Baby Sleep Help - Questions

My 4 month old son has trouble self settling. It can take up to 2 hours to get him to sleep. If I pick him up he settles and starts to fall asleep, I'm trying to get him to bed awake and to sleep on his own but he doesn't seem to want to do so. For some reason if he wakes in the night for a feed he goes into bed after and gets himself off to sleep with no drama but every other sleep is horrible. No matter if I get him at the first tired sign or the last he fights going to sleep with every ounce of energy he has... At night we do the same thing, play, bath, bottle and bed (room with a night light on only) but still no results.

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My daughter sleeps quite well when we don't venture on an outing. However, I am struggling to reduce the chance of her getting overtired when we go to the shops. She is 6-7 weeks old and I give her a good feed before we venture out. I am normally out for an hour (max.) and back to feed her again so she can go to sleep. This is where the problems begin as she is quite happy to stay awake when we are out. The time frame from beginning of her first feed to the beginning of the next can be 3 hours which leads to an overtired state. She won't sleep after this and it is hell trying to get her down again. How do I get out and about, with her, without her suffering? Help! I don't want to lead a life of isolation.

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I have a 22 month old daughter. She has never been a great sleeper, but it seems she is waking every night for a bottle of milk. The time she wakes varies every night and it doesn't seem to matter how much she has to eat the night before or what time she goes to bed she still wakes up. I have tried putting her back to sleep without milk, however this can take up to 2 hours. If she has the milk she is back in bed and asleep within 20 minutes. I'd like to know if you can suggest ways in which to stop her from waking and having the milk.

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My son is soon to be 2, he is still breastfed to sleep (we co-sleep). I feel now is the time for him to be a 'big boy' and move into his own bed/room, but am unsure how to do this?? Any ideas??

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I have a 1 year old boy who has alway slept through the night since he was 6 weeks old, but since his 1st birthday party 2 weeks ago he has been from 2am-5ish and what worried me is that he shakes his cot very aggressively. I know this is attention seeking and we try to ignore it but he then just starts crying and screaming till one of us comes in.

I have increased his food as I thought he was hungry, I am using a growbag and the room is dark and he has no entertainment eg. a mobile as he just plays with it. We have tried music but it only lasts about 15 minutes then he is awake again. Also I know he might be teething but he has slept well through all his other 7 teeth and I have been giving him Panadol and Nurofen as needed.

What I am most worried about is this cot shaking, we go in at night, don't talk and just lie him back down and walk out but it is not working, can you give me any advice...

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I need some advice on how to get my 5 month old baby girl to settle herself to sleep, instead of me breastfeeding her to sleep. Thanks.

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I have a 5 month old son and he has just started teething, he is usually a very good sleeper however his got a runny nose and a cough, and he isn't sleeping, his routine's all over the place. How can I make it more comfortable for him?

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I have a 10 month old baby boy who has been sleeping through the night since he was 4 months old. We had been fairly blessed until he reached 8 1/2 months and decided he wouldn't do that anymore. He is up roughly every three hours and I have tried controlled crying but he screams for over an hour (that's all I could take before I picked him up). He does get a little cuddle but can also be patted to sleep while still in his cot. I just don't understand how his very strict routine turned so crazy and interrupted. How can I help him self soothe again without having to listen to him cry for hours on end?

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I have a 4 month old little boy. Since birth he has been quite a wakeful baby. Daytime sleeps are rarely longer than 40 minutes and I usually have to either rock him, stroke his head or cuddle him to sleep in the day. He was sleeping for 3 hours between feeds at night time and going straight to sleep after his feed. But now he is waking anything between an hour and a half to 3 hours. When I put him back to bed he sleeps for maybe 15 to 20 minutes then wakes up again. Last night I resettled him 4 times in an hour before he finally stayed asleep! The record is getting up to him 13 times in one night! I am totally exhausted and would love for him to sleep for longer. ANY advice!!!

