Foundation for Paediatric Osteopathy

I have a 4yr old daughter who was delivered by forceps, she had cholic for 6 months and would not sleep lying down. She didn't start falling asleep on her own until she was 13 months old. She now goes to sleep for about 4 hours and then wakes up demanding things, (ie food or drink or toys). Sometimes she is not even awake when she is doing this. When I ask her in the morning why she is doing this she doesn't even remember that she woke up.
Some times she will sleep through and other nights it can be terrible for example she wakes up every hour from the hours of 11pm - 4am, some nights she wakes up betweeen 5-10 times in the space of 2 hours.
I have tried lots of things like taking loads of food and drink up with her so when she wakes up it is there, but then she seems to find different reasons to wake up.
She is then being really moody in the day as she is tired all the time, but she doesn't nap in the day at all. I am worried that this is going to affect her when she starts nursery full time.
I can not remember a whole nights sleep since i gave birth. Please help.

It sounds from your post like your daughter has never really established a sleep pattern which, as you have identified, has knock-on effects for other aspects of her life. As osteopaths, we aim to treat the cause of a problem and sleep disturbances are almost always multi-factorial (have many causes). These may relate to mechanical strains, diet, anxieties etc. Many causes relate to tensions within the body which we can treat and we do see children respond well to treatment. However, it would be difficult to make any judgement as to whether your child would respond without assessing her to determine the cause.

I suggest that you bring your daughter in for an assessment which would enable the osteopaths to fully evaluate and give you an opinion as to whether we are likely to be able to make a change.

best wishes
Nancy