13 month old crying again

[stellasmama]

A month ago the peaceful undisturbed nights of sleep slowly started to become disturbed with a cry once a night and then maybe an early riser who would sit in her bed and talk to herself lowdly but happily. As days progressed, it became two cries in the night including the early rising sometimes up to an hour of wakefullness before either going back to sleep or time to go in and get her.

Normal reaction to wakings is,
night cry of distress = one reminder & she'd quickly go back to sleep
night cry that might lead to going back to sleep on her own = avakta
wake after 5 = quick reminder which may lead to sleep but more than likely wake shortly after and play lowdly = one more pang reminder and try to go back to sleep myself.

Now the cries of distress are picking up entirely too often. I want my nights of undisturbed sleep back but don't know why this is happening and feel like I've been doing things correctly the entire month now. 2½ weeks ago we added an alarm clock. Doesn't seem to make a difference yet.
Is there something I'm missing? What's causing this? I thought it was dreams. I thought maybe teething (4 teeth coming out in one month). Enough is enough, we need to get back to sleep.

Any ideas?

[Ewa]

With you get the cries in the night - does ramsa work? Is she awake or just dreaming, do you know?

As far as early risers go, it seems to me you're doing everything right. Probably not what you want to hear though, is it ? You mention pangramsa so I take it you've found advice on how to use it here? What I've done (after finding suggestions here) is to do as you say (i.e. ramsa if needed if they wake prior to 6 (or thereabout) and serve a pangramsa if they wake later than 6 (supposing that you get up at 7, that is) and let them get on with it. If they go back to sleep and wake again, serve a new pangramsa, and so on until it's time to get up.

I've had a couple of short periods of waking early with my eldest but I've found that the more "matter-of-fact" I am about letting him know that it's still night, the sooner he get's the message, so to speak. I sympathise with your desire to get back to where you were, and you will. Just keep letting her know that it's still night time and the only reaction she gets from you is the pangramsa and nothing else. It'll sink in, I promise.

[stellasmama]

gosh, thanks Ewa, it's good to hear I am doing everything right. The way you explained it is exactly how I'm handeling it.
yes, if she's just softly crying and it sounds like she'll just go right back to sleep I've learned what that cry sounds like and I just leave her alone. If it picks up and becomes a cry, a real I'm waking up now cry, what's happening now? I'll remind her. Just once. And she'll fall silent and go back to sleep again.
I'm hoping hoping hoping this is a faze. I know she will eventually accept this and sleep through the night again. Just not as soon as I'd have it I suppose.
I guess we got so used to her being so quiet and then things change.
Thanks for writing

[stellasmama]

I just wanted to say that Stella slept very well last night. She began to cry a bit in her sleepy way once and fell back asleep on her own. She woke again at 6:40 and played until 7 when the alarm went off. I am a happy mommy today

[Ewa]

How wonderful! Hope it stays that way, too.
Ewa

[stellasmama]

I guess I'm not allowed to get too confident.
Last night was the worst in ages. She went to bed at 7 without a problem and later cried slightly at 9 but fell back asleep on her own.
Woke up screaming crying at 00:26 and cried on and off until slightly past 2.
I gave her reminders when she'd start getting herself all wound up. Then left her to wind down herself after the reminders. But all in all it lasted over 1 and a half hours. Then I think she's surely going to sleep until 7 when she gets the alarm. And no. She wakes at 5:56 and plays. Loudly until 7 when the alarm rings.

Sometimes I am making no progress. I feel like after nights like this we need to just let her cry it out. It feels like she is testing us and her boundaries and I need to be stricter somehow. I don't know how much more clear I could be with her messages.

I'd really appreciate more thoughts if there are any.
Thank you.

[Ewa]

Hi!
Sorry about last night. I'm not sure what advice to give. I don't have that much experience with waking in the middle of the night (after completing the kur, that is), only early morning trouble.