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I have a 5 month old who wakes every 1 to 2 hours overnight and then is very hard to settle (can take over an hour) what can I do, I am exhausted and can not rest during the day when baby does as I have a 2 year old son too!!

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I am in desperate need of your help and am utterly exhausted and confused. My baby daughter is ten and a half months old and has only very rarely slept through the night usually waking up around 1am/2am for a breastfeed after her last breastfeed at about 8.30/9pm. She then wakes up at about 5am/6am for another feed and then goes back to sleep for a couple of hours. The only way I can get her back to sleep is to breastfeed her and she usually goes back to sleep straight away after a feed although now that she is teething I am finding that she will only go back to sleep in my arms or in bed with me and is waking up more often - usually three times. My husband has tried to settle her but she only wants me and will only settle to sleep once I have fed her. I don't know if it is hunger or comfort but I am so exhausted after ten months of broken sleep that I only have the energy to bring her back to bed and breastfeed her to sleep and often I fall asleep myself from exhaustion!! (...more)

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I have a beautiful 4 month old daughter who is a dream except for the arsenic hour which I thought they grew out of at 12 weeks. My girl gets so upset and there is no consoling her. I've tried everything and am at my wit's end.

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I have a 9 month old and he is not sleeping! He will sleep for about 40 minutes per nap and at night time he will only sleep for about 3 hours total a night. I am due to have another baby in December and I would really like this solved before the next baby comes. Please help me. I am trying whatever I can!

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I have a 13 month old son and I am having an enourmous amount of trouble getting him settled through the night. About 2 months ago he developed a cough and still has it, now mainly at night. He doesn't go to bed until me and my partner do and he has to sleep in between us. He often wakes up crying and it takes a lot to get him back to sleep, he often does this about 5 or 6 times a night. My partner works and gets really annoyed when he wakes up at all hours of the night, we start fighting and he leaves to sleep on the couch. It is putting a huge strain on our relationship as we never have any time together. I try to put him in his cot but he just won't take it at all, he will cry so much that he starts to hyperventalate and then starts coughing and makes himself sick and the only way to settle him is to put him back in our bed. I need help please - how can I get him in a sleep routine and back in his bed? Even during the day he won't sleep unless it's on the lounge next to me while I watch TV. I'm desperate. Help save my relationship.

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My almost 5 month old still won't sleep through, at 9 weeks she did for 3 weeks but since then feeds every three hours at night. I'm breastfeeding and my first slept through from 6 weeks. It doesn't seem to matter if I top her up with expressed breast milk or give her a full bottle of Expressed Breast Milk. Am in need of advice. Thanks.

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My 4 week old son is very unsettled. He cries a lot and we only get 4 hours asleep at night as he cries on and off all night. I was wondering what I could do to help him settle of a night.

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I have an 8 month old son who has been a terrible sleeper right from the start. Over the months we have managed to fix his naps - he will now almost always go to sleep straight away, and sometimes for 2 whole hours. After that was sorted, with months of awful screaming nights, we finally managed to get him to go to sleep at bedtime with few hassles. He usually sleeps through the night - but from about 1am.

You see, he goes to sleep fine after his bath and everything, at around 7.30ish, but he treats it like a nap. That is, he wakes up after an hour or 2 and refuses to go back to sleep.

It wouldn't be so bad if he just lay there talking to himself, but he wants to be up so he cries and cries for hours. Anywhere from 1 - 5 hours everynight from about 9pm. We have tried everything: let him cry, we go comfort him, we feed him, we give him Brauer Calm, we give him hugs, we play music, we have the light on, the light off, we burn lavender oil, we give him chamomile tea... we have tried everything, it seems, except to give in and let him come join us as we watch tv or read or whatever.

And all the different methods we've tried, we have given them at least 2 or 3 weeks before changing and trying something different. It would seem like he just wants our company - but he will still cry when we go in there and sit with him. The only time he stops crying is if we pick him up to give him a cuddle, but then he starts again when he realises its only a cuddle and he is not getting up.

