One year old can’t self-soothe 😭

[SnugSheep]

Our one-year-old DS is really struggling with sleep at night. He has a well-established bedtime routine which he shares with DD: bath, feed, book, bed by 7pm. He’s breastfed and we night weaned him before Christmas but that went to shit when we were away for a week visiting family. Even before that though he just replaced the comfort of the boob with DH’s patting and presence next to the bed.

It’s getting ridiculous. He sleeps 7-11pm ish but then he rouses himself and demands constant intervention until the day starts at 6. Hours of patting and shushing and getting up and down to sit next to the bed, while he shouts and cries until he’s genuinely distressed. He’s not cold, he’s not hungry, or ill, and he’s very tired. But he fights sleep like crazy and poor little guy can’t stay asleep. I don’t understand what’s waking him really, other than something developmental maybe? His language and communication is defining thick and fast. He’s fine for naps and gets between 2.5 and 3 hrs sleep during the day. Too much perhaps? I still think he needs two naps though. Currently, he naps 9.15-10:30 ish and then about 2.30-3.30 pm.

We were slow to help him learn to sleep due to his allergies, and repeated illness mainly (him & us), plus we were keen to protect our toddler’s sleep next door. But this is driving us mad now. He’s slept through literally once in a year and that’s with all kinds of support. We don’t want to cosleep. Me, DS, and DH are all absolutely terrible at it; it’s just as bad as this situation for us. We want DS able to self soothe better and sleep through (ish) so we can move him out of our room and into the one he has to share with DD.

Any tips for sleep training at this age? Please help! We’re looking at Ferber. It did wonders for DD at 9 months who defeated much gentler interventions and who now sleeps like a champ (even with DS’s noise in our tiny house), but I’m aware it might be different for DS at his age. Any experiences of doing Ferber with a one-year old? Or just any kind of sleep ‘training’ at this age that worked for you and your baby? 🙏

It is developmentally appropriate for a one year old to be near to their caregiver almost constantly. It is not a problem. There is plenty of research now to back this up, please don't try and force your ignorance onto other people seeking help.

It is a problem for you because you don't want to parent properly or don't have the time to. It absolutely isn't the infant with the issue.

How was last night? Was it just as bad?

check out Little Nest Sleep on Instagram if you can, she is great for gentle sleep support, based on evidence. Her toddler guide helped my sister transition her toddler to his own room after bed sharing from birth and being a very wakeful baby.

Night waking on the most part of completely normal, and what kind of support a baby or young child needs over night is often heavily based on their temperament. Could you side car a full sized cot to your bed so you have extra room to bed share for the time being? or try a floor bed like other suggested?

'The Beyond Sleep Training Project' (on Facebook I think) is also really great for evidence based advice around sleep, they have a red flag guide you can use to see if there is anything that could need further exploration.

Absolutely agree with this. Both DC have done the same and it’s consistent with recommended sleep time guidelines. Very unlikely to be too much daytime sleep unless the second nap isn’t allowing enough sleep pressure to build. Timing of the nap is crucial. Have a look at wake windows for your DS age.

The trouble you’re having is that after that 4 hour window he’s no longer deep sleeping for some reason. Him being more easily roused means he’s noticing you’re not there and expecting you to settle him - every single time!
You need to understand why he’s not deep sleeping. I would guess hunger or sleep pressure (as above).

My DD was exactly the same, I didn’t sleep train her. I cuddled her to sleep every bedtime and every nap 🤣 but she slept through when she was tired and had a full belly.

Play around with nap times and offer something substantial to eat at 11. I tried bananas and water when DD woke at that age. Maybe look at mealtimes too. Make sure you’re not giving iron right before bed too… that messed us up for a good month when she was that age!

It absolutely IS normal behaviour at 12months old! What training or degree in child development do you have to say such a thing!! And yes some babies can sleep through and self-sooth at 6months but I know maybe 2 from very lucky friends and luck it really is!!

I would try one nap, in between his current naps. I wouldn't try to make it a specific amount of time, but I would feed him around 11ish and then put him down for a nap and see how that goes. It might help or it might not.

