Help needed - getting 10.5 month old to sleep

[WoodysHat]

DS has always fed to sleep - bad habit I know but I want to stop it now as he's feeding, falling asleep whilst still feeding then before I can get him in his cot he is waking and is then wide awake and I have to start all over again.

I really dont want to do CC but dont know what else to try.

Step by step plans needed please! He is bf btw and not the best eater either so I tend to try and feed for ages at bedtime as I worry that he is hungry.

I just want an evening to myself - even when he does eventually go down he wakes frequently through the evening until I go to bed then we cosleep.

Put him in cot. Perhaps sing a song. (We sing the same song everyday with ours and it's a great way to trigger 'bedtime' wherever we are!). Stay in the room with him, but no eye contact or chatting, even lie down on the floor and have a snooze until he settles down and sleeps. Also perhaps cut down on naps if he is finding it hard to go to sleep and is waking a lot early on.

He is always tired by bedtime and falls asleep on the breast within a few minutes, this is why he has never gone down awake as he goes to sleep almost straight away as soon as he starts feeding.

How do I know he's had enough of a feed if I keep him awake before putting him down?

Same here, bf to sleep, wakes all evening, co-sleep, don't want to do CC.

Have you read the No Cry Sleep Solution? She suggests loads of stuff, like feed him as normal but put him down a tiny bit more awake each night til you are putting him down totally awake and he will magically go to sleep by himself. Haven't done it myself as don't have the willpower and he's teething right now anyway.

I feed him on a double mattress on the floor and roll away when he's asleep. But that's not really a solution!

I just work on the principle that he'll wake up later if he's hungry.

If he wakes up again when you put him in the cot, as you said in the first post, then put him in the cot awake. Then do the rest....

If his weight is generally ok, I wouldn't worry about him getting enough. My children have always stayed on the 9th centile. They are now 2 and still on it, so it was nothing to do with bfing/ not enough etc. He is probably waking up a lot as he is used to sleeping with you, and needs comfort of boob to go back to sleep. Once he learns to go to sleep from awake, he will probably be able to settle himself better if he wakes up in the evening.

(By the way, I should add that I breastfed for 20months at bedtime! Also co-sleep when they wake in night, but they always sleep from 7.30 in cot, and come into bed with me sometime during the night).

MerryMarigold, can I ask what did your dc do when you are waiting for them to go to sleep? Because ds would have such a meltdown if we did that. He also hates being in the car and just doesn't give up once he starts crying.

(not judging btw, if you did let them cry, just wondering what other babies are like)

I have no idea what he weighs - I avoid the HV as she is so useless! He is in age appropriate clothes though so I'm guessing he's doing ok.

I have got into such bad habits with him, he has daytime naps in his pushchair. He feeds to sleep then for only 5 mins or so then manages to go in his pushchair without stirring and sleeps...well... like a baby :). I often think he'd sleep all night in his pushchair too but obviously I won't even try that!

Will try putting him down awake tomorrow night. You'd never think he is my 4th DC, they've all been bad sleepers apart from DC2 who was a dream and slept 7-7 from 8 wks old. Not sure were I went wrong with the others but I know how hard it was when they were around 2yrs of age when I decided to get tough with them - hence my desire to sort DS out now rather than later on.

Thanks for all the advice Marigold.

I'd definitely not cut down on naps as otherwise he'll likely be overtired which makes it harder for them to go to sleep. Falling asleep very quickly when feeding can be a sign of overtiredness (not always).

10.5 months isn't a very good time to try changing sleep habits though due to the develompental spurt at around 46 weeks which messes up sleep for a few weeks beforehand (the 9-11 months sleep regression). So don't be surprised if it doesn't work yet. More info here, here and here.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution is good too, though. It helped my DS at 7 m.o. - it all went belly-up again once he hit the 9 month sleep regression, but at 13 m.o. he suddenly started staying asleep through the evening and from my bedtime onwards. I've always fed to sleep at bedtime. Like Albrecht, DS would either go mental if I put him down awake - or would just get up and play.

What I did was change the order of things at bedtime, so the last feed was earlier - milk, then bath, story, bed.

I had to get DP to do the story and bed bit, because if I was there DS wanted a feed. DP would read him a story in the chair next to his cot, give him his dummy and cuddle him til he was almost asleep then put him in his cot - he'd pat his bottom and shush him til he was asleep. If he was really crying he'd pick him up and cuddle him again until almost asleep then put him down and pat/shush. The first night probably took an hour but it did get easier.

At that point DS was still having a dreamfeed at 10pm, so it didn't matter too much if he wasn't stuffed full of milk at bedtime as he only had to last 3 hours.

We did that at about 5-6 months - DS is now 8.5 months and I'd say about 50% of the time he goes into his cot awake and self-settles, and the rest of the time he wants to be patted to sleep (it only takes a few minutes though). I never had the stomach for CC personally, and I don't mind helping him get off the sleep. Occasionally he needs to be cuddled to sleep still, or sometimes I just sit next to him and stroke his hand. 90% of the time he doesn't need a feed in the night now either.

Can I just say a massive thank you to angeldog? My ds (10 mo) has been horrendous and waking every 3 hours at night for the last few weeks after a period of going 5-6 hours at night and I thought it was all my fault (backed up by the bloody useless hv) and now I know that this sleep regression is normal I'm going to continue as I am. Thank you :)

My pleasure. :) Those links have saved my own sanity on more than one occasion!

I hope things improve once the develompental leap is over - there's another at around 55 weeks (then at 64 and 75 weeks IIRC) so don't worry if it all goes belly-up again.

(I've not yet met an HV who knows about how developmental stuff affects sleep )

they're bloody useless aren't they? Mine told me it was time to do CIO Clearly not then!

Can you get your DP to do bedtime for a while. Had to do this with both my two - fed them to sleep till gave up BF at around 12 mths - got DP to do bedtime for a while, took 2-3 nights for them to settle quickly with him but within a week they were both going to sleep beautifully with him.

My HV told me to put DS down and leave him to cry - at 11 weeks old. :(

angeldog - probably works for some but i couldn't do that! not at 11 weeks or 11 months. doubt i could do it at 11 years :-)

Me neither!