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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To want 12 month old DS3 to go to sleep and stay bloody well asleep!!!!

15 replies

FrigginPissedOff · 07/08/2011 22:20

It is doing my head in. Ever since he was born he has been a nightmare to get to nap in the day and keep asleep at night. We are currently on a 30 min AM sleep and 30 min PM sleep although somedays he won't go down at all.

He is put to bed at 6.30ish and sleeps straightaway and then all evening he wakes up every 15, 20, 30 mins or if we are lucky he may sleep for an hour! We have this until around midnight and then he will normally sleep until 5.30am. We have tried shush pat, controlled crying and more or less everything to get him to sleep through in the evening and I am starting to get rather antsy about having to spend the evenings running up and down the frigging stairs after a bloody year of doing it. Not to mention him waking the other DCs.

AIBU to want to send him back!? (Adore him really just not now!)

OP posts:
joric · 07/08/2011 23:03

No advice, keep doing what you're doing... Hope you are ok :(

LineRunner · 07/08/2011 23:12

When my DS was that age I would keep him up later. But he was the youngest.

JustFiveMinutesHAHAHA · 07/08/2011 23:15

YANBU definitely NBU

Put him back where he came from....OUCH!! (well for someone anyway, even if it wasn't you :) )

I would keep him up for a while... see if that works.

Do you put him in a babygrow? I find it helps to remind you that they are still a baby!! and be slightly less tempted to advertise them on eBay

this too shall pass... this too shall pass... this too shall pass... this too shall pass....

northernrock · 07/08/2011 23:25

Put him to bed a bit later, and make sure he is getting enough attention and stimulation during the day.
That will probably be tricky with two other dc's, but I really think that even babies need to be physically and mentally tired to sleep.
Also-make sure he is not too cold (I know its summer but just from experience,my ds loves to be warm and I was so worried about the not getting too hot thing I think he was always too cold which made him wake up)
Good Luck! It is just awful I know.

worraliberty · 07/08/2011 23:29

I never put my kids to bed before 8pm when they were babies.

Any earlier than that and they considered it a 'nap' rather than a proper sleep for the whole night.

2littlegreenmonkeys · 07/08/2011 23:32

YANBU, tis a nightmare when they wont sleep. Try putting him down to sleep a little later. We had to do this with DD1 as she was terrible to getting off to sleep, although fine once she was asleep.

DD2 was much easier though.

I second the mantra, 'this too will pass'

BoosMaw · 07/08/2011 23:45

YANBU, I feel your pain. I have no useful advice though, my DC1 did this, my DC2 doesn't, and none of it seems to be caused by anything that I've done.

blackeyedsusan · 07/08/2011 23:49

12 months is still quite little. you haven't fallen for the all 12 month babies sleep through lie have you? are your others really good sleepers?

mine did not sleep through for ages. (though the worst offender is now an excellent sleeper and has been for a couple of years (just 5) so there is hope!) put them to bed at the same time as us, then we used to get a good long block of sleep. we adjusted it as they slept longer. found that it was easier to wake at about 4 rather than 5 as then we could get back to sleep without worrying that you have to be up. at one stage I used to keep bottle/box of milk/scissors next to the bed to give a quick feed if nothing else worked as breast feeding sometimes seemed to go on for hours... caan't remember which child it was, must have been too tired.. Confused

a lot tougher to cope with if you have older children that need to be somewhere in the day.

ZhenXiang · 08/08/2011 00:01

I remember when DD was a newborn I used to sleep in a t-shirt then cover the mattress in it as the smell used to help her sleep.

Have you tried staying in the room for a while so that you can observe the triggers for the waking?

It could be teething pain,
too hot,
too cold,
painful belly due to wind (DD had this until I switched her to lactose free milk),
Moving around and bumping the cot bars (DD did this around the crawling to walking transition as she was very lively in her sleep and used to head butt the top of the cot having crawled from the bottom to the top!),
Noise from outside/inside the house,
Not tired enough (try to build some physical activity of at least 15 minutes long into his day, be it crawling, cruising or walking),
Over tired (If DD doesn't nap for long enough in the day she gets very hyper at bedtime and finds it harder to settle)

When he wakes have you tried just not going to him or does that make him wake up more and get further distressed?

DD does have nights when she dreams more and stirs a lot, but she will self settle if I leave her for a bit.

If he wakes from a nap do you take him out of the room or do you try to leave him in there for a bit to see if he will go down for longer. I had to leave DD (2) in her bed for an hour the other day just to enforce her daytime nap and she talked happily to her teddies for an hour and then finally fell asleep.

Some people swear by cranial osteopathy for babies and toddlers that are in discomfort or are poor sleepers, have never tried it for DD, but had it as a child and it did help me with ear problems I had. Could be worth a try.

DeSelby · 08/08/2011 07:57

Have you tried one nap in the day, about midday, and a slightly later bedtime?

PenguinArmy · 08/08/2011 08:05

Although DD was no where near as bad as that and I knew that not a insignificant amount of babies didn't sleep through until 2 something seemed to snap for a while when she hit 12 months. For a while it seemed a lot harder and I was really fed up with it. I appear to be lucky that her sleep is largely resolved now and has been almost normal from 15 months, but just before it happens her sleep got a lot worse (it was not a gradual improvement for us)

sympathies

DeSelby · 08/08/2011 08:12

Sorry, I forgot to add my sympathies - hope you all get more sleep soon!

GwenCooper · 08/08/2011 08:16

My ds3 was like this. Still is TBH and he is 3! I wish I had answers but you have my sympathies.

Bubbaluv · 08/08/2011 08:59

My friend's DS was just like this. She found the most successful change was to make sure that he had a major period of activity EVERY afternoon. Previously she'd been doing Gymboree etc in the mornings and having relaxed afternoons, but she found that reversing it had a real effect on his sleep patterns.
I would also ditch one of those sleeps if I were you.
What does he do if you don't go up every time he cries in the evening?
Good luck- hopefully someone will come up with an idea that helps!

biddysmama · 08/08/2011 09:17

my 11 month old sleeps 8-11ish then awake every hour wanting a feed then up at 4.30

yanbu to want sleep :(

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