His inability to sleep probably is developmental and part of that is just that he wants you, pp is right. How you deal with that is up to you but he's not doing anything wrong and it's definitely not behavioural. Their world and how they see it is constantly changing and it can be unsettling at best and terrifying at worst, and they just want the one thing that is constant and safe.

I'll be honest, I haven't read any other comments but your first two paragraphs describes our life with DD, just gone 1 year. Also night weaned before Christmas, made no difference long run even though there was no disruption to routine over Christmas. She wakes around 10:30 / 11pm, and often won't go back for hours (partly because there's no boob to quickly soothe her) and wakes every hour or so after that.

We've tried everything. We're just going to give up trying to get her to sleep more, maybe even put her proper bedtime back from 7pm ish to 11pm. Let her have a nap in the interim?

Just to fend off people saying to cap her naps, she only naps for 30 mins at a time. One 30 min nap a day would just not cut it.

I have no idea, but you have my sympathy 🫂

I'm in the exact same situation to OP and I know from experience that it is much, much too late to introduce a soother. We tried from 6 weeks (advice for bf babies was not to give one before then. Biggest regret of mine that I followed that advice).

Our situation is practically identical to OPs (it's actually a bit uncanny), and I do and have coslept since baby was 2 months old (split shifts with DP before that because DD would not be put down). It does not help, at all!

We have a very happy child and are a very happy family, and contrary to what you might believe, sleep training IS parenting.

The OP has made this thread because they want to find a way of adapting and sleep training, not to be told, "Just suck it up and get on with it and you're a terrible parent who hates your child if you don't."

If you don't have any helpful advice to offer, then why post?

Sleep training doesn't actually require ignoring developmental realities. In fact it'll probably work better with knowledge of it in mind.

Nobody is ignoring developmental realities other than those saying suck it up and get on with it.

Yes, separation anxiety is strong at this age. I'm not denying that. However it does not mean there are not a wide range of tried and tested methods to help your child feel comfortable and confident enough to sleep through the night.

OP, have you tried a comforter? We went through a sleep regression phase around 8 months and the comforter was a key part of the solution. At that age they are safe for use (obviously keep a monitor on and keep an eye on them anyway)

Ferber doesn’t teach them to ‘self soothe’, it teaches them that there is no point crying as no one will come.

I really wish society would normalise babies and toddlers being babies and toddlers.

Young children and babies needing comfort and support of their caregiver to sleep and feel safe, is developmentally and emotionally the norm.

DS is 10 and did not sleep through the night until he was 4.5. DD is 4.5 and has slept through since 11mo. Different children require different inputs, but all get there eventually. Adjusting my expectations was the healthiest adjustment I made.

You said it wasn't normal when it's completely normal. That is quite literally ignoring developmental realities.

We had clingy toddlers and we'd read a couple of stories, sing a couple of songs then always stayed with them till they fell asleep. If they couldn't after the stories then we'd read them something super boring like an instruction manual without all the story voices and it worked every time!

There is a really great page on Facebook called The Beyond Sleep Training Project.
I recommend it to anyone who asks about sleep. My little one is nearly two and the only way we have a good night is a tiny short early nap and a later night.
At about 13 months we moved to one long nap.
I also think that some boys are much worse than girls with sleep - this is just what I've seen from friends and my own young family
members. My son is a total FOMO baby who isn't keen on sleep.
If you put your normal routine into that group, you'll get some really good advice off the admins and the advise an approach called Possums.

Of course he can’t self soothe. He’s 1! My 3 year old can’t. I’m 40 and I struggle to get to sleep by myself.

It is completely natural for babies and toddlers and children to need help falling asleep. He will be learning so much at this age that it causes night wakings. Probably teething.

I think you really need to adjust your expectations.

Ask for a visit from a family worker through the health visitors. We got sleep advice at 10months old and wished we'd done it sooner. 3 nights later and he'd gone from waking 7 times through the night to 1.

