Cause of bad sleep??

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

I also posted this on the 6-9mo board (thinking there may be more 6mo sleep regression survivors there) but that seems pretty dead...

TIA!!

ambarnett1

I'm thinking it's a combination of it all. Many of us are having similar issues. Personally, DS is waking up more at night and is fighting sleep. No advice, just commiseration.

bwong83

This is us too! Everything you said is what is going on with us, I am also thinking that weaning off the binkie might be the solution but I'm not quite ready for the cio solution:( has her sleep improved? What have you tried?

Teresa1896

There's really no way to know, unfortunately. Our DS's sleep got so bad we turned to Sleepeasy solution to sleep train, and it worked like a charm.

Soon2bStaff

Same here -
The sleep regression started at 4 months and her nighttime sleeping has never been the same since. The last month has been the hardest with LO waking at least once a night 6 out of 7 nights a week. On Monday I noticed her tooth finally broke through on the bottom! LO doesn't take a pacifier but does nurse to sleep. Not sure how I'm going to change that! DH isn't ready to let her CIO sooo we are just blah right now.... Hoping this will pass soon?!?

nursewinnie

All of this!! I've been racking my brain trying to figure out what's going on since we haven't changed anything. I'm just chalking it up to teething and a developmental phase. Hoping it will pass very soon and she will go back to sleeping all night like before. She spoiled us

nycgirlkat

Joining this club...LO was a great night sleeper until about 5 months. She would get a bottle at bed, sleep through the night and all was well. A little after 5 months all hell broke lose....up a million times at night and nothing helped. Rocking, pacifier, Tylenol (for both bouts of sickness and teething) and bupkis. She is now 7 months old and is finally going back to sleeping through the night or just waking up once a night.

We eliminated the bottle at bed and now she has dinner and her bottle, then has a bath & hangs out, then we go up to her room and read a story and then gets a pacifier and rocking, I think she was having issues with being too full at bedtime because since we eliminated the bottle there have been less wakeups. I know we traded one crutch for another, but our pedi says we can work on CIO after the holidays because she rarely falls asleep on her own. And she has always been a bad napper, 2 or 3 30-minute naps a day and that's it!!!