sleeping worse now (9 months) than when she was 5/6/7 months old!

[lmh2402]

DD's sleep has been going downhill for so long it feels like forever.

we were doing so great and i thought we had hit a good pattern and managed through the rough spots

but clearly i was wrong

i can't pinpoint exactly when it all started. i think it was early march with a hellish cold...that took forever...like almost a full month...to improve. only to then result in her getting a really bad ear infection. and on top of it her top two teeth have been bulging for forever

but where we are is just so bad that i'm desperate for any advice or insights

we are dealing with multiple night wakings. i had used ferber successfully toward the end of the year and it was not bad at all. a bit of crying over a couple of days. and then boom, she was sleeping through

not the same story now though. she is up and down all night long crying. and it starts as early as two hours after she goes to bed.

her naps are total crap. and i can't figure out how to extend them.

my gut is telling me that all the poor sleeping and poor napping is having a cumulative effect that is making her nights get worse and worse and she's more and more and more overtired. but i can't seem to find the right solution to help her - and ME - get back on track so we can all get a bit of sleep. last night i literally and seriously got three hours of sleep. i can't function like this.

any ideas? thanks

[Tenasparkl]

I'm in the same boat but my DS is 11 months. A cold /ear infection and teething ruined all the progress we made. I'm so tired!

[mikala]

No advice here but sympathy because ds is the same age and we are going through a cruddy sleep phase too. I think part of it is teeth, part is activity related because he's all over his crib crawling and standing but doesn't always know how to lay back down. He's also having much more separation anxiety during the day.

[Melaine]

It stinks! We had such success with Ferber but teething or something is making me crazy!

[123LuckyMom]

I know; it's horrible!!! Just when you think you're going to get to start sleeping, something happens!!!

We finally got DD sleeping (by re-Ferberizing after our Disney trip), then the dog got sick (which is apropos of nothing except that it meant a sleepless night at the dog hospital), DS got sick, I got sick, and now DD's sick! Last night, though, after having tried to put her down unsuccessfully until 3:30am, I had finally had it. I'm still sick myself, and I was desperate to pee and lie down! Desperate! I put her down, quieted her, and left the room. She erupted into shrieks, but I had to go to the bathroom before I had an accident, so I just left. By the time I was done in the bathroom (like 2 minutes), her crying wasn't constant any more. I got into bed and set the timer on my phone for 10 minutes. She actually conked out within 5. I usually won't let her cry more than 5 minutes, and when she's sick, I go right away, but she actually needed me to leave in order to fall asleep! It took about 8 minutes. I was kicking myself that I hadn't just left her alone earlier! If it happens again tonight, I'm sticking to my timer, sick or not!

[edurnemk]

It stinks! We had such success with Ferber but teething or something is making me crazy!

Same here! I can't even think straight, I'm so tired. I gave up 2 nights ago after countless nights of CIO for over an hour in the midle of the night. I was almost in tears when I told DH I was going o sleep with her because I couldn't take it anymore. We're back to partially cosleeping and I finally got some sleep.

[lmh2402]

Same here! I can't even think straight, I'm so tired. I gave up 2 nights ago after countless nights of CIO for over an hour in the midle of the night. I was almost in tears...

except we don't cosleep

so i'm just dying over here

i literally feel like my eyes are going to fall out of my head soon

i can't take it anymore

my pedi thinks i'm crazy b/c i've started taking her in almost once a week to make sure she doesn't have an ear infection or some other physical ailment b/c it is JUST THAT BAD

i'm actually sitting here transcribing my sleep log to send to some sleep *expert* that i know is going to tell me nothing useful, but it's the only thing i have to look forward to right now... the faint hope that someone will help me. somehow.

i cannot imagine it has gotten so bad.

i don't know what's worse...never having had her sleep...or knowing that she used to sleep through the night at like six months. but since 8 months, no more

[Liziz]

Around that age, we had just had enough and needed some sleep and sanity. When she woke, up, we just let her cry. The first two nights, it took her about 30 minutes total to settle back down -- probably 10 minutes of solid crying, then another 20 of stops and starts -- we could tell she was getting tired, but not quite ready to give up. After that, we had a night or two of short crying spurts (maybe 10 minutes total), and then she was sleeping through the night. She still occasionally wakes up crying in the middle of the night (15 mo now), but as long as it's her usual cry, we do not go to her, and usually w/i 3-5 minutes she's sound asleep again. I know it's not for everyone to let their kid cry that long (DH would have done it a couple months earlier, but I couldn't handle it until I was just that desperate and sleep-deprived), but it's what worked for us. (BTW - I feel your pain on the nap thing....still haven't really figured that one out here) ETA: ok, looks like we cross-posted and that you've already tried the "just let her cry" thing....sorry. : (

[zukeypur]

DD3 slept thought the oft from 7 weeks until 7 months. I thought she was the absolute perfect baby and that I was so lucky to have a sleeper. WRONG. She reverted back to nursing newborn. W eventually did a modified CIO (no more than 10-15 minutes without checking on her) for 2-3 nights around 11 months to get some sleep back. We had to re-do it every couple of months, but now she asks to go to bed at 3 years. She did stop napping last summer.

[edurnemk]

my pedi thinks i'm crazy b/c i've started taking her in almost once a week to make sure she doesn't have an ear infection or some other physical ailment b/c it is JUST THAT BAD

One of the few nights of Ferberizing her again with DH at home (worked 2 months ago, but not anymore), DH came into her room and said "have you given her some Motrin?" and I was like "why?". He was convinced SOMETHING must be wrong with her and she surely was in pain, and I must confess I have resorted to giving her Tylenol or Motrin a few nights because she's crying so much and she's not hungry, her diaper is clean, etc. After an hour of crying and tossing and turning in her crib I figure she must be teething, coming down with something, etc. And DH keeps asking every single day if I called the Ped, but what do I tell him?

And here's another confession. On a few really bad nights when I was determined not to bring her back into my bed but was really desperate and dizzy from exhaustion, I climbed into her crib and laid down with her until she fell asleep, and of course I fell asleep, too. The first time I did that I was woken in the middle of the night by a frantic DH who had been looking for me all over the house, LOL, he was really freaked out because he couldn't find me.