And yet another sleep question

2vthokies

DD2 will be one on Wednesday.  Since she was the day she was born (literally) she has slept at least 6 hours straight at night and by 8 weeks was sleeping 11-12 hours with no wake up for nursing.  She has been a self-soother from the beginning and still is.  You can put her in her crib awake and she puts herself to sleep.  Life was pretty freaking awesome until about 2.5 months ago.  She got sick for the very first time (strep) and then pulled a bottle strike at DC.  The bottle strike lasted for almost 3 weeks so I basically had to BF her all night  (At the time, she ate very little solids - not interested).  I finally figured out the issue (excess lipase) and I got her back on the bottle.  She finally slept through the night (the day after she was fully back on the bottles at DC) and then bam, next day she came down with HF&M.  That threw everything out the window again and she is now up at least twice a night to BF.  Last week she had one night where she STTN and then the weekend was worse than ever.  Right now we let her cry for a few minutes before DH goes in to rock her.  If she doesn't calm down within 15 mins of rocking/walking I go in and BF.  She normally takes two naps - one in the morning and one in the afternoon.  At home they are both 1.5-2 hrs.  At DCP, they are both closer to an hour (unfortunately) - but it doesn't seem to matter how much she naps during the day.  I was thinking that maybe she is trying to drop a nap so this weekend I only let her have one nap - yesterday it was 2 h 40m.  Last night was the worst night (up 4 times).

I have read Healthy Sleep Habits and he drives me crazy.  It was not helpful in this case (but was helpful with DD1).  I've re-read parts of No-Cry Sleep solution, but I need something in between those two philosophies.  I don't need help with self soothing at bedtime or naps because she does that already.  I just need help figuring out how to get her to go back to sleeping in the middle of the night on her own.  If she can self-sooth at all other times of the day, what's different about the night?  She sleeps in her crib and always has.  She has a lovey and it's always in her crib.  The crying sucks because she's not really a baby that cries and if we let it go on for too long, like last night, it wakes DD1 up and then we have to go put her back to bed, too.  Any thoughts, oh wise bumpies?  Her 1 year baby-well visit is on Friday, so I'll ask the pedi, too.

Sofka

oh, I am so sorry! You know I feel your pain! A was up 10pm-3am last week, just up, no reason.

Have you read Ferber? It's the only thing I can think of (that you didn't already try) that might help. The only issue is that you'll have to let her cry and she may wake up DD1. Does she have any white noise in her room? I was afraid of A waking up E but the air purifier in her room is pretty loud and she never heard him.

I am so sorry, I hope she goes back to being a great sleeper soon!! 

WinesNot Whines

Every kid is different, but I can tell you what worked for us. First, I had to cut out the nighttime nursing sessions. I decided my cut-off time for nursing is 5 am. If he wakes up after 5, I will bring him into bed with us and nurse him (and try to get him to go back to sleep for an hour or so). If it's before 5, DH tries to soothe him back to sleep in his room. He doesn't need to nurse at night anymore, and neither does your DD. If you want to continue nursing her at night, that's totally your call, but I had to cut out those nursing sessions to get M to STTN.

As for getting him to go back to sleep, we're usually fairly successful if we give him a paci and rub his back for a couple of minutes. Some nights are harder than others though. If he doesn't go back to sleep after 10 minutes, we do a modified Ferber approach -- leave the room for 2 minutes, then go back in until he calms down. Then leave for 5 minutes and then go back in. Rinse, repeat.

2vthokies

Whines - I only nurse if she is still crying after 15-20 mins of DH trying to soothe her.  I agree, she really doesn't need to nurse and we have had some nights where DH has been able to put her back to bed without me nursing the entire night.  I guess I'm just trying to figure out why she won't soothe herself in the middle of the night when she will at other times of the day (and at DCP she's the only one that will put herself to sleep).  Unfortunately she won't take a paci, so if she really needs to suck to calm herself down, it's me or ...nothing.

S - I know you feel my pain!  They both have fans in their rooms for white noise and there are two closed doors between them.  S is just soo LOUD when she gets really worked up.  Today I had to leave the house at 6:30 for work and it was brutal.

I guess I'll have to look into Ferber.