settling at middle of night

[Care4Alice]

little miss 1 has us nearly ay wits end!!!
She has a good evening routine when we feed, wash, change and put her to bed at night. it doesn't fall down all that often. but since easter she has been waking 1 - 3 times during the night. mum has been going in to settle her and (like last night :( :confused: ) it was 2 & 1/2 hrs before she was able to be settled and went back to sleep.
We have tried control crying: 2 mins and she is hysterical,
and we have tried just staying with her till she is settled and asleep.
walk away...and as soon as you are at the door to her room... zWAAAAHH!! and we were tag teaming last night.
if anyone knows any site or organisation that could help...or just some advice...would be gratefully received.
:)

[bobtob]

Hi
There really is nothing worse than broken sleep! I think its worse still if you have had a period of good sleep before!
I don't really know of any sites for you but thought you might want to look at your babies daytime routine and sleep patterns, we had a few problems with our first son and once we sorted out a good daytime pattern for sleep the nights just fell into place after a week or so. this is what we did at 1yr....
7am awake
9-9.30am nap for 45mins max
12.30-1pm nap until 3pm, but no later
7pm bed after bath etc..
I hope this helps, it has worked for both our boys who still sleep for atleast 12hrs every night (unless unwell or something!) :)
Good Luck
Tamsin
Mum to Bob 10/01
and Toby 10/03

[Chickadee]

We've gone through short periods when DD would wake in the middle of the night and not be resettled. We still have a night every few weeks. How I handle it depends on how tired I am and how cranky I think she is. I tend to go against the "rule" of keeping them in their cot. When she wakes really upset, or winds herself up to it with crying, I find the only thing that works is to comfort her until she's forgotten she was crying. I'll take her out for a cuddle or even into our own bed for half an hour. She never ever sleeps in our bed, but it means I get to lie down & be comfortable while she tosses and turns and talks to her bear. After half an hour or so she starts to doze and I'll put her back into her own cot. She invariably whinges at going back into her own bed, but is so tired by then that it doesn't last more than a minute.

What about introducing a book into your bedtime routine? After the change, if she had a book read to her before sleep then perhaps you could read the book to her again in the middle of the night. I've never heard of anyone doing this, but it's just to create a bedtime routine that you can repeat. Another option would be giving her a drink of water.

[redbaby]

Hi There,.. We have been having a similar problem,. OUr 1 yr old has been waking up at night time (around 1:00) and will stay awake for 2 to 3 hours,... exhausting,.. ! The only way I could get her back to sleep was to feed her,.....which then made the problem worse as she was beginning to wake up more than once a night expecting a feed! Hmm,... The solution came about finally last night when I suggested my husband be the one to go and settle her,....he rubbed her back for about 20minutes,.and she got over the fact that she wasn't getting a feed (she didn;t expect food from him!),.and slept through until morning,... She has also just reduced her day sleep from 2 to 1,...which seems to help,.as she is very tired by the time she drops off!