Won't settle at night

[mattDP]

Hi,

Our daughter is just over a year old now. We've always had a problem with getting her to sleep - she sleeps fairly soundly once she's off but she fights and fights to stay awake both for daytime naps and at bedtime - indeed from a very early age she was able to stay awake for 12 hours at a stretch and still battle us at bedtime!

Things slowly improved until at the age of around 9 months we'd got the point of her having her night-time milk and then she would usually go to sleep in about 15 minutes. This lasted for a few weeks and has been steadily getting worse and worse ever since. The clocks changing have just made things unbearable - it's currently taking us over an hour most nights to get her to settle and she's spending a lot of that time loudly complaining and trying desperately to fidget and crawl no matter how many times she's returned to a lying position or how long we have a hand on her. She's obviously knackered - yawning and rubbing her eyes constantly - but she fights and fights.

We're at our wits end. Is there anything we can do to teach her that she's supposed to settle and close her eyes in the cot?

Cheers,
Matt

My son went through a phase like this, when he was a little bit older than your daughter. It was a nightmare - I used to watch my evening disappearing as I constantly resettled him over and over again.

Do you have a nice wind-down bedtime routine - bath, stories etc? Sometimes helps.

Also, I've read that often it's worth trying to put babies to bed earlier if they won't settle. Contrary to popular belief, waiting till they're knackered in the hope that they'll go to sleep actually makes it worse, as they get over-tired.

Does she go off to sleep in the pram or car more easily? I actually bought a Baby Dream Machine, which is a gadget you put under the wheels on the pram, and it rocks baby to sleep. It was great for those nights when I really couldn't take it any more.

Does she drop off then wake immediately you leave the room? It takes 15 minutes to go into deep sleep, so it's worth hanging around till then.

All the best - it's really tough at times.