerned about dehydration I let her have a bottle which put her right back to sleep. Naturally, she decided that we should continue this.
I have been working really hard to break the habit and have tried all kinds of tricks, but she is still waking up between 3-6 am wanting a bottle. Some nights I can just rub her back, give her her lovey and wubbanub and she will settle back down, others she will scream bloody murder and nothing but a bottle will get her back to sleep. I also tried to move bedtime earlier which only resulted in earlier wakeups. The only other thing I can think of is that DD has also become more sensitive to wet diapers as she gets older. She has also become a pretty heavy wetter at night, to the point that I have been having trouble keeping her from leaking out by morning. Sometimes she is pretty wet which I think wakes her and a quick diaper change will be enough to get her back to sleep.

[salemkitty]

We also have sleep problems. DS is sick a lot so that really doesn't help. But our big issue is that he wants to nurse all night. We have worked on night weaning and it's going better. We have to get up early for work around 5 works for us but I prefer him to wake at 6. Good Luck figuring it out, let us know what works for you. ?

[happymama]

jnetx I did that last year when we sleep trained. At the time it just made her more mad than she already was since she thought she was finally getting a bottle and then acted like I was an evil traitor when she discovered it was just water, lol.
Instead I typically just try not to give her anything at all until at least 6am. Plus, she drinks a lot of fluids at dinner and then a bottle before bed so that added bottle of milk or water in the night means a diaper leak unless I change her in the night as well.
she will do well for a few days and sleep all night but if she is teething or going through a growth spurt she wants that middle of the night comfort. I try to be consistent but when I get up at 4:45am for work it's tough to stick to it when I could spend two minutes giving her a bottle and we could all go back to sleep as opposed to being awake for an hour or more, and often I don't get back to sleep at all after that. However, it may help to try the water trick again on those nights where I give in and see if it helps.

[af1004]

We have sleep issues too. I walk and sing her to sleep for nap and bedtime. This is ok since it still takes less than 10 min. But we also nurse back to sleep motn. I'd like wean but we went in a trip for 10 days at the beginning of this month and I wanted to be able to nurse her back to sleep since we were sharing a hotel room with some friends. Now she's cutting her top K9 teeth with bottoms soon to follow. She had been waking 2-3 times per night. She often wakes at 4:30/5:30 and goes back to sleep but won't let me put her back down.

Ask that said, she had been waking at 4:30/5 and being rely awake, like sitting up wanting to play. Our trip changed that. We were 2 hours behind our regular time and often out really late. Somehow she managed the changes and hasn't been getting up like that since we got back. So no help but just dealing with some of the same.....

[redfraggle]

Feb 23, 2015 9:42:50 GMT -5 happymama said:

jnetx I did that last year when we sleep trained. At the time it just made her more mad than she already was since she thought she was finally getting a bottle and then acted like I was an evil traitor when she discovered it was just water, lol.
Instead I typically just try not to give her anything at all until at least 6am. Plus, she drinks a lot of fluids at dinner and then a bottle before bed so that added bottle of milk or water in the night means a diaper leak unless I change her in the night as well.
she will do well for a few days and sleep all night but if she is teething or going through a growth spurt she wants that middle of the night comfort. I try to be consistent but when I get up at 4:45am for work it's tough to stick to it when I could spend two minutes giving her a bottle and we could all go back to sleep as opposed to being awake for an hour or more, and often I don't get back to sleep at all after that. However, it may help to try the water trick again on those nights where I give in and see if it helps.

You might also want to try an overnight diaper or a size up diaper for overnight if she's leaking. We give a snack right before bed and limit water after dinner, but we've done the size up trick when we had leak issues.

[redfraggle]

Well, she slept until 6:15 this morning, and we let her just to get her a little extra sleep. She did wake from teething around 2:30 but went back to sleep with some Tylenol. I'm not going to give the fan credit just yet because she does this every now and then, but I'm definitely willing to try it again tonight.

Thanks for all the advice and commiseration, everyone! Where are the sleep manuals for our toddlers?

[happymama]

redfraggle sizing up worked in the past, but she has been in size 5's for a year now, so we are running out of sizes, lol. We use mostly cloth and sometimes natural/eco-friendly disposables. In the past I stuck with sposies at night since they worked better, but last week I switched her to cloth at night since I can add an extra insert to help. I've ordered some wool soakers since people swear by them for nighttime leaks so hopefully that will do the trick!

[amy11401]

Sometimes we have sleep issues too. Some nights he sleeps through the night. But other nights he wakes up and cries unless he is being held or in our bed. One thing that wakes him up is gas.

[lilqt3929]

redfraggle how did LO sleep the past 2 nights? I'm curious if the fan noise over a couple of days has helped. FX for you.

[redfraggle]

Feb 25, 2015 7:44:48 GMT -5 lilqt3929 said:

redfraggle how did LO sleep the past 2 nights? I'm curious if the fan noise over a couple of days has helped. FX for you.

jnetx,

Well, I'm happy to say she has slept really well the last couple days. I added a book and a toy at each end of the crib in addition to her lovey and blanket (last night she didn't want the lovey, despite teething...) and kept the fan going. She has slept at least until 5:30 and not cried or fussed more than a minute at the 4:30 time this week. FX this is not a fluke! She was teething hard the last 2 nights and woke up a few times overnight, at which times I did go in and give medicine, but the sleeping/staying quiet later in the morning is what I was going after, so I'll take it.

Thanks for the great advice, ladies!

[lilqt3929]

redfraggle so glad to hear it's getting better, FX it continues for you!

[krose]

I might be careful the Tylenol in the middle of the night doesn't become habit. I'm not saying she's not in teething pain- but just like lots of babies who wake wanting to nurse/ have a bottle aren't really hungry, they just want comfort. She could be screaming for the same reason- you come in, give her something and some attention, and she goes back down.

[redfraggle]

...And she spent the better part of 2 hours puking tonight. Maybe she was sleeping because she's sick. At least she's sleeping now.