Suddenly waking at night?

[JillMelissa]

(I posted this question in my playgroup but thought I'd see if anyone had been through this already!)

Emily has been a champion night-time sleeper, not waking up at all from bedtime (around 8 PM) until 8 AM, since she was about 4 months old. Suddenly, though, she's waking up crying an hour or two after she goes to bed. I'll go in and pick her up and rock her in the glider chair, and she goes right back to sleep, and we don't hear another peep out of her until 8:00 in the morning.

I'm not sure why this is happening, or why it only seems to happen early on in the night (not that I'm complaining, but still). She's been struggling a lot more with naps lately too. I should add that she's started to crawl within the last couple weeks, and is learning to pull herself up to standing right now also. I've heard that can cause sleep disruptions but I don't know what the connection is?

[Dennis]

I've also heard about sleeping problems coinciding with new abilities like that. Also, they just have ups and downs, and it's probably just a temporary thing.

Dennis

[ArtsyMom]

Just waking up from a very light sleep cycle perhaps.

[kalynnsmom]

I heard the same as Dennis. Kalynn went through a period like that, and she was working on standing up. So, maybe she's working on a new skill?

[bunkie68]

Hoo boy, Julian used to do this *all* the time!!! We never were able to really tie it to any specific thing - maybe developmental milestones approaching, maybe teething, maybe bad dreams. Sometimes he'd be awake for ten minutes, sometimes he'd be awake for an hour or two, and there was never any way to know which it would be or if he'd wake up on any given night. Sometimes he'd wake up four or five times in a night. BLECH. All I can say is, I feel your pain, and this *will* pass eventually. You've just got to keep trying different things and see what works to get her back to sleep quickly (although that doesn't sound like a real problem for you, thankfully :) )and to see if you can somehow head off whatever's causing her to wake up. (Sometimes Tylenol or Motrin before bed helped Julian, sometimes it didn't.) Pretty much, though, it's just something to suffer through. It will get better! :bighug: