Baby crying for ages, no idea what to do

[Jendrw5]

My 11 month old ds has really bad seperation anxiety and its at its worst from about 4.30am every day. He screams the house down. Currently been crying for about an hour. We've tried sitting in with him, cuddling him, giving him water. Nothing seems to get him to calm down and go back to sleep. He's got a good bedtime routine and goes down at 7pm every night. We were trying the gradual retreat sleep training to help him but so far it's made no difference. Any advice on how to help him, it's horrible listening to him scream for soloing and not being able to help.

@Jendrw5 Does he still cry if you hold him?
Does he sleep well until that point? It’s pretty far through the night. Could he be waking hungry at that point? Or wanting his nappy changed?

@Username24680 he's not been sleeping well for months, we thought it was teething at first but it's just gotten worse since his teeth came through. He still cries if we hold him but does eventually stop, but then willstart again if he goes back in his cot which was why I thought it was seperation anxiety. In the past I'd take him into my bed for the rest of the night so I think he's maybe expecting that, but I'll be going back to work soon so wanted to break him out of that habit before I do. If he gets back to sleep at this time he normally wakes up happy so I don't think it's that he's hungry, he dropped night feeds in December, and slept through for a couple of months.

I read something about sleep training being useless after 4am as they are in a lighter stage of sleep, so if they wake up after 4am the only two solutions are suck it up and wake up, or suck it up and let them get into your bed, until they are old enough to understand something like a gro clock.

If he can walk, one option is to take the side off the cot and encourage him to make his own way through. That way the effort us all his and usually after a while it seems to stop being worth it to them.

@BertieBotts I'd not heard that about sleep training. We're only on our 2nd night trying it but both nights have been the same with waking at about 4.30. He fell asleep again at about 5 and is still asleep now.

I'd be reluctant to start the day at that time as we've done that before and he's ended up being really tired and grouchy in the day. I'd take him in with me again but I work evenings and when I'm back I'd be worried about falling asleep while holding him. I do think it's because he expects now to come in our room at that time, so I was hoping that just sitting in with him next to his cot would bring him the comfort he needs, but so far it doesn't seem that way.

Is it starting to get light at 4.30 and disturbing him enough to wake him? Or birds starting to make noise? Agree with pps, I don't think it's separation anxiety, it sounds like he's awake and a bit pissed off you're trying to get him to lie back down.

To be fair it was in a very anti sleep training book, so might have been total nonsense! But it has been true IME - whatever I was trying to do tended to work during the night, but after 4am they were more likely to just wake up unless I went back to the total magic-bullet-but-unsustainable way.

@BertieBotts @MyBloodyMaryneedsmoreTabasco you could be right there then. He definitely does have bad seperation anxiety too though, as he shows all the signs of it during the day too.
He's just woken up now, all happy and perky. I've always usually just got him up when he's like that and if he wakes up screaming I figured it was a night waking and he's not ready to get up yet.

With the lighter mornings- Is the room dark enough?

@Sunshineandrainbow it's not quite light at 4.30 yet, we're up in Scotland so it might be a few weeks before it is. We have blue curtains in his room which keep it fairly dark even when it does get lighter though.

Any Waking before 6.30 I'd always try and get them back to sleep ASAP. As soon as you hear a murmur or cry, get in to see him and settle him in his own bed. You don't want to create a habit of his brain waking.

We put a mattress on the floor in our child's room for this reason. If they wake up, straight in and settle in their own bed. Often just a hand poking through the cot bars, and a reassuring 'sshhh', so you can get back to sleep too on the floor mattress.

Many a night spent like this! But we were all asleep and that was my main aim.

They are older now (infants) and sleep perfectly

If he's going down at 7pm but only properly waking for the day at 8:45 then he's just getting too much sleep I think.

Try a consistent wake up time of 6:30am until he starts waking naturally at that time and then you can start to push it towards 7am but I wouldn't leave it later than that.

My LO is asleep by 7pm at night and at 11mo he would have been having breakfast at 8am and going down for his morning nap at 9:30/10am.

Do you have blackout? If not, I’d start with that.
Can’t do any harm.