But if you feel that she´s testing what's what, then you need to be confident and reassure her that nothing's changed. We all sleep at night, still! So long as there's no other reason for her cries (e.g nightmares, in which case I would act more or less the same; she's ill, in which case I would do what I could to make sleeping easier for her, but still keep her in bed) then you probably just need to keep reminding her. Are there any other changes in your life recently that may cause her to ask questions?

Let me know how you get on!

Ewa

[Gäst]

Hi, may I butt in here...

My son had a period like that when he was around the same age. There are a couple of things I would like to know:

does Stella have one or two naps during daytime?

if two, it might be time to cut down to one. We did exactly that when Hugo was around a year, and it calmed down the nights allmost straight away.

is she about to learn something new? Crawling on hand and knees, walking, talking..?

if yes, it might be a question of working things over even when sleeping...

And finally... what solved our early mornings for good was me falling back asleep again... Lord knows how the little sweetie knew mum was lying all quiet but awake in her bed - but he did... 8) ... and as soon as I managed to fall asleep again, even though he was grumbling and mumbling, so did he...

Hopefully this gave you some ideas..

[stellasmama]

Thank you both for your responses.
Well, nothing has really changed for her in the last month. She's had the same routine we always have had for several months. Actually I take that back. When she turned 1 year I started making her take one nap a day. We tried doing it earlier when she was 11 months but she was clearly not ready for it. When she turned 12 months I felt she was more ready for it and could stay up until 12:30 if I really kept her moving. But on days I take her to öppna förskolan and bring her back home in the wagon for lunch at 11 she'll be fast asleep by the time we get home. I don't know if she is actually ready for 1 nap a day. Like today since she slept so badly last night (only getting 9 hours of sleep) she was so tired she fell asleep on the couch at 10:45 doing absolutely nothing. Just faded off. So I put her to bed to let her catch up on some much needed Zzzs. Then I made her sleep again another 45 minutes this afternoon. This matches the schedule she had before we switched to 1 nap a day. Maybe I'm pushing her too hard to take one nap. Maybe she's really not ready for it and I just need to back off and let her show me when she can handle 1 nap. It's so difficult to know these things though. Some days she is right on schedule. Other days she can't stay awake until 12:30 for her one nap.

[stellasmama]

oh and she's been walking/running and talking since she was 10 months old. So she's been active for several months. And teething 4 teeth in this last month as well. I suppose it could account for her night waking. But I just want this phase to be past and embrace the silent nights once again.

[Gäst]

Thank you for more background.

I remember the first ten days of Hugo's one-nap-scedual: every so often I had to give him a powernap of five minutes - usually in the mornings - and every other day he slept 2 hours, every other day 1,5. (During the first week.)

The powernaps solved a lot for us - but I really timed them to the minute. usually he would fall asleep on my chest after some presuasion, and then I could truly know exactly one the minute when he fell a sleep, and when it was time to wake him up. The powernaps worked wonders for us!

I understand fully your wondering about if she's ready for only a nap/day - but I think it is the nights which should tell you if this is the case or not...

I'll see if I can find the thread I made about Hugo's nights back then - maybe it can help you as well..?

[Gäst]

Here goes. 8) I wrote the first messagen early in the morning - appolgize for the angry and frustrated tone...

http://www.annawahlgren.com/forum/viewt ... highlight=

[stellasmama]

Thank you sooo much for writing and helping me with your ealrier post.

Last night was much better. I basically ignored her when she began to cry. I figured maybe my responding to her was only waking her up when she was actually crying from dreaming and would shortly go back to sleep. I was right. I needed to give her more time to settle down on her own. She only cried 2x last night and woke up 20 minutes before 7 as a happy little baby!

I will try this little trick during the nights for the next few nights and see if it gets better.

I will also try to give her a power nap if she's totally unable to keep up the energy until 12:30. Although looking at her now she is running around very happily with full energy and it's 10:17. I had to switch her meals to be 2½ hours between so her energy levels were more in rythem with her needs. I could see her body react to the low blood suger levels and that would always result in her crashing before her scheduled nap time. She eats better when it's 2½ hour difference as well.

thank you all for helping, I will keep in touch