overwhelmed

[MumIsOverwhelmed]

Would love advice from this group! I honestly feel like I have half of a brain cell from lack of sleep, so hopefully this all makes sense.

My LO will be a year old in a couple weeks. I feel like we are in this vicious cycle between not eating and not sleeping. I feel like it’s a bit of a chicken and the egg situation.

I’m trying to wean him, but he doesn’t eat enough solids. He doesn’t take a bottle after a meal either. So he wakes up in the middle of the night starving.

If I give him the correct amount of bottles and ease up on the weaning, he still wakes up, but is somewhat easier to settle.

We’ve resorted to bringing him into the bed with us, but even that doesn’t always work. I’ve also tried dropping down to one nap, and that didn’t help either - he only slept for 1.5 hr and still woke up twice during the night.

Two nap schedule: nap 1 from 9:30-11:30; nap 2 from 1-2
One nap schedule: from 11:30-12:30/1:00

Our bedtime routine is very consistent - start at 6:45, bath, bottle, rock to sleep, in the cot by 7:15.

I have thought about sleep training him, but he’s constantly either sick or teething and it just feels cruel to do that to him. Also, he’s sitting and standing in the cot, so I can imagine it’s going to be even more challenging than when we did it at 7 months.

He goes to nursery 5days/week and so that is also impacting our routine. Some days he will get less than an hour of sleep, maximum nap time is 1.5hr. They tell me he eats really well there, but still does not sleep through the night.

Please help!!

If you’re doing 2 naps - make the first one less than 30 mins, then a longer one after lunch. A long morning nap isnt ideal. I’d personally say that’s too young for 1 nap. Do you have a consistent morning wake time? My LO had awful sleep since 11 months; she’s only improved around 14 months. I’d say to work on not rocking to sleep, and getting baby to fall asleep in the cot with assistance (pats, singing; whatever necessary!). Food is hard; mine has taken ages to eat enough food. Breastfed though so I’m clueless about bottles. Mine has never slept through the night, ive given up expecting it TBH. We got a floor bed so I sleep there with her from about 3am

He always sleeps for much longer in the morning nap, so I've just kind of gone with that. I'll try and cap at 30-minutes and see if that helps the afternoon nap.

I think I'm going to try and start sleep training tonight as he wakes pretty consistently time-wise and think he might just need to work out how to get himself back to sleep.

I am also considering putting a mattress in his room if all else fails!!

Tricky age to sleep train. My son's sleep went downhill at 12 months and only now at 16 months it's finally turned a corner as both canines and the 4th molar are finally out! The molars take a looong time, weeks, and it causes them bother before they even show properly. Plus all the bugs from nursery, especially at winter, will disturb sleep.

You can't sleep train when they're unwell. And even if he's well now, he'll start cutting a tooth next week.

Personally, I would support him as needed. He's young and going through a lot. Once all the teeth are out and it's spring/summer, look at it again. But my son's sleep just naturally improved.

And we did sleep train at 6 months (and it worked brilliantly for a short while), so I'm not against it in principle. I just think there is too much going on now.