I don't know what to do anymore, I am tired of researching it! I dread the sound of him waking up, as it signals hours of crying - he often gets really distressed by it. And so do I.

Is there a way we can teach him that bedtime after his bath isn't a nap? That he has to stay in bed after that? It is the last remaining sleep issue we have with him, and I am desperate for it to be fixed.

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My 2 year old will not go to sleep in his bed (single bed). He will fall asleep in his play room, then once he is asleep we put him into his bed. Within 4 hours he wakes up and gets into bed with us. I don't know how to get him to go to sleep in his bed.

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My baby is five weeks old and I have just started a self settling technique, she generally feeds (by bottle) then is awake for about an hour (sometimes not happily), I then wrap her and put her in her cot, when she cries I go in and calm her down, she is taking about 30 minutes to go to sleep. My problem is she only sleeps for about 30-40 mins then wakes up crying and I can't settle her back down so I generally end up putting up with the screaming until 2.5 hours since her last bottle and feed her again. I am not sure whether I should be resettling her (even though I have tried) or feeding her after she wakes and thus giving her smaller feeds throughout the day but every two hours. She is alright at night - generally has a good 6 hour sleep then back to every 2.5-3 hours. Please help I just want a happy baby when she wakes!!!

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I have an 11 and a half month old daughter. I can get her to go to bed easily but trying to get her to sleep the whole night through is a different story and it is causing great tension between me and my partner. She wakes every hour and sometimes it takes between 45 mins to an hour to get her back to sleep only to have her wake up in an hour's time. I have only had her sleep the whole night through 3 times in her whole life. She used to get a bottle to help her back to sleep but she has kicked that habit herself. It is frustrating me greatly. My partner disagrees with controlled crying and I have tried to just sit with her and this does not work. Please help, I am at my wit's end.

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My beautiful baby daughter is 5.5 months old. She is breastfeed and has been eating 3 small meals a day for around 4 weeks. She is still waking at night anywhere between 1am-3am and the only way to get her back to sleep is by feeding her. She takes a quick feed and sleeps until 7am. I am not sure if she is really hungry or just dependent on me to get back to sleep? Can you suggest some ways to make her self settle. She is good at settling herself off to sleep at the start of her night time sleep or day time nap, it is only we she wakes, she cannot seem to send herself back to sleep. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

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I have a two year old that wakes at 5am every morning and will only go back to sleep if her father sleeps on the floor next to her. We have tried control crying but it doesn't seem to work and if we wait too long then she is awake for the day which means by 10am she wants to go back to bed. Please help.

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I am extremely tired, exhausted and in need of some advice. I have a 12 month old son who still does not sleep through the night. During the last 2 nights he has woken 9 times each night! He has never been a good sleeper from birth waking every 2 hours for breastfeeds until the age of 4 months when he started to sleep from 7pm til 6 am with 2 night feeds at 11pm and 2am. This for me was heaven but unfortunately only lasted til he was 8 months old. At 8 months we moved house and our routine was interrupted for a while and since then I haven't been able to get him back on track. He wakes at 6 every morning, has solid foods during the day, 2 sleeps a day, 1 hour morning, 1 hour afternoon and without fail will go to sleep at 7pm but sure enough within the hour he is awake again and this then continues throughout the night.

Sometimes he goes back to sleep with just a cuddle, sometimes I have to breastfeed him back to sleep and guaranteed by 1am he is in bed with us! What can I do to get him back on track and my sanity with it?!

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My 9 1/2 month old baby has a great deal of difficulty settling to sleep in the evening. It has come to the point where my husband or myself have to go into her room and lay down and pretend to go to sleep until she does. Can you suggest why this is happening? I try to keep her up about 8 1/2 to 9 1/2 hours a day with two sleeps during the day totalling about 3 to 4 hours. I have tried many things to get her to bed; bath, breastfeeding, singing and rocking, keeping her up for about four hours in a row to make her very tired so she falls asleep, reading a book, patting or stroking her hair, etc. Nothing seems to work. She seems determined to stay up and sometimes will stay up until 12am before she falls asleep from exhaustion. Do you have any suggestions?

