What on earth am I going to do about DS?

[pipplin]

He cannot