why oh why oh why...

[jackeroo]

is ds suddenly waking up anywhere between 2am and 5am after sleeping through so well...? he's 9.5 months and wakes up crying for attention - only way he will settle again is to have a bottle and then he can take an hour to go back to sleep (often in our bed at this stage)- to his credit he'll then sleep til about 8am. he goes to sleep easily at about 8pm and usually has 2 shortish naps in the day. any ideas?

[SenoraPostrophe]

...because he gets attention?

ds never slept through until then but at 9 months was doing a similar thing. did controlled crying in the end (well, a variation in which I left him to it because the going in business made it worse). 1 night it took. He never slept through till 8 though.

You could however try pickup put down or something (also didn't work for ds).

[jackeroo]

thanks SP - i've thought about CC... problem is we are in a one bedroom flat so can't really leave the room while he cries! we're soon to move into a larger house which will make it easier. do you think it can be done if we're all in same room?? i don't know much about it as so far we've been lucky enough to have no need...

[99redballoons]

pickup-put down might work for you. Each time he gets up, you cuddle him till he's calm and then put him back in and say 'night night'. Then if he gets up again you repeat the process. No eye contact or fuss/talking. It sort of worked with my ds, but we ended up making our own version. I think the message is supposed to be "it's time for bed and mummy's here for you but you have to go back to sleep" iykwim. HTH.

[jackeroo]

many thanks - we will try this. don't want him to start expecting a night feed again!

[suzywong]

lots of sympathy, even to the point of fear of waking the neighbours
It can be done if he and dh are in the same room in my chronic experience, but I think you should sleep on the sofa, get dad to do as 99rb suggests, however it works for you, send the message and he will get it after about ... a week. Gotta ditch the bottle too, get dh to get hardcore

Best of luck

[jackeroo]

thanks - dh is going to take over tonight (luckily he has a day off tomorrow)! fingers crossed...

[jud2905]

One of the supernanny's (can't remember which) does a similar pick up put down technique but combines with a gradual withdrawl method. you stay in the room until baby goes to sleep but gradually move further away from cot until you can be out of sight and baby goes to sleep. Acts as a reassurance that ds hasn't been abandoned and he learns to get himslef back to sleep rather than becoming reliant on you.