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I have an eleven week old that has been catnapping for 9 weeks. He will lay in his bassinet when he wakes but will not go back to sleep, I have tried going in straight away rocking, patting him back but this takes anywhere up to 30-40mins. I have also tried just leaving him as he is happy. He is wrapped for every sleep and I try to do the exact same thing every day ie. feed/play/sleep routine. He has white noise on and I use the same words each time. I have already paid a professional (in-home service) to help with this issue but after five weeks of being constistent with my approaches he has not changed. I am very frustrated and concerned for his health due to the lack of sleep during the day. He sleeps great at night. An answer would be much appreciated - I am at my wits end and am becoming obsessed with this.

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I would like to know why every night when my 4 month old son goes to bed, he wakes for the next hour or two screaming with pains and burps and spews. He has plenty of belly time through out the day and is burped well after his feeds. This is the only time of day that he wakes from a nap or his sleep like this. Would love some advice.

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Our son is three and goes to bed fine but wakes at varying times once a night and just TALKS and talks and laughs to himself? This wakes us every time and we have tried explaining to whisper etc. to no avail. I dont want to use ear plugs in case I don't hear him get up in the morning... our house is not big enough to move bedrooms! HELP - I am getting tired and cross...

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I have a 12 month old baby boy who won't sleep more than 30 minutes for both morning and afternoon naps. His cot is in our bedroom, he settles reasonably well as I take him to his cot as soon as I see the tired signs. I lie him down and just move a distance away from the cot and he falls asleep. There is no outside noise, room is fairly dark and I cover him with blanket once he is asleep. Very rarely does he resettle to sleep again after waking from the 30 minute nap... He is tired and yawns and wants to sleep more but somehow can't put himself back to sleep. Then he ends up being cranky for the rest of the day from lack of sleep.

I do the same routine for night, breast feed him just before putting him down, he is awake when I lie him down and falls asleep straight away. He sleeps from 7pm till 5am and sometimes may cry/callout but usually falls back asleep if I 'sush sush' him from our bed. I am about to start work and have to work this day sleep issue out... please help!!!

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I have been swaddling my 4 month old son since birth, both at night and his day naps. He sleeps great at night and only naps during the day for 30-45 minutes at a time. I have made quite a few attempts to let him sleep with his hands free (unswaddled) and just under his blankets, but he just ends up getting upset and is very difficult to put to sleep. I then return and swaddle him up and he just drifts off peacefully. I am just concerned that constantly wrapping him is not going to allow his little body to have the freedom that it needs and I have read that it is not good for the development of their hips. Are there any suggestions for how to help with this transition. I just don't want to disturb his good sleeping...

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I have a 14 month old girl who has just started waking every hour on the hour through the night after sleeping through from week 3. I have tried everything even controlled crying but she has a lung condition that interferes with this. I am at my wits end as I haven't had a full night's sleep in 3 weeks and I am also expecting another baby early next year so want to sort this out.

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My 10 month old sleeps in a sleeping bag with layers underneath but no covers over the top and she sleeps through most nights, but it's hard to tell whether she's warm enough. We live in a colder part of Australia and it often gets to zero or less overnight throughout winter. I would love to hear your tips on how warm to dress my baby and how to judge the equivalent of a doona for example. I'm always aware of overdressing her because of SIDs. Thanks.

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Can you please advise on strategies to help a 2 year old sleep beyond 5:30am. He goes down at 7pm and is in a warm dark room. Thanks.

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My seven week old son has bad reflux/colic and I've tried all the things I can to help from the chemist. Is there a way I can settle him myself as I hate to see him in pain. How long does colic last - weeks or months?

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I have a six and a half year old boy and a two and a half year old girl who both have their own sleep problems. I say problem because their habits affect the rest of the household and our sleep time. (well, just me actually, my husband usually sleep through it all).