I completely 100% agree with this
Yes some babies sleep better but some need this extra support. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ and nothing you can ‘fix’
Please don’t let all the sleep training scaremongering online make you believe that you have to ‘fix’ their sleep or they will sleep badly forever. It’s absolutely RUBBISH designed to get exhausted parents to part with their money.
I don’t think there could have been a worse sleeper than my first born but they sleep great now. I did precisely nothing. They just get better as they get older. Until then I did everything ‘wrong’. Lots of hugs comfort cosleeping and support. It was whatever worked and got everyone in the house the most sleep.
A lot of my friends are now finding their older kids (age 4/5yo) developing sleep issues they never had before as they become afraid of the dark etc whereas we are absolutely fine over here, and I do wonder if it’s because we always made bedtime a calm peaceful lovely time full of connection and cuddles. Not a battle and we never insist on them falling asleep alone, or sleeping alone if they don’t want to.
So of course try change things if you really feel you need to for your own reasons or sanity but just wanted to share this take in case you feel you ‘have’ to do something or thing will never get better

I had an allergy and reflux baby and she has needed a lot of comfort to sleep. She didn't sleep through the night until 2 and not reliably until 4 and since then she has gone to being completely independent for sleep. She has had to be taught to sleep and to self sooth by contrast my second is 4 months and he has self soothed since being 2 months! He is obviously still waking for feeds in the night and often held and fed to sleep but at the same time is capable of falling asleep lay on his mat or in anyone's arms. He doesn't seem to have any silent reflux and if he has cmpa it's not as severe as my eldest. I think some of it is also a person specific thing

Issues we had were that we didn't identify all of her allergies until 14 months.
She wasn't eating much and was 20 months before she was eating enough to drop formula.
She had massive reflux relapses at 13 months and 3 years which set her back to newborn sleep of waking every 40 minutes and only sleeping if held upright.
She didn't speak until 2 so it was hard to troubleshoot sleep with her
Trial reintroductions and slip ups caused sleep to go backwards
Illnesses meant that her sleep regressed, she's generally a child who needs support with comfort. I'm not sure how much of this is as a consequence of being so distressed for so long as a baby
She has woken the same amount when breastfeed (until 10 m), formula fed (until 20m), on oat milk overnight (until 3y) and on nothing since 3

Things that have helped
Take it step by step to reduce the amount of support needed for sleep
If you are having a good week trying an move to more independent sleep
If life is unsettled - Christmas, holidays etc accept sleep might go back a step but finding the first opportunity to go forward a step and then try to make another step too.
There may be tears but sometimes they are needed to make progress. For example when we moved from getting my daughter to sleep on our bed to her bed. She was held in her bed just the same as our bed and I was with her through our. She didn't like the change but the second night was better than the first and by the third night she was happy to go to sleep in her bed.
Play with routine, we couldn't do bath book bed until she was about 2.5-3 as the bath and the book sent her wild. We have at times moved stories in her bed so that she's cosy and relaxed when she gets into bed and once she was 3 we moved more of the stories to the floor as it was harder to not stay with her in bed if we had been on her bed for stories
Playing in her room, I read that this can help sleep as they start to associate the bedroom as a "safe" place and this can help with sleeping

What helped me was working my baby’s sleep needs over a 24 hour period. Mine is currently 11 hours at 12 months, I let her sleep for two 30 minute naps and she sleeps through 8pm- 6am. You can work this out by using an app like huckleberry or just add up yourself. Count all the time they’ve slept for a week or so and work out the average.

How many months? 12 months would still need 2 naps usually but 18 months probably just 1.
Please please please don't do Ferber it is so cruel. Your baby needs you, be there for them.
If you wouldn't leave them sobbing for you in the day, don't do it at night.
You don't need to help a baby learn to sleep. They sleep in the womb. They know how to do it. They just need their mum, which really shouldn't be surprising.
Parenting isn't easy but you've decided to have kids (twice) do what's best for them. They will sleep eventually.

Introducing a dummy at 1 years old? Ffs