16 month old standing up in cot. HELP NEED ADVICE

[alexh]

My 16 month old DS ahs been a dream baby to settle since about 12 weeks (to make up for the complete hideousness of the first 12 weeks). Howver, he has just leant how to stand up in his cot in his grobag (rather a late developer) and now instead of chatting to his teddies before drifting off to sleep he stands up and YELLS inconsolably for as long as I can stand it before cracking and going to put him back down. Should I just leave him? OR WHAT? am desperate.

Have also posted this is Sleep btu think it is really a development issue

Keep the room dark and stay with him till he settles back down. Rub his back or something. Having a story tape in the background worked for me. You may find he'll drop one of his daytime naps and settle better at night. But don't worry - they all go through phases - mine both did it again at about 3. Doesn't mean he's turning into an insomniac.

I jsut leave my to shout it out. Bedtime means bedtime in our house and I don't go up there unless the screams change to a pitch that means they have hurt themselves. It might not be for everyone, but if I kept going up there they would be up until 9-10pm! I have 19mnth old dts and they climb out of their cots and wreck the room, then usually scream for a bit before falling asleep, often on the floor! I go up once it goes quiet and put them back in their cots.

My DD (16 months) normally just settles once she has a clean nappy and a full belly. I discovered if I stayed in the room after putting her down she would stand up and try to interact but if I walked out and closed the door she knew that there was going to be no more chat or fun to be had.

Ds is just 1. He's ben doing this at about 5:30-6am for a few weeks so DH put a cot toy on the end of his cot and now he plays with that instead. He still chats to himselg while he's doing it, but at least he's not shouting "MAMAMAMAMAMAAM" all the time

At night we've got a night light that changes colours (blue/red/green) and a cd of the sea with some plinky plonky type music played over it.

update on my DD - she climbed out of cot last night. So you can ignore my last comment as we don't appear to have it as sorted as I thought

ds did this just before a major growth spurt - his sleep always seems to go really pants just before a spurt and around 15/16 mths was a biggie if I remember rightly! He's 2 now btw. We found that he was just letting us know that we needed to rearrange the rest of his routine a bit as it just wasn't working any more. At around 16 mths he dropped one of his naps and that did the trick - tired at bedtime and settled more easily again.

Every time he hits a major milestone or spurt we have this, and each time we've just re-jigged his day a little, maybe taken a later run outside rather than just after lunch to make him hungrier for tea or something, and each time when we've hit on a new pattern that fits he settles down again.

Might be worth rethinking his day a little and seeing if he's getting enough physical exercise, or needs to drop a nap, or have one less snack mid afternoon which will make him hungrier in the evening and go to bed fuller etc etc. Good luck!

DS1 did this at 10mths and DS2 at about 15mths. DS2 is still standing up in his cot most nights when we put him down.

We ask them to lay down and 'go to ba byes'. They would normally do it and if not we walk out the room and leave them to get themselves to sleep. Once they realise we mean business and its time for sleep it all goes quiet :}

I suppose it depends on the child and how much crying you can put up with.