How do I stop my 8m old doing this?

[candr]

My 8m DS has a bottle at 6 and down at 6.30 in his cot drowsy. He sleeps fine for about 30-45min then seems to enter light sleep and wake. We have been doing the pick up put down method which can take between 15min to 1 hr. How do I stop him waking to start with as it is every night. His room is very dim (I need a small light to feed later) with a few toys in cot that he doesn't attempt to play with at night. He has a bedtime routine of dinner then bath / milk upstairs in his room and sleep in cot.
When we do go in we try not to talk or make much eye contact other than shhh soothing. He has been doing this since he has been in his room so for about 2 months.

I am guessing from the fact you have to go into him that it's a proper calling out for one of you type awake, rather than just a little bit of grumbling prior to re-settling.
If yes then, could you maybe try settling him down a little later?
Change his routine slightly to, say, bottle in your room or downstairs around 6.30, add in brushing his teeth / gums and reading a story and then into cot about 7.30 if he can manage it.

Also, does he still have an afternoon nap - that might help too if you can get him to have one.

I was going to suggest similar to Moonlight - what are his other day naps like now? If he's going to bed at 6.30 he probably should be awake from at least 3pm. Or if he's on 2 naps, then I would also suggest a slightly later bedtime.

At this stage my DS was doing (approx) - wake at 7, nap at 9.30 for an hour, awake until 2, sleep until 3.30, bed at 7.30.

Also, how is he waking? If he is just murmuring, what happens if you just leave him to settle back by himself?

We did a technique (although this was for getting him off to sleep in the first place) where we would put him down and say "it's sleep time now", then go. If he cried, I left him for 3 mins, then went back in, laid him down in the dark and just quietly said "sleep time now". I would do this 3 times and if he was still crying I would pick him up for a hug. I just repeated that until he was asleep.

It might not work for you if you don't like the idea of leaving to cry at all - with DS it wasn't a huge wail, it was obvious tired cry and when I would pick him up it seemed to ramp him up anyway.

We brush his teeth at bath time and he has a story before milk. He used to have a later bed time but was falling asleep playing or getting really grumpy so we moved it earlier. We do go in as he makes himself sick if left to cry. Have been picking him up to calm him down as shhh and back pat doesnt do it. As soon as he is calm I put him back in cot saying sleepy time and leave. He will properly cry which turns into screams within a min or 2, I leave him for a few min then go in and calm again.
I think his lack of naps is a problem. He will have 2/3 a day but only ever for half hour even if in car or buggy. He occassionaly catches me out with a longer sleep but very rarely in his cot. His last nap will be 3.30 so that he has some good awake time before bed. I just don't seem to be able to get him to sleep longer most days but from my diary enteries even when he does sleep more in the day he STILL wakes up half hour after faling asleep at night.

Does he have a comforter? Maybe he just wants comforting?

If you havnt already got one I'd get one and give that a try. Will take a week or so for the bond to build but both my ds's settle with their pooh bear blankies.

It sounds like he needs a bit of help to stop him automatically waking when he gets into a light sleep. This is what worked for us (we didn't leave to DS to cry, it only made him hysterical....): if you know when he's going to wake, try to be there before he does (set an alarm if you need to!), and as soon he stirs, put a hand on him and if necessary pat or shush him until he is settled again. Hopefully you being there will give him the reassurance to settle back to sleep without fully waking, and if you persevere it will establish itself into a new pattern and you can gradually reduce the amount of soothing you are doing e.g. go from patting to just a hand on him, then just shushing, then hopefully you won't be needed.

It might be worth trying this with his nap as well, obviously a bit of a pain to do but if you could get him to re-settle and get into the pattern of a longer nap then the evening might get easier as well.

He does have a couple of favourite soft toys but shows little interest in them in his cot.
Cathysten, that sounds like a good plan, will try it with lunch time nap tommorow and then bed time. Just need to get him out of the habit. Fingers crossed