Help please.... 14m sleep.

[Marsha101]

Sorry to post gain but getting pretty desperate.

My 14 month old little boy's naps and sleep is going to pot and I have no idea what to do about it.

We sleep trained at 10m in absolute desperation and things have been great since sleeping 7pm-5:30/6am and having at least one great nap in his cot a day (2:1 transition is certainly under way).

The past month or two he had begun refusing his second nap and as he was able to stay up longer in the morning we went to one mid-late morning nap most days. This was going well. He seemed to cope well with it.

Then he started waking at 4:30 before the hour change. Meaning one nap was just not enough. So we had been doing a bit of a juggle of one or two depending on how he was.

This week he won't go down for any. He is just crying and crying from the min he goes in the cot even tho he is shattered. I go in and check on him and have on a couple of occasions got him up cause he was in such a state which I know sends mixed messages.

The thing is I know he needs to sleep and I know he is in the middle of a massive developmental leap but he needs rest. I can and have taken him out in the car/pram but I also need to rest with all the early starts and can't if I'm out.

Help! Should I leave him to cry and he will fall back into his routine and get back to loving his bed? I feel like every time I get him up I'm making it all so much harder and undoing all the good work of sleep training but its breaking my hear him like this. And I'm so worried he will have a negative cot association.

Anyone who has been through this please help. And please no judging about controlled crying because it was and is the hardest decision I had to make and it was because I was desperate with a baby who wouldn't sleep longer that 40m with me next to him.... And it was last resort!

Thanks

Have you been going to bed early and putting him to bed early? Is he warm enough - the mornings are getting colder. I usually stick the heating on to take the edge off.

Also worth trying short morning naps of 20 mins and a longer midday one to help the transition.

Could he be teething?

All I can add to this is what we do with our son. At around 12 months we changed from 2 naps to one I think this must have happened quite naturally as I don't remember too much fuss.

He is now 17 months and his nap is from after dinner 12.30ish til 2/2.30ish and his bed time is 7pm ish although the bedtime is a recent change as we are desperate for him to sleep through the night. He still expects milk during the night I've been weaning it off but not succeeded yet.

My suggestions would be to be very consistent with times, make sure they're full & warm, I take my son for his nap when he's quite awake but because he has got used the routine he goes straight to sleep. Try using an attachment toy - I started off by sitting at the side of the cot not looking at him but with my hand through the bars on his tummy for comfort and have now transitioned this onto a favourite toy which i now give him every nap time & bedtime.

At one point I used to rock him to sleep in the living room in his pushchair for his naps.

Sorry for the long post but I've just given you everything we have tried. Some of that is very basic and I'm sure you have tried but I hope it may be of some help. Like I said he goes to sleep well but doesn't sleep through so its not perfect here either.

Good luck xx