Sleep Probs - What's the cause??

Charlotte51

Hello! I'll try to keep this short and sweet... My 7 month old's night-sleep has rapidly deteriorated and I'm hoping for advice on the cause so I can work on the solution.

Background:

-She has always fought day time sleep so she is always helped to sleep for naps (bounces, pats, singing)

-She falls asleep with a pacifier 

-She has a solid night time routine, the last step is a bottle but she doesn't have to eat to fall back asleep and she doesn't eat to sleep during the day

-From 3 to 6.5 months she has fallen asleep on her own at night, typically within minutes of being put down, never taking more than ~20 minutes.  She would then sleep 8-10hrs straight.

-Starting around 5 months she would wake up once at nice but pacifier replacement or rolling from tummy to back did the trick

-In the last 2 weeks things really fell off a cliff.  We realized halfway in to that her first tooth broke through

Problems: In the last 2 weeks she... 

-suddenly wakes up 4 or 5x a night with a sad wail-y cry.  A few pats and pacifier replacement and she's usually back to sleep instantly

-is much harder to put to bed, now it takes an hour and even all my tricks aren't working

-but daytime sleep is unchanged

-I tried giving her a small dose of tylenol 2 nights in case it was the tooth - 1 night it helped the first part of the evening, the other night it was no help

So my question is - what is causing all of this??

1) The tooth - so cute but such a pain!

2) Pacifier needs to go

3) Bottle needs to go earlier in routine

4) Standard 6mo sleep regression - time to CIO

MommyAtty

It may be and is very likely the tooth, but in my experience (I'm on Kid #2), moving the bottle up and separating it from the bedtime routine could help too. With our 6 mo old, we do bottle downstairs, then upstairs for bath, pjs, cuddles, and into bed. I can't make myself do CIO. Luckily, I've had two fantastic sleepers so I've never had to make that choice.

TeacherVicky

Is she getting good quality sleep during the day? If not, it is probably catching up to her, causing fragmented night sleep. Sleep begets sleep. 

What time is her bedtime? If it's too late, it would explain why she is so hard to put down at night and why she is taking so long to fall asleep. 

Could be a tooth, but I would try Advil or Motrin as it's an anti-inflammatory too. Plus it lasts longer. 

My first thought is that your nighttime issues come back to the 2 questions I posed above.

Charlotte51

I put her in bed by 7:40p and she used to fall asleep within 5 min, and no more than 15 min.

She's a terrible napper and the last 2 days I've given up on pushing her to do a 3rd nap so she's only had 2, but I moved bed time up to 6:30 and she did MUCH better.  

I think we still need to ditch the pacifier but I'm not sure how to tackle that one just yet

Baby sleep is like the ultimate jig saw puzzle!