Couple of things about this... Nothing will help a baby "sleep through the night" except maturity. Giving them cereal to try to do this is a well-worn wive's tale. Solids are discouraged by the AAP before six months because avoiding them decreases the incidence of allergies. Babies have very sensitive GI tracts. They're not meant to eat solids this early. As someone already mentioned, give solids before they're ready and sometimes this can backfire, cause GI upset/gas/hard stools and they (and you) will be up more. (But with number one child, I tried it early anyway. Didn't do a darn thing.) Babies wake a lot during the first months/year because of many things...First, their sleep cycles are not like adults (takes years to get to that point). Their's last only 45 minutes long. And "sleeping through the night", MEDICALLY-speaking is considered a single five hour stretch. So if you put Junior down at ten, and he sleeps until 3am, THAT is considered sleeping through the night. And it can be YEARS before you see them do the 8-10 hour thing (and even then, they don't necessarily do it consistantly..might do it one night and then won't again for weeks...). Every child is different in this area. (Some do it very early, but I always tell new moms, don't count on it.) Growth spurts will wake them (they'll want to eat more)..teething...gas or GI discomfort..something you ate (if you're breastfeeding)..reflux...illness...and all of the developmental leaps they go through. If they are about to 'do' something new, THAT will also inevitably increase night-waking. This would be things like rolling over, sitting up, crawling, standing/walking..language development, you name it. (*If you watch them closely, you might see them acting some of this out in their sleep.) Too much stimulation during the day (like lots of family activity)..changes in their routine because of other family needs (like having them out during naptime). Basically you name it, it can cause them to wake up. And if it's not one thing, it's another..My 7 month old ds started to crawl, a few days later pulled himself, caught his sister's mild cold, and just cut two teeth..All in a two week period! Lemme tell you, we've had a lot of late-night partying these past couple of weeks! LOL! And it will end when he's done with it. So, sometimes it can be more than one thing going on at the same time. With two kids, this is my only advice about sleep. You can make it conducive for baby to sleep, but you can't MAKE EM sleep. A calming routine, a calm household, a warm bath, cuddling, eating, rocking (whatever) can lull him down IF he's ready to go. If they don't want to go, ain't going to happen. Not like they have a sleep switch (and trust me, if they have one, I would've found it! I looked! LOL!). That's the bad news (if there's any bad news with babies). The GOOD news is that this time period doesn't last forever. Blink, and they're crawling. Blink twice and they're walking. Blink several more times and they're riding a tricycle and sleeping like a log. That first year goes by in a flash...but yes, you will have some year-long nights. And then all of a sudden it hits you that your 'baby' is not a baby anymore..they're a KID. Running, climbing, laughing, talking up a storm, playing...And then something weird happens. The woman that wished that her baby would go to sleep, now wonders where her baby went? And would he/she please slow down enough for a lap cuddle? :)) I'm 40 years old and this is my last baby. Although the sleep deprivation is really kicking my behind, I'm ever mindful that I'm not going to do this again. And considering that my first baby is going to start kindergarten in the Fall (how did THAT happen so fast??), I already know how quickly this part of motherhood is over...The baby that woke up every two hours for almost a YEAR (I'm not kidding), and currently sleeps like a rock, came up to me the other night and said "Mom, when will it OFFICIALLY be my bedtime?" I told her and she said "fine, thanks for letting me know"..and trotted upstairs, got into bed, snuggled down and went to sleep (She turns five in March). My how things change! LOL! So hang in there ladies, you'll do fine whether or not they sleep when you want them to. And cherish the baby time. It's amazingly fleeting...

