To think that my baby should go to sleep in her cot at night?

[Buggysleeper]

First time poster so please go easy.

My 10 month old used to go to sleep in her cot absolutely fine, and still does for naps in the day. We’ve recently got the huckleberry app which is a godsend for making sure she is not overtired.

The problem is she will not go down in the cot at night, it is literally like we are lying her on a bed of nails. We are not averse to sleep training, and did successfully at around 5m. We have tried the same technique (going back in at intervals) but she literally screams until she is sick. We have tried gentler methods too, and she will scream until she is sick even with me in the room. We give her calpol or nurofen and powders when she is teething. We have tried a nightlight, white noise, soft music. She will not be rocked to sleep, and doesn’t really relax when held to be comforted either. Ergh very tricky.

The only thing that gets her to sleep at night is putting her In the buggy. We walk for half an hour, she goes to sleep. We transfer her to her cot and she wakes but settles and sleeps.

AIBU in thinking we are doing something wrong and she should be able to settle in her cot at night? Any suggestions?

A lot of babies and toddlers will not go from sleepy to asleep in a dark room by themselves. They just won't. It's not surprising from a biological point of view.

DS is just 2 and at the moment we hold his hand for about 20 minutes until he is asleep. He then does 12 hours. I'm another "whatever works for now" mum!

As well as light you might want to consider moving the cot so it feels different?

Or putting a mobile above him. Or removing the one that’s there. Or checking what temperature he is with his clothes on and comparing it to when he’s in his sleep wear in case he’s too hot or cold, or there is a change in temperature between the rooms.

Something/anything to break the association he has with whatever it is that triggers his upset, wee soul. You’ll get there and one night he will just fall asleep for no apparent reason and this stage will be over.

Could you try some other sort of movement? We had twins so I couldn’t rock them both simultaneously- I bought two Baby Bjorn bouncers second hand and would bounce them until sleepy then put them in bed.

Also ceiling projector - gets them lying down and looking at the ceiling. We have a Motorola one which we can switch on and off from our phone (also plays music and works as an audio monitor) and it has three different projector cartridges so you can change it up. I definitely found this helps when they were little and they still use it now.

I could have written your post @IamMaz
I am very glad we didn't have all the info then.
I also tended to look at what non human mammals do with their babies (grew up on a sheep farm) and deduced that mammal mummies snuggle with their babies a lot, so I did exactly that.
Just pretend you're a sheep OP

I've two bad sleepers. What choice do I have but 'whatever works.' DC2 is a light sleeper too. Both fight fight fight sleep, have never napped very well and it doesn't matter what time they go down, they'll wake early. In their case, they seem to thrive with relatively small amounts of sleep.

So at night, after a bath and book, DH takes the older kid and I take the youngest. We have to lay with them but they'll eventually sleep in darkness. There's no no no way DC2 would sleep without crying his heart out for hours. Very stubborn kid. DC1 is getting much better as he ages, so hang on to hope!

This is totally normal. One of mine would settle in her cot at 10 months but the other two would not and were fed to sleep. They change so much at this stage I would just keep doing what works, or try lying with her, rocking, cuddling if you prefer to move it to the bedroom.

@Whenwillow
Great minds!!!!!

If she sleeps well in the pram then it's probably movement, but I'd try raising the end of her cot slightly when you try it again as rocking doesn't work so might not be movement. Just in case she's maybe got a touch of acid reflux at night and laying completely flat is aggravating it (a pram is unlikely to be completely 100% flat).

@IamMaz Well, you said you went out and pulled the door to and went away. Then in the next sentence you said "this may not be what's 'recommended' now." The quotes around recommended made me think there must have been some reason such a behaviour wouldn't be 'recommended'. But hang on - a bath, some exercise, a feed, drowsiness, then settling in a cot... why would that not be 'recommended'?? Now, or at any time? It's completely normal and sounds really good for your baby. But pulling the door nearly closed and THEN going downstairs and leaving your small baby to cry certainly isn't recommended now, (unless part of a CC process when the baby is old enough).

So I guess I read between the lines. There's not really another explanation for what you wrote, is there?

I also took into account the long and rather smug discussion of all the things you did before bed (bath, using energy, winding down) - as though nobody now knows about those things or would think of doing them. The whole thing felt like you were saying you did normal sensible things but didn't pander to your baby, and your baby then didn't trouble you much, and people today are taking the wrong path somehow.

We had something similar, baby slept fine in cot until about 8 months, then began crying every evening and naptime. We tried "everything" for about 3 weeks and the only thing that worked was leaving the room quickly and shutting the door. Crying stopped before I had got to the bathroom (other end of the landing, about 5 steps away) This was discovered completely by accident! Since then I have heard others say the same. (For babies that used to go to sleep fine but then wouldn't from 6 months onwards).
I think my baby got upset that I was in the room but not playing with her. When no one is there she relaxed and goes to sleep quite happily. She sometimes talks to herself for a while but never cries any more.

I lie down with my ds until he's asleep.

He's nearly 5

In all seriousness, 10 months seems to be a total bastard age for sleep. I would do what you need to do for now, and try again with some gradual sleep training at 12 months.

@LockdownLil wow, you got all that knowledge and backgrounds from reading one post?

I wish I could make judge people so quickly ...

Don't think you're doing anything wrong - sounds like a baby to me! Just do what you need to to get her to sleep much better than making her sick.

Aw OP, sorry this has been such a struggle for you all but I think you're doing the right think. You have the baby you have, you have to work around them. I don't think anything that results in a baby screaming so much they vomit is going to yield any useful results for any of you. At 10 months I think I was still rocking DD asleep on my arms and if not I was definitely still cuddling her to sleep in my arms and only transferred her to cotbed once asleep. Almost all her naps at that age were out and about in the pram, it was rare I got her to nap in th cotbed and if I did it was via cuddling to sleep/falling asleep in a carrier and then being transferred, she wouldn't go to sleep in it herself. She started going down awake for naps and bed time gradually by the time she was about 1.

@LockdownLil
It's quite simple. What I meant was that these days it seems that the baby should be in the same room as you as opposed to a room of its own!!!

er yes they should, when they are tiny.