# 12 month old waking every 2 hours...suggestions?



## Jak's Mom (Feb 17, 2007)

So tired, so very tired. I am so at the end of my rope. My sweet baby, who just turned 1 year on April 7th, is sleeping worse than he did when he was a newborn. Granted, he never has been a "good sleeper" but for the past 6 weeks he has been up every 1.5 to 2 hours all night long. The only thing that will calm him enough to go to sleep is nursing and rocking, which I truly love to do...but not every 2 hours.

I know that he's still just a baby and that he needs his mama, BUT he and I both need some sleep too! My husband and I co-sleep with our 3 year old son and co-slept with this baby until about 7 months (we were waking him up accidentally, his movements were keeping me up). I'm totally for co-sleeping but I don't think that it's something that is the answer for our 12 month old at this point because of those reasons.

I guess I'm struggling with balancing his needs for nursing and rocking with both of our needs for sleep. He's definitely not ready to night wean but I feel like I need to have someone else be able to comfort him or some strategies to help him sleep.

I'm rambling...tired...brain not working. Any suggestions for how to help him would be so greatly appreciated.

Thanks!


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## yasinsmama (Mar 9, 2008)

Mine just turned 12 months on the 23rd.







:
This is the way he has ALWAYS slept (except for those 4 hour stretches when he was a newborn). It's good and bad. Good b/c it's all i'm used to, not like he was STTN then went to waking up every 1/5 hours. But not so good b/c sometimes i'm tired. I'll be watching this thread.


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## ecoteat (Mar 3, 2006)

We survived a terrible sleeper. She'll be 3 in a couple weeks and has been STTN (or nearly so) most nights for a few months. Before that, though, I don't think I slept more than a few hours in a stretch for years. We tried EVERYTHING (short of CIO) to try to help her sleep better. Nothing worked. The only thing that made a difference was patience. And doing anything we could to make the most of those short chunks of sleep. At 14 months we moved dd out of our bed to her own twin mattress on the floor of her own room. That gave me more freedom in the evenings and I was able to sleep better with more space in my bed. When she woke in the night, it was comfortable enough to join her in her bed, which is what we still do. But when we stopped trying to get her to sleep better and just took a more zen attitude about the whole thing, I felt much better. Still tired, but a lot happier about it!


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## tankgirl73 (Jun 10, 2007)

What's your current sleeping arrangement with her? Is it possible to set up a co-sleeper bed, like a twin bed snugged up right beside yours? This is what we did when DD was about 14mo.

That way, she's nearby, but not right in bed with you, so if your movements were waking each other up that won't be a problem. But when she does wake up and need to nurse back to sleep, you don't have to get up. You can just pull her up into bed with you, nurse back down (if she'll do side-lying that's easiest, or just sit up with her, whatever works), then put her back down into her bed. If you're side-lying you can likely even just kind of push or roll her over lol...

Basically, it keeps the don't-have-to-get-up and fully-wake-up benefits of co-sleeping, but it gives you more space.

As to why she's waking up so frequently in the first place, maybe she has to pee? Maybe she's cold, or hot? Maybe she's teething? Maybe she's in a growth spurt and needs to nurse more? Could be so many reasons, it's hard to say.


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## XanaduMama (May 19, 2006)

I'm thinking teeth too. Have you tried a dose of motrin or tylenol at bedtime? If that gets you a few more hours, it's a likely sign that the teeth are the problem.


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## Jak's Mom (Feb 17, 2007)

I've tried teething tablets, chamomile, Motrin...with no changes in his sleep pattern. I've tried dressing him warmer and keeping the heat up at night (we usually turn it down) to make sure he wasn't getting too cold. That didn't seem to help either.
He's a mystery to me!

He's not eating solids yet so I know he's hungry at night but I know he can go longer than 2 hours without nursing....


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## ElsieLC (Dec 28, 2007)

Our solution at 1 year was to have dad give a sippy cup of "milk" (based on a rice milk formula suggested by our naturopath) at night-time wakeups. Turns out dad is way more boring than me, and her night-time wakeups slowed down to one or two per night. Lately she doesn't even ask for the milk. We told her that daddy would give her milk at night when she woke up.

Whenever she's sick, she wakes up more, which makes sense, so I usually sleep in the same bed as her. But then we return to the dad wake-ups.


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## GISDiva (Jul 13, 2007)

No real advice, just saying you're not the only one. My 12 month old has slept through the night for months until recently. I'm guessing in our case it's either a growth spurt (becuase he really seems super hungry when he wakes up) or he's not getting enough to eat during the day because he's too busy doing other things.

Meanwhile, I'm a total zombie at work...:yawning:









I do like the daddy-wake up scenario that a PP suggested though...


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## DisplacedYooper (Aug 10, 2007)

I will second needing to pee in the night - this was a big cause of night wakings for us until we started taking DS to the bathroom at his first waking. At least some of the time (I don't want to suggest a lot, but a reasonable amount) of the time he would not even need to nurse to go back to sleep.


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