When will this get better?

[squigglehead]

My DS's sleep has improved massively in the past three/four months. He's now 10mo and waking at regular times of night which was for breastfeeds when he was younger but now he has the tiniest drink and goes back to sleep, so I know its now just a habit. BUT, if I try to just offer just water and/or his dummy then he cries until he's offered boob. I really don't want to to CC (he's a tension increaser and gets hysterical very quickly), and am basically just looking for someone to give me hope as to when these wakings may naturally drop?

FWIW he goes to bed at 7, wakes up at 8, 12.30/1.30 and 5.30, then is usually up for the day at 7. Which is way better than it used to be but he's now 10 months old and the build up of sleep depravation is taking its toll! I have a single bed in his room where I lie to feed him and cosleep with him on bad nights, but I desperately want a stretch of sleep that's longer than 3 hours!

Alternatively if anyone has any gentle ideas to reduce night wakings I'd love to hear them. The trouble is that sometimes he's clearly hungry at the 1ish one so I don't want to cut it out, and if I try to avoid the 5.30 one he tries to get up for the day!

[squigglehead]

Guess I'm doomed, then

[Singsongsung]

No real advice but the Baby Whisperer does a technique called 'wake to sleep' in this situation. If you are pretty sure of the likely wake up times, you disturb the baby 30 mins or so before that time. Enough to wake them a bit but not totally. The idea is to break the habit.
No idea whether it works but it's in the book!!!

[Fluffy24]

Does it ever get better or is it very consistent? To only sleep an hour after going to bed is quite short in itself - do you have a clear bedtime routine (bath, story etc) to differentiate from a nap? What and when does he get his last solid meal of the day? What's his napping like?

I definitely wouldn't mess with the 5.30 feed either, if DS wants a feed after 5am I'm up like a rocket!

[squigglehead]

Fluffy it doesn't get better but it does get worse. Last night for the first time in months he decided he was bloody sodding awake at 2.30am and wouldn't go back to sleep, resulting in me having had 4 hours total last night as he was once again up at 6... (Last few days have been 5, 6 and 6, I think because he's teething, as its usually 7-8.)

We do have a short but clear bedtime routine, he falls asleep quite quickly and I transfer him to the cot. If he wakes up and hour later its for extra boob, he doesn't always. I try and cram as much into him during the day as possible but it doesn't help, we all have dinner at 6 and then its bath, PJ's, bottle, books with DH and then bed. His napping has improved dramatically all by itself, and he now usually has 2 hours in the morning and 1 in the afternoon. He's always slept a lot, without these he is visibly exhausted and grumpy.

I really hope its just been the teething the past few nights (last night he slept 7-11.30 then 11.45-2.30 so he is slowly improving barring random incidents!).

So tired today, someone pass the coffee...

[BathshebaDarkstone]

Here you go! That's a lot of napping in one day. Try dropping a nap?

[Binglesplodge]

Is that an unusual amount of daytime napping? I thought they often didn't drop a nap until they were at least a year. Certainly my nearly 10 month DS naps twice a day for 90 mins each time and he'd be very tired without them. He also is no longer fed overnight, as of a week or so ago: his night sleep had been disrupted by learning to crawl but as soon as he crawled his sleep improved. OP, could your little one be working on some pesky milestone that's disturbing them?

[squigglehead]

Probably Bingle, he seems to be teething and looks like he may be starting to learn to walk soon (now doing one handed cruising), its just one thing after another... Hoping everything will settle down after a year, especially sleep! Pesky babies

[Binglesplodge]

Pesky babies indeed: between 8 months and a year they have a ridiculous amount going on... Good luck!

[Fluffy24]

Ouch, have another

I am no expert by any means - but it looks like the first trick might be to teach him to fall asleep on his own, as it sounds like he's not doing that already, especially if he wakes during the night?

I'd start with maybe just getting him to go to bed awake and fall asleep himself - this might be a challenge but it sounds like it might be the easiest one because you have a fixed routine. I've never needed to do it at night but to help get DS to let go a bit and nap during the day I had good success with a dark room a few minutes of the hairdryer (low setting, cold) running , seems to be a very soporific sound - if it works you can gradually start switching it off (and tiptoing away very very quietly) just before he falls asleep.

[Fluffy24]

Sorry to clarify, just (!) start with getting him to go to sleep himself at 7 pm and work from there.