My son was nappy trained at two and a half but we still have not been able to train him for night sleeping. His problem...he simply does not wake up when he needs to go to the toilet. He sleeps on brolly sheets, the matress protectors you place on top of the bed to make night changes easy. I bought these hoping that the discomfort of feeling wet would wake him and he would eventually learn to get up when he needed to go to the loo, but it simply hasn't worked. He sleeps through on a wet bed. I limit his intake of fluids in the evening, I march him to the toilet before he goes to bed and I wake him around midnight before I go to bed to take him to the toilet but he still wakes up in a wet bed each morning. Occasionally he will already have a wet bed before that mid-night march to the toilet.

We have tried all sorts of reward charts and incentives but nothing has worked so far. He simply sleeps through everything (even his sister screaming in the same room). I would love any advice you are able to offer on this problem.

Our second problem is our little girl who is the exact opposite. She simply cannot stay asleep. She will get out of bed and wander up to our room at least two times during the night. On most occasions she will happily go straight back to bed but on others she insists on a drink of milk and has a huge 'throw herself on the floor, arch her back and scream, tantrum' if her wishes are not met. I am usually so tired that I give in and give her a drink, of which she usually just takes two or three small sips.

She still has a daytime sleep and usually takes herself off to bed without needing to be asked. I tried cutting out her daytime sleep for a few days to see if that would help her sleep through the night. If anything she was worse and was definitely more grumpy.

I am a WAHM and sadly only average about 5 hours sleep each night. Please help!

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My baby girl is 7 months and has a lot of trouble getting herself to sleep and staying asleep. She will catnap in the day and still wakes twice in the night and can wake 2-3 times before even I go to bed. I have tried control crying but I can not leave her to cry any longer than 15 min as it breaks my heart.

When she wakes in the middle of the night I usually put her in my bed just so that I can get some sleep. Please help me!

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Firstly, my 4.5 month old son will self settle but in doing so cries and protests endlessly before dropping off to sleep. There are some days that he will quietly go off to sleep but most days naps and just before his long night sleep he will cry until he goes to sleep. Do you have any suggestions which may assist my husband and I in helping our son drift off to sleep more happily? We have tried numerous techniques but have found patting and shhing only escalates him... we are at a bit of a loss to know what to do for him.

My second question is about resettling, particularly during the day my son will wake after one sleep cycle (approx 40 mins) and then will expect to get up which if we persist in him staying down for a sleep this ensures with great levels of crying, which in the ends leaves us getting him up as it is easier to manage the crying this way. I know he needs more sleep and you can tell by looking at his face but no matter what we try he won't resettle. This has been upsetting for both my husband and myself due to not wanting to see our little boy in distress like he has been.

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My bub in nearly 14 months and I am still having settling and sleep issues. He slept through from 8 weeks to 8 months but then it all went downhill - to the point that when I returned to work when he was ten month, he was waking every two hours and breastfeeding like mad. I ended up co-sleeping for my sanity. We now have him back in his cot (portacot because he was banging his head so badly on the bars) in his own room. Mostly now he sleeps 8 hours overnight, then needs to be resettled (not breastfeeding until 5am now - that was an adventure!!!). Usually, I end up putting him in bed with me then. But this last week he has been waking again! Molar is cutting?

Day sleeps are horrendous. He is impossible to put to sleep - we use to just hold him for a couple of minutes and then put him in the cot. Now he fights until he crashes. He is only having one day sleep and that is averaging around 90 minutes. He is tired in the afternoon but will not sleep! (day sleep usually around 10:30-noon).

Issues: How to get him to sleep through and how on earth to get him to sleep during the day? I don't want to slide downhill again.

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My eldest boy is 3 years old and has never been a great sleeper but from about 2 years old he was sleeping through the night. At about 2 1/2 he started getting up once a night wanting comfort and to be tucked in. I didn't mind doing this however now this is happening about 2-3 times per night and seems to be getting worse rather than better. Help!!! He doesn't have a dummy and he has a teddy bear he sleeps with but still no joy.

