Won't lie down (oh my aching back!)

[watermelon]

Hi everyone,

My DD (9 months) has always been a shocking sleeper. At around 6 months we reached crisis and she was waking every 40 minutes at night, which, along with a few other issues that were going on at the time resulted in me being diagnosed with post-natal depression:gloomy: . We tried many approaches to help her sleep and the only thing that worked for us was rocking her to sleep in my arms. So that's what we've been doing ever since.

Sophie was sleeping better averaging 3 night wakings and having 2 good naps a day until last week when she decided that rocking wasn't ok anymore. She recently recovered from a month of illness but I didn't do anything different while she was sick so I don't know what's changed.

She squirms, sits up in my arms and tries to leap out of my arms, regardless of how tired she is. Any noise or light immediately wakes her right up and she starts crawling around her cot at a frantic pace. She's almost impossible to rock to sleep now so I need some other ideas, as she has been up several nights for 2-3 hours at a go, and no sooner do I get her to sleep and put her down and she is up again and the whole process has to start again. We're still having about 3 wakings each night but now we have all this awake time during the night, so she's sleep deprived in the morning. She's started this behaviour when it's time for day time naps too. I used to be able to get her to sleep within 15 minutes, now its taking an hour.

I was going to try patting her to sleep in her cot but now she just crawls around and stands up, jumps up and down and won't lie down. Does anyone have any ideas for getting her to calm down and lie down in her bed?:confused:

Sam (35)
DD Sophie 20/7/05

[buzzing bee]

Hiya

I started the post below with the no sleeping support, my dd does a similar thing on occassions and tends to be when her teeth are moving about. I try standing and doing a little bounce sometimes works. Other than trying different positions I put her in the cot to pat her and when she tries to get up I keep pulling her legs down so she can't get up. I have to do this for about 10 minutes or so. It sounds mean when said but you get what I am saying.

Other than that I just try and ride it out and after a week or two she is better. Having said that her sleeping has been all over the place for about 3 months. She has no pattern at all and drives me crazy sometimes.

Hope this helps a little

[Rockett]

I was going to try patting her to sleep in her cot but now she just crawls around and stands up, jumps up and down and won't lie down. Does anyone have any ideas for getting her to calm down and lie down in her bed?:confused:




Hi there
Don't know if you have tried this,but have you got a ceiling light show for bubs to look at? Up until recently I was rocking my almost 15 month old DD to sleep for ALL her sleeps,then one night she wouldn't settle in my arms so I put her in the cot and put on the TOMY Starlight Dream Show.
She does get up and down for about 5 minutes,but then she'll just lay there quietly holding a teddy and watches the pictures moving across the ceiling until she falls asleep.It plays lullabys too.
Perhaps it might be worth a try? You can get them from baby stores, Big W etc for $24.95
Although,I must admit there is a down side to this...because I only have vertical blind things in DD's room I can't make it dark enough for the light show to work during the day,(I still have to rock her for day sleeps,but she eventually won't need them so I'm not too fussed) so unless you can darken her room then this probably won't work,sorry!
Good luck, :fingerscrossed: I know how frustrating this can be!

[watermelon]

Thanks for the ideas - I might invest in the star show thing, its worth a try.

Having said that, last night she was much better, asleep within 10 minutes and only 2 brief wakings during the night. I'm sure it was a fluke so I still need ideas for when she's fighting sleep.

Sam