Help needed - 14 month old still waking 3 times or more at night.

[hopingforanother]

Hi

My 14 month old ds is still waking at night usually 3 times occasionally twice sometimes more.

Dh and i both work full time and have a dd, 4.8 too.

Ds only goes to sleep if he gets bf. If not he screams continuously very loudly for an hour (I always give in and bf at that point) we live in a flat abdhe wakes his sister, upstairs and downstairs neighbours AND their baby. Dh or I will hold, rock, cuddle, sush and soothe during the rime he's awake and it has no effect.

I am not functioning properly because I need more sleep.

I want to get him off bf and ASLEEP at night, WITHOUT waking the neighbours up every bloody night.

How can I do this?!!!!!

Have a look at the no cry sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley. I think its made for people with breastfed babies who need no crying whatsoever from their baby!

Not sure how much help this is, but DS still awoke in the night for a feed until he was 18 months. If I didn't feed him then he screamed as you describe. At 18 months, we tried again with DH going in with a cup of water and not me and within 3 nights he was sleeping through.

I think earlier to this, he was still hungry in the night and so wasn't ready to drop the feed. Would it help you get more sleep if you feed him straight away and get yourself back to bed as soon as possible?

If not then I think it will have to be DH going in at night to settle him rather than you.

Not sure how much help that is, sorry.

If you want to stop feeding him to sleep, you can't let him scream for an hour and then feed him as all that is teaching him is sometimes he has to scream for an hour before you'll feed him.

Get the suck to sleep association sorted at bedtime first - I'd either try the No Cry Sleep Solution method (gentler but will take longer) or leave your DH to put him to bed. Go out over bedtime if you have to! Have your DH pat or stroke your DS in his cot, laying him back down if he stands up - it might take a long time the first night, but it should work within a few nights.

Once he can self-settle at bedtime, then you can tackle night-waking.

If he's waking because he's hungry, maybe you need to look at what he's eating during the day.

Their stomachs are so small at that age, sometimes it's hard for them to get enough calories as they are too full (but still need more), so they will wake up looking for more.

With DS4 (12months now), boy, we were having the same problem, and realised it was because he was hungry, despite large portions, he was not getting the calories he needed and he was waking at 5am every night (sometimes at 1am too).

We started adding a spoon of high calorie, nutritious stuff to each meal- olive oil, goat cheese (he's can't take cows milk products), peanut butter, Avocado instead of Apple, and so on, making the meals more satisfying, but not bigger.

This has worked really well, and he sleeps till 7.30am now.

Hi thanks for your replies!

Yes I do go right away and feed usually. We found out that he screams his head off because occasionally when he has woken up for the 5th or so time, dh helpfully tries to settle him because I've had no sleep. It obviously doesn't work, wakes the neighbours and dd and then I feed him anyway. Clearly doing this isn't go to help, hence I'm trying to find a way of getting more sleep myself without upsetting ds, neighbours blah blah.....

During the day he has 3 9oz bottles of cows milk, 3 meals and 3 snacks plus a bed time bf.

I've ordered Elizabeth P's book.....

Wow, that's a massive amount of cow's milk! Maybe he's filling up on milk so not eating enough food?

I agree with RITAMORGAN, that's a LOT of milk, after a year or so, 350ml (about 10oz/2 toddler cups) is plenty, more will fill them up to the extent that they have no room for the other food they need (they need more protein and fat and iron than milk contains).

Try cutting that back and see if he is then able to eat enough solids to keep him going through the night.

350ml per day, I mean.

Yes it is a lot. Thinking about it, one of them is def 7oz. I will check what nursery are giving him. But in any case, he's getting 3 bottles and 3 or 4 bfs so loads...

He is big, topping height and weight percentiles and only really got in to food at around 11-12 months before he just picked really, then had six teeth show up and after that got more interested. He eats well now but probably his milk intake does need updating. Very good point thanks!

I was in the same position as you plus I was co sleeping with ds.

3 or 4 weeks ago I put him in his own room, sat next to his bed (mattress on the floor) and stroked and shushed him to sleep. I now do this for every nap and at bedtime.

However, in that time he has slept through the night ONCE. I just thought I'd give a different perspective on this, stopping feeding in the night may help massively but it's not a guaranteed cure to get them sleeping through the night, I think that happens when they are ready.

I found no amount/type of food really makes a difference but do agree they need a lot. Little and often of the right sort of food is what I find best.

Really hope you get some improvement soon and that I haven't burst your bubble!

Wow that is a lot of change! Well done!

Yeah, I accept we might not get anywhere.... But I feel we are pretty stretched time and energy wise - I don't think it is sustainable much longer. I've been back at work 5 months and I'm starting to get really busy, plus dd is in her first term at school and needs more attention.

I can cope with 1or 2 wake ups and we get up at 5.50 to get ready for work etc anyway so early mornings are a given. It's when it's 3, 4 or more wake ups - it's just that bit more emery spent and that bit less sleep that tips the balance in to unmanageable.

More night wake ups makes me want me to stop bf because I am so tired but I don't feel that committed to stopping really.

Dd slept through from 12 weeks so this is all new to us!...

watching this thread. dt2 is 13mo, will go to sleep in the cot at the beginning of the night but wakes every 2 hours or less after that. feeding is the only reliable way to get him back to sleep. sometimes I can rock him, but that's harder work and he often wakes on being put back in the cot.

he also eats relatively little food imo, but, oddly, doesn't appear to want more breastfeeds on nursery days (where he refuses cow's milk) compared to home days where he bf lots through the day. so I will focus on increasing his food intake. let me know how you get on reducing the daytime milk OP?

Hi MC yes I will report back.can I ask- does dt1 sleep well?

I think more food and less milk will balance ds's diet anyway because thinking about it, he is having a lot of milk and tho he seems to eat a lot, perhaps the milk is interfering with what he can fit in!

Well, I checked with nursery and they have reduced his milk already. So he is having 2 6oz bottles and 1 7oz bottle of cows milk plus a few bfs.

I discussed reducing milk and increasing food with his key worker and she mentioned that some days he refuses food. She's right, he sometimes does refuse food at one, two or all meals and it seems to be related to teething pain, which comes in waves of two or three days at a time. I'm not sure though if this fits with periods of increased night waking, as this weekend he ate loads and also woke up loads

I'm going to start giving him a calorific snack when we get home in the evening, maybe cheese of meat and a cracker to see if that has any effect ad nursery are going to let me know exactly what he has eaten so I can monitor things a bit more.

I'm sure it is developmental and he will sleep through when he is ready, but in the mean time, I don't want to be MAINTAINING his night waking by responding a certain way!

I didn't think that he would still be waking so often in the night at this age. He will be sharing a room with dd, but I obviously can't move him yet....

Well, fingers crossed - less milk and more food might make a bit of a difference.....

Fingers crossed for you tonight. My ds has a cold now so that's put his sleep completely out of whack! There's always something.

um, dt1 sleeps better, and can go about 3 hours overnight sometimes, but no, not that well I guess. good luck with the late snack. dts ate no tea when we got home tonight, but nursery said they only had 40/50 mins sleep in the day. so we will either have a great night because they're really tired or a terrible one because they're overtired.

Well we've made backwards progress. My no cry sleep solution book has arrived but I haven't had a chance to read much of it as DS goes to bed at 8 and has been waking at 9, 11.30, 2.30, 4 and 5 the last few nights. The bit between the children's bed time and our bedtime may be filled with cooking and cleaning etc, but it used to be my safe resting time when I knew ds wouldn't wake for bf, having him wake at 9 is really dreadful to be honest.

I'm hoping this book gives me some good ideas......!