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My son is in a bed from being transitioned from a cot 2 months ago. He seems to keep waking during the night normally at 10:30/12 am and then sometimes again around 4am. The only thing I find that settles him quickly and gets him back to sleep is to give him a little bit of milk in a bottle. Could you please give me some tips to erradicate the bottle and get him to sleep on his own during the night?

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My baby is an excellent sleeper through the night (10-7am) however it is almost impossible for me to get her to sleep at all during the day. Is it so vital that she sleeps well through the day?

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I have a 12 month old boy who has slept through the night 10 hours + since he came home from hospital. He is a light and restless sleeper but goes down for two 1-2 hour naps during the day readily and goes to bed at 7:30 every night. I have recently found he has started to wake when he wets his nappy in the early hours around 5:30am. He has black out blinds on his windows and I have experimented with different brands of nappies without success. I can sometimes resettle him but usually after I change him he lies and plays until I get him up at 7:00am (he gets cross after this). I should mention he has been funny about having a wet nappy since he was born. I was forced to change from cloth at 4 months as he would scream every time he wet himself even though he had no nappy rash or urinary infections. Any ideas how I can avoid these early wake ups?

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My 8 month old daughter is breastfed and still feeds during the night. Lately she is waking every 2-3 hours and the only way to get her back to sleep is to feed her. Once she's been fed she's still awake when I put her back in her cot then she puts herself back to sleep on her own, but if I try to pat or shsh her back to sleep she just screams. Last night she cried for 2.5 hours until I fed her then she went straight off to sleep. Please HELP me stop feeding her through the night!!

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My son just turned 2 last month. From about 8 months to approx 20 months he was a fabulous sleeper. However, at the beginning of this year he started climbing out of the cot. This prompted me to transfer him into to a bed. I started with a converted cot, then to a single mattress on the floor and then to a single bed. However, he has refused to go to sleep without me staying in his room with him, and generally wakes up crying and running out of his room up to four times per night. This wakes his 3 and half year old sister, and naturally his dad and me. I have to rock him back to sleep or end up just sleeping with him in his bed. I have tried everything. I need my sleep back! Can you offer any advice?

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My husband and I currently co-sleep with our ten week old daughter but we would like to start transitioning her over to her own bed in the next month or so. Any advice on how to do this with minimal upset to her as I hate to hear her cry and don't want her to get distressed. She is not very good at self settling either.

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My loving daughter is now 10 months, and very active, but since her birth she has not slept through once. She has the same bedtime routine - dinner, bath, breast feed and bed at 7. She sleeps in a Grobag. The most she will sleep is 4 hours and when she wakes she will only go back to sleep if she has a feed. Then she can wake every 2 hours thereafter. I have tried resettling - cuddles with out offering boob, but this can go on for up to 2 hours. I don't know what else to do.

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I have a four and a half month old baby girl who settles really well if wrapped with both arms in. We use the dummy to calm/settle (in bed only and only as a 'time to sleep' cue) and both these things combined send her to sleep well.

I have read that a baby should no longer be swaddled once they can roll and are better suited in a sleeping bag. Therefore I am armed with said sleeping bags and have tried using them, but she just won't settle with her arms out and about.

Have also tried wrapping with one arm out or both arms out as stepping stones to the sleeping bag, to no avail so far. With one or both arms out she finds her dummy to 'play' with but then gets frustrated because she can't put it back into her mouth. Overtiredness soon ensues and we are all familiar with that cycle...

She has not yet started to roll. My questions are:

1. Should she in fact be rolling by now (20 weeks) and should I be doing something to help her develop this milestone?
   
2. How long can we keep wrapping her for? Do I need to 'train' her into new sleep cues? The cues we have (wrapping + dummy) aren't broken so I am a little hesitant to 'fix' them, but am I creating a problem for myself in the months ahead?

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