I'm so sorry you're going through this. My sister is bipolar type 2, with rapid cycling, and I watched my mother try to deal with her. (Fortunately or unfortunately, my sister self-medicated with food, not drugs or alcohol, so she wasn't a physical danger to herself.) I *so* understand that you're afraid of alienating your daughter, and are worried that she'll leave and you won't see her. The only thing I know for sure is that nothing good ever comes out of acting from fear. I'll tell you my bias. I watched my mother do much the same with my sister as you're doing with your daughter. My mother's main concerns were keeping my sister relatively calm and not letting her break their relationship. My mother did things she *knew* were counter-productive, because she was afraid of losing my sister. She "helped" my sister in school - to the point of actually doing many of her assignments. She wrote absence excuse notes for fake illnesses. She provided my sister with spending money. (I, OTOH, started working at age 15.) Later on, my mother gave my sister a place to live, rent-free. She paid for everything - clothes, food, utilities, car insurance, gas ... you name it. My sister got a good education and could get good jobs, but when she got them, she spent all her money on spending sprees. (In one week in 1986, she bought a $20,000 car, a $2,000 exercise machine, $1,500 of stereo equipment, $1,000 in CD's, and probably a whole lot more stuff I never knew about.) My mother eventually gave her money, because she didn't want to lose my sister. (By that time, it wasn't a physical loss she was afraid of, but my sister would go into her room and completely ignore my mother if she didn't like what my mom was doing.) When her illness cycled, my sister would rage at my mother. (In type 2 bipolar, the manic cycle is more a matter of anger than what we think of as mania.) My sister would throw books and scream and make life miserable, but my mother took it, because she was afraid my sister would stop talking to her. My sister lived with my mom until the day my mother died. One of the last things my mother said to me was, "Take care of your sister." Well, I loved my mother enormously, but *THAT* wasn't going to happen, at least not the way my mother was doing it. Once my sister lost her safety net and had to be responsible for herself, she managed to do it. My sister is still ill, on multiple medications, and is hospitalized from time to time, but now she's much more responsible. She holds down a full-time job, something she hadn't done for more than a couple months at a time before my mom died. My sister will tell you that what my mother did for her, though it was done out of love (and fear), made her illness worse, not better. She'll also tell you that while she loved our mother, she never respected her. I don't know if any of this strikes a chord, but there it is. I can't say what you should do, because I'm not in your situation. I just want to urge you to consider that you're not just hurting yourself by placating your daughter to the extent you've described, you're actually hurting her. I keep thinking of that old adage about the definition of madness being doing the same thing over and over and expecting the results to change. I think you know you have to do something different, because you don't like the results you're getting. As to why bipolar illness (and ADHD, and all the rest) are diagnosed so often today, who knows? Personally, I think they're real illnesses and have been around forever, but they're also over-diagnosed. You don't need to solve the societal problem, though, you just need to figure out what's happening with your daughter. If she *does* have bipolar illness, then it doesn't really matter if 10,000 other people have been misdiagnosed with bipolar. And if she doesn't have it, many of the things you need to do are still the same. (BTW, I agree with Alisande that you're right to look at the diagnosis with a critical eye, and ask for a second opinion.) I'm sorry if anything I've written makes it sound like there's anything remotely simple about the problems you're facing. I wish you the best of luck.

I beg to differ PK. If one didn't have a current/active email address on file with HGTV Garden Web-Kitchen Table...no pre-registration took place. I had tried numerous times over the last few years to update my personal info page and submit a new email address. The old one had been closed/nonfunctional for some time. Despite my attempts...the new information never "took" and I finally gave up in exasperation. As I never volunteered for email comments...and I've never been a 24/7 regular member...I had no reason to worry about the lack of success I'd had. Until...lo and behold...Houzz actually arrived on the screen. I had to actively register with Houzz directly to gain access to all Garden Web sites. For those of you who had viable email addresses on file with Garden Web...pre-registration was, truly, successful. Anne

Thanks Shaddy. I personally use a Rolodex for all the passwords. Spinning wheel, easier to replace a card then scribbling out in a notebook which I have done in the past. I keep my passwords and my husbands on it because he keeps changing them as he forgets the old ones. You know the 'forgot your password?' Worse thing they ever offered. He keeps doing that and doesn't write it down. Like many of us, you think you'll remember. I think what he did when he turned on the Win8 computer was put hotmail address because the computer said he couldn't use it without one. At least that's what he remembers. He states he never put a password for log on. I'm not sure but he has never had a log-on password but the Start-Up screen might have confused him. I can use it but have to log on this hotmail address to get in. I can't find a way to change the log on to my name nor get rid of the hotmail address. I did turn him off as administrator and put myself, but only his log-on appears when you turn the machine on. I'll figure it out eventually when I stop using my XP machine. I just don't have the energy for this anymore. Its so tiring and time consuming to hunt around for answers or where Microsoft decided to move everything and change the names. I thought the easiest thing would be to wipe it all out by reinstalling Windows until I realized it never came with disks. How dumb! Anyway, us older folks keep plugging away best we can. I don't feel like spending the money on a tech, at this point. You and Emma are doing better than me. I haven't even gotten to Win 10 yet! Got to get past Win 8 first. Good luck to all, Jane