Sleep problems at our house - Please help!

[momtoemma]

My 15 month old DD slept through the night pretty regularly from the time she was around 14 weeks old, but in the last month, we've had a terrible time with night-wakings. Occasionally she makes it through the entire night, but more often than not, she has been waking up anywhere between 1:30 and 4:00. Sometimes I am able to quickly rock her back to sleep (after a diaper change), and other times, she is very restless and won't settle back down to sleep without a bottle of milk. Does anyone have any suggestions for how I can get my previously good sleeper to stop these nightwakings? I'm not sure whether I should cut out the diaper change (she is usually very soaked when I do change her in the middle of the night) or absolutely cut out the bottle or what? For the time being, I've been doing whatever it takes to get her back to sleep quickly so that I can also get back to bed. Any advice would be appreciated as I'm not sure what to try next. I'm thinking she might be teething (only has 6 teeth so far), but the wakings have been going on for quite awhile with no new teeth peeking through yet.

Thanks,

[proggoddess]

We're in the same boat. What was helping us was waking DD up at 7-7:30 am, then putting her down for a nap at 11. She'd wake at 1 pm and then we'd put her to bed at 7:30 pm. So she's getting the proper amount of sleep for her age, but it is all "scrunched" into the beginning of the day. Then she's pretty exhausted by bedtime and she sleeps through the whole night.

Unfortunately now with DH's class schedule, she doesn't go down for a nap until 3pm. She wakes at 5, and now she won't go to bed until 9:30 and she wakes at night so much that we've caved in and given her paci back. Ugh. Luckily, his classes are over this Friday. No teeth showing for us, either.

[HannaAddict]

I think it must be teething or some big developmental deal going on since my generally great little sleeper has been waking up anywhere from 1 to 2:30 am the last four or five days or so. A couple of times he settled down after nursing/rockng and went back to sleep and other times he's been super restless and seems uncomfortable. He wants to be asleep but is not able to get comfy. And when we've put him back in his crib (after he thrashed around with us), the screams he let out have been unlike any we've heard before. They sound terrible, like he's being hurt or something. We've been wiped (I was debataing taking a nap myself today while he naps!) and he has been too. After a dose of Infant Tylenol yesterday, he crashed and was out for 3 hours! He never naps that long!

All I can offer you is support and sympathy. Our plan is to ride it out and assume that this stage will shall pass, they'll outgrow it. We've had a few other times like this on the sleep front and they've ultimately all had a reason, teething or about to do something big (walking). My son is putting his fingers in his mouth more, trying to bite my fingers, and not eating as much as usual but using the spoon to rub his gums. And he has become crazy baby nurser. He'd been down to about 3 times a day and has gone back to 5 or 6 times a day. And can't be distracted from it.

And molars, in our experience, can take quite a bit longer to break through. My son was really uncomfortable and out of sorts without any new teeth appearing for quite awhile (compared to his front teeth). Then suddenly the molars appeared.

Hang in there. Hope she feels better and lets you get some sleep.
Kimberly
DS 3/18/04

[erosenst]

If you and your ped are comfortable with it, I'd give her Tylenol when she wakes up. Teething is supposed to bother them the most in the middle of the night when there's nothing else to distract them.

Abby has always been a GREAT sleeper. The last few weeks she's gone through stretches of a few days at a time where she's waking up miserable in the middle of the night - and the Tylenol seems to work. She's working on TEN teeth right now, so I can understand why she's not comfortable. (She only has two teeth at 18 months, so guess she's catching up.)

Hope you all get some sleep soon -

[dragop21]

Maybe its just a 15 month old phenomenon. bc my dd is doing the same thing, though a bit earlier. I think what is waking her up though, is the HEAT. it is SO HOT here, and she is so uncomfortable, even in just a diaper.

I guess I don't have much advice. I leave water with her so she isn't thirsty. I don't want this to become a normal thing, as it can be bad for their teeth. If she is teething, to the tylenol thing. it must be just a stage. *sigh.*