Baby sleeping in cot problems

masterK

We have a baby daughter who is 17 months old, she sleeps in her own room in her cot, however we are having great difficulty keeping her there for the night and was hoping I could get some advise.

She usually goes to bed around 8:30 has a bottle in her cot and settles after around 20 minutes, one of us has to stay in the room with her until she dozes off, once we don't leave her she goes off quite happily without any fuss.

The problems usually start around 1-2 AM when she wakes crying, we try to settle her but it's almost impossible, she does be absolutely delirious, quite often causing her to catch her breath or cough. It's either a case of persisting for at least an hour or taking her into our bed, both of which are far from ideal. The odd time that she does sleep through, she'll go until about 4:30 when it starts to get bright but the same thing happens.

It would be great to hear from anybody who has been through similar or anybody who can help offer advise.

Nevyn

What in her sleeping enviroment is waking her ?
Look a the room, is she too hot or too cold, or has kicked the blankets off ?
Is there something in the room that she maybe allergic too ?
Are there too many stuff toys/teddys as the can be dust traps ?
Is it that she needs to be changed or has a sensative bum ?

Have you tried changing the time at which she goes down to be until a little later ?

Ickle Magoo

I agree with Thaedydal...something could be waking her up....following on from her post the other things that occured to me were....

Could she be teething? My son is 17months & is getting his back teeth through...if they are hurting him then he sometimes wakes in the middle of the night & then gets himself into a waking routine....

What about nightmares? Does she wake gradually or screaming? Would a nightlight help so she can settle herself without getting scared?

Separation anxiety can affect sleep from 1 - 2yrs predominantly....is she quite clingly during the day? Would the fact she goes to sleep with one of you in the room mean she gets scared when senses she is alone & wakes up?

If you rule everything else out, it could always just be a classic case of attention seeking & now she knows how gets your undivided attention for an hr or so each night....you could benefit from bedsharing if this is the case - at least you would get a full nights sleep! The alternatives are moving her cot through to your room to see if that helps or stop giving her the attention in the middle of the night....neither bedsharing, nor room sharing with a toddler appealed to us so we use the No-Cry-Sleep-Solution (by Elizabeth Pantley)...which would mean going through whenever she cries and picking her up but not looking at her or speaking, shushing her to calm her down then puting her back in the cot, then leaving the room...repeat process (possibly many, many times!) until child settles themselves.....

We now put our son up @8pm, he plays with his cuddly toys for a minute and goes to sleep without a tear shed & that's him until 8am - so with a bit of perseverance & some very long tiring nights, it does work!

best of luck!

masterK

We don't really know what is waking her, she is a light enough sleeper and probably just wakes, if we take her straight out and back to our bed she'll go off in seconds.

She definitely doesn't need changing, we make sure she doesn't drink to much before going down.

We keep her up as late as we can, she does be really tired going to bed, she usually asks for a bottle when she wants to go up. The weird thing is how easy she goes up first thing in the night but then she wakes up screaming.

We keep a thermometer in her room to make sure the temperature is OK, she doesn't really like blankets on her so we just put them on loosely to keep her warm.

She is teething, she has most of her teeth except the back ones. The fact she'll go off straight away when taken into our bed makes me think she's not in pain or if she is that's not why she gets so upset, we usually put gel on her gums going to bed and more when she wakes, it doesn't make any difference.

We did suspect she has nightmares, there's nightlight in her room.

I do think it's partly down to seperation anxiety and she just gets frightened when she wakes and there's nobody there, but when we go into her she still won't settle no matter how long we stay with her.

We really don't want to bedshare, the nights we bring her in neither of us get any sleep as she is constantly moving and kicking us or lying across one of us.

Ickle Magoo

Do you often take her into your bed? This could be why she does it....she knows if she goes long enough you will fold & take her into your bed....could just be a matter of a battle of wills...;)

masterK

Ickle Magoo wrote:

Do you often take her into your bed? This could be why she does it....she knows if she goes long enough you will fold & take her into your bed....could just be a matter of a battle of wills...;)

We do end up taking her quite often, your absolutely right it is a battle of wills and we are losing. The reason we end up giving in is because she does be so upset she is coughing and losing her breath and has even made herself sick a couple of times.

Ickle Magoo

My sisters lad used to do that choking, puking thing....it's a great trick for giving Mummy & Dady a real fright so they stop fighting with you & let you do exactly what you want....toddlers are really smart, if you show for a second that a particular behaviour bothers you or will make you stop in your tracks then your toddler will pull out their trump card when all seems to be failing!

The only way to get around it is to stop taking her into your bed regardless of what wobbly your daughter is chucking....maybe read Toddler Taming by Dr Green or get one of the sleep solution books but whatever you choose you must stick to it religiously.....if you cave in you are just teaching her that she has a 1-in-4 chance (or whatever the odds are) of getting into your bed if she keeps going making it a very long night for you & your wife....

It will mean a wk or so where you feel like you are going mad & you are sorely tempted to say "bugger it, just let her in the bed" as you cuddle and return her rapidly to the cot for the 50th time but do persevere...every time, just when we decided we couldn't cope for a second longer, he gave up trying & slept through the night!

m_stan

The most important thing with bedtime, as with most things with young children/babies is routine. Routine, routine, routine. They feel secure when everything is happening to the way they expect it. That will help relax and calm them helping them to sleep - both when going down for the first time, and when going back to sleep. So try to keep things consistent every time. So either stay with her or bring her into your bed everytime - don't differ. And my advice here would be - don't take her into your bed.

The other piece of advice I can offer is to keep things as calm as you possibly can. Try to keep everything very very gentle - whisper, gently rock and help sooth the baby. No matter how long it takes or how hard it is, try not get impatient and jittery. Small babies can sense your impatience or nervousness and will get upset by this.

Also note that giving a bottle to a baby when going to bed is a bad idea as the milk that settles in their mouth as the go to sleep will wrot their teeth. I understand how hard it is to take this away due to its calming influence, but it's best to. We changed our son's routine so that he had his bottle downstairs before he went to bed and then brushed his teeth before going to sleep.

We also eventually changed his routine so that he could go to sleep on his own in his bed. We can now walk out of the room and leave him to put himself to sleep. It took 2 years, but it was mostly us enabling him to do it - we were holding him back by taking the easy way out and staying with him. It involved us literally moving one foot closer to the door every night for weeks and finally getting outside the room. Most recently we are also now doing deals with him to say we will read him a story and then we will have to go downstairs, explaining we are ALWAYS there if he needs to call us if he needs us.

As with all these things, it gets harder the older they get so tackle this now if you can. Don't wait.

Eventually given enough reassurance and gentle calming routine your baby will get into her own independent bedtime routine and you can get back to something like a normal bedtime routine yourself !

Believe me I am not expert in these area's, and these are only my personal thoughts. The above is simply what I have found in my experience. I have an almost 3 year old and a 10 month old.

Feel free to PM me if you need to discuss.

Best of luck with it, and enjoy it while you can. It's an often used cliche, but they do grow up so fast !