14 mo old. Have I messed it all up?

[FrowningNotRaving]

Hi,

Am a lurker who has now plucked up the courage to post. I'll put this in breast/bottle feeding too.

I have a very lovely 14 mo dd. We have co-slept since the night she was born and she still bf regularly: Morning and evening/several times during the night (10ish, 1 ish, 4ish...) on weekdays and a couple of times a day and the same amount during the night at weekends. She eats 3 good meals a day and 2snacks a day. 98th percentile for weight. My husband works very long hours/shift work/varies week to week so he's not that much help, lovely that he is. I work full-time with no family near by.

I need help as dd has never slept throught the night. That's not to big a problem as I go to bed early, especially when dh is at work and I don't wake up fully. Thing is, bedtimes have recently become an ordeal with dd being distraught when I put her down in her room for the first part of the night. Really traumatic! Also, she has started to 'tantrum' - writhing and arching back in anger when I put the books away at bedtime, try to brush her teeth etc.

This probably sounds barking mad but I'm starting to wonder if the feeding and co-sleeping is 'spoiling' her a bit. It probably wouldn't have crossed my mind that much but dh thinks we need to start encouraging her to sleep on her own and being a bit firmer but I can't imagine a time when she'll ever be ready at the moment!

I'm concerned that I've lost objectivity as I do have a bit of guilt at working full-time and I do cherish being with her during the night.

Any ideas as to how I can encourage her to sleep better? Is it possible for 14 mo to tantrum?

Thanks - and apologies for the length!

Hi
I am certainly no expert but your post looks all lonely so I thought I throw in my tuppence worth.

In terms of tantrums I think its perfectly possible at 14 months. As far as I can remeber the development pages of books have 'protests when you take away toys' down as something that happens around 9 months' Maybe earlier but definitely before a year. My daughter is almost 12 months and she has developed her own will over the past three months and is increasingly able to show it. I am sure the real tantrum tantrums are yet to come. Anger is also something she experiences now when something happens she doesn't like.

For us that meant a lot of rethinking in terms of parenting and what felt like realising we have to 'parent' her. In terms of having some rules/boundaries. We were a free for all before that. Did what took my fancy. I dont enjoy being organised that much.

Anyway after several weeks of difficult sleep. I used to bring her into bed with me to feed when she woke up at night. And from 6-9 months this just got more and more frequent. It felt like she was ruling over us with all these demands that I couldn't support. So I nightweaned her over a week. I think that once they are on 3 meals a day thats quite easy. I just noted the last time she had a drink in the night and then refused to give her a feed before that time. In a few days we had established nights as a time without boob. I also decided that she couldnt come into bed with me at night. I did this because I dont sleep well with her there.

Yes she was angry and upset, but after a few nights it was done. Then the number of night wakings got less and less as she stopped thinking that the thing to do at night is just call mum for a snuggle, a feed etc.

We also started a bedtime routine. So a strict order to dinner, bath, pjs, milk, teeth story song snooze. I was totally surprised by how much she loved this. We also have proper meal times now and everything works much better. She likes the predictability i think. PLus she goes to sleep reliably within 10 mins of the final song.

I am amazed you ahve managed so long, with work etc and all these night wakings. I was a total zombie. I know you are enjoying the co-sleeping so I am hesitant to recommend what I did. But it did save me bigtime. The absolute best thing I came across was the good sleep guide by Angela Henderson. It covers lots of options and alos explains how infants sleep and how you create sleep habits for them. IN your case I am guessing what has happend is that she only knows how to get herself to sleep by sucking on your breast. So now when she wakes up and you're not there she kicks up a fuss. You need ot help her find another way to get to sleep. One that doesn't need you there.

For me the decision came that I realised that either we would co-sleep until she was about 3 and I could then explain to her verbally that mum needs her sleep too and could she please leave me alone at night. Or I could lay down a new law, we would have a readjustment period that would involve crying. Using the book helped me to do that in clear stages, eliminating all other blocks to sleep before we went for leaving her to cry.

Now that we have occassionally done some cc we have both realised that actually some of our poatting shushing and comforting was waking her up not helping her sleep.

Anyway, long post. I wish you luck and hope you tackle this now. After 18months it gets harder to sort.

Bumping for you

Such a helpful post - thank you. The women on feeding have been very helpful too.

I cut out the books before bed tonight as I think they were exciting her too much and we went to bed just after In the Night Garden, for now in her travel cot in our room. SHe went down pretty easily tonight but I think there need to be discussions when dh gets back at the end of the week. I'll check out that book as well, thanks. All strategies welcome - it just kills me to hear her cry...

Thanks again.

Good you sound a bit better. I know what you mean with books there are exciting books as well as soothing ones. I have a nice soothing book about going to sleep we always look through. We also cuddle loads and talk about the day. I usually tell her how much I love her but that teddy will look after her til morning and I need to sleep. Its a real cuddle session.

The good sleep guide has an appendix about crying. Her view is that not all baby/child crying is about being sad. Some is about being angry and some is calling you etc. I did find once I read this I felt more comfortable about leaving her to cry (its always in blocks of time) but also that then I could actually listen to her cry and hear the different emotions and decide which ones I needed to react to immediately and which ones I needed to say 'yes I know you want me right now but thats not possible and you are able to wait/find another way of dealing'.

I know that sounds quite convenient if you want to do cc. But I have found it convincing and I had thought I would never ever leave her to cry. For me if we had a lot of support and help, and different people could hold her, rock her, comfort her at all times so she would never have to cry alone that would be the ideal. But its just me and my husband and we couldn't manage. I found my tiredness gt in the way of parenting. I was so grumpy, tearful and resentful.

The other plus was that I found that when I still fed her to sleep a lot, or we co-slept for stretches with her latching on and off. The milk was interfering with her deep sleep and her full tummy was waking her. I did love co-sleeping tho so am a little sad that is over for us but overall the new regime is better.

However, this week she started at the childminder and she wanted a few sessions in bed nursing and snoozing and we just did that. It was lovely after something that has been stressful and takes us both back to when she was just a wee wee baby and we would do that all day and love it!