Sleep!!!!! - Bellflower,CA

I'm sorry to hear about your daughter waking up... 10 minutes is not enough time for some kids to cry them selves to sleep... my son is almost 10 months old and sometimes it takes an hour or so for him to tire himself out enough to give up and sleep.. My sister in law would have to let her daughters cry them selves back to sleep and sometimes it takes 2 hours but if you go in and rescue them it will only begin a habit of waitinng for you to come save her and hold her.. its a habit that you will have to break and letting her cry it out for however long she needs is how i would break her of doing it. She isn't going to starve if she wakes up and doesn't get a bottle in the middle of the night so If she wakes up in the middle of the night just ignor her and let her cry herself back to sleep instead of going and giving her a bottle.. it sounds mean but its a good way to break her from the habit of wkaing up in the middle of the night if she realizes she isn't going to get a bottle.... Hope this helps...
L.

The only time my son ever did that around that age was when he was teething or had an ear infection. If it continues I would take her to the Dr. I would also see if she is running a fever. Even if it is just a low grade fever it could be a sign of an infection and maybe help you and the Dr. figure out what is going on. It sounds to me that she is uncomfortable and is in pain. My first instinct would be to take her to the Dr. just to be checked out.

It used to take my son about 30 minutes to put himself to sleep. He would cry for a little while and finally calm down. I would just go into another room, so I couldn't hear him. It would upset me to hear him cry, but I wasn't about to continue to rock him to sleep every night. He had gotten used to that and finally at about 6 months I stopped because I didn't want to be rocking him to sleep until he was 18. You could even try just standing in the room and rubbing your daughters back if you don't want to let her cry it out. Sometimes that would work too.

Good luck!

L.

You shouldn't give her a bottle to get her to go back to sleep. It will make it harder for her to comfort herself when she wakes up.

You should let her cry it out so she learns to calm herself down. Though I know that can be hard to do. But if you do go in to comfort her, keep the lights low or just nightlight, and talk quitetly and calmly. And try not to touch her, so she doesn't become dependent on that. Though, if you really feel the need to, you can rub her back.

Good luck

I have a one year old daughter who just went through the same thing. She was a great little sleeper for the first 10 moths or so and then all of a sudden she started waking in the middle of the night crying for a long time. I tried a couple different things and the ONE thing that worked was feeding her a good sized snack right before bed. She is just getting bigger and growing so much. A whole eight hours was too much for her. So about a half hour before bed time sit down and have a healthy snack. We do crackers and some fruit. Once my daughter started having bed time snack she started sleeping right through the night again! Another thing to try is keeping her up about a half hour later. Chang her sleeping pattern again. Also, is she taking one or two naps a day? This may also be effecting her sleep. Hope some of this helps.

First, make sure she doesn't have an ear infection and check for teething. Both of those things can make children resist laying down and can wake them at night.

I totally disagree with the notion that letting children cry for hours on end is the proper way to get them to put themselves to sleep. But I do know that some children are very persistant and are very difficult to train in this area. Especially if the night waking habit is firmly rooted, which it sounds like is right now.

My best advice would be to start shortening the length of time you spend with her. And make sure that you and your husband alternate nights not visits (she'll learn that one of you is tougher than the other and she'll milk it for all it's worth). Keep your talking and touching to a minimum. Avoid picking her up but you can soothe her with shhhing or touches, hugs at first. No lights on if possible. I think the idea of giving her 10 minutes to try and self soothe is a good start. Keep it up gradually legthening the amount of time you are away from her. You may want to stay in her room on the floor for a while if that seems to help, but if it only makes her more aggitated, leave.

In my experience with my son, that 10 month period is when they first get wise to how they can manipulate us at night. None of the usual back to sleep tricks work anymore! It's going to be rough for a while but being consistent with how you train/retrain will ultimately get her (and you) back to sleep. Drink lots of coffee. :)