7 month old taking hours to settle at night

[kauto]

My ds is almost 8 months old. He has never been a good sleeper and spent his first 5 months only sleeping on my chest or on my dh. He now co-sleeps and once he is asleep usually wakes once or twice. He has a regular routine of feed,bath,bed, story and sometimes bf to sleep. However for the last week as soon as we get him into bed he seems to get a second wind and keeps pulling himself up on the bedguard. He is obviously tired and gets more and more upset but we cannot get him to stop pulling himself up to a standing position. Last night it took 4 hours to get him to sleep. I have tried putting him to bed earlier and I also walked around outside with him in he sling. He has also been having less sleep than usual in the day as he does not want to stop crawling. Also he is teething at the moment. Does anybody have any ideas about how we can get him to stop fighting sleep? Thanks

[weasle]

hello, not much help, sorry, but my ds2 is 7mo and for about a month has been doing this. all but 2 nights in the last fortnight i have resorted to going round the block with him in pushchair at 10pm!

he has always been a rubbish sleeper too -at first, would only sleep in sling/with my nipple in his mouth co-sleeping, then we had about 6 weeks of waking every hour to bf. managed to break thatby moving him out of our bed into an amby hammock, and had a blissful 2 weeks of bed at 7.30ish, and two night wakings but he would immediately go back to sleep after a bf.

so now, it is bath, book and bf, but at the end of the feed he pulls himself off and smiles at me, kicks his legs and wants to play.

we have tried earlier naps/later naps/later bedtime/putting him in proper cot (just screams)/ walking round in sling/letting him play/putting on floor and ignoring/sitting in high chair whilst we eat/more bf before bed/less bf before bed. nothing works. occasionally he WILL go to sleep at 7.30-8, but i have no idea why, there is no pattern.

it is driving me bonkers, i have just gone back to work (3 days/wk), we are moving to australia for a year and also have a 2.4yo to look after (also just started sleeping badly!) so really need my evenings to do chores.

anyone got any ideas?

[suwoo]

IME, and it is experience as DS is a nightmare sleeper and not slept through yet at 19 months. It really makes a difference if you get his naps sorted out first. One in the morn and one at lunchtime- 3 hrs total ish is ideal and will really help him at night. DS co slept until very recently and we practiced getting him down on his own by concentrating on daytime sleep 1st. Don't let him nap late in the afternoon or it will put him off going to bed. HTH a little bit.

[Caz10]

SNAP here - I think a lot of it is them learning to do stuff as well - dd 7mths will flip herself onto her tummy about 3 thousand times before going to sleep, it can take hours

you've probably tried this, but I've seen a (small) improvement once I slotted in a little quiet time - I do the bath, get her in her jammies etc, then basically sit her on our double bed with a couple of soft toys, nothing noisy, and more or less ignore her for 20 mins or so while I tidy up a bit.

Then bf, then bed - seems to work better when she has this time to wind down

[grumblingirl]

Another one here! 8 month DS2 taking an age to get himself to sleep at night - have resorted to bending over the cot every night so he can play with my hair as only thing that will soothe him. He used to be brilliant too - we'd just put him down awake and leave the room and he'd get himself off but has been doing this for about 3-4 weeks. It must be the developmental thing because he has got a tooth, started pulling himself up and cruising and is just learning to crawl. Quiet time does seem to help a little but he's sharing with his 5 yo brother so it's difficult for it always to happen. I think it will pass in the next month or so...fingers crossed everyone!

[kauto]

Relieved to know that it is not only my ds that is like this.
Caz- I will try a quiet time tonight to see if this helps
He has shown some improvement over the last couple of nights, everytime he stands up I lay him back down and tell it it is time for sleep, I have to repeat this many many times but eventually after screaming for a while because he is so tired he will go to sleep.

Suwoo- I think you may be right about the daytime naps, it has been harder to get ds to sleep at night since he has been having less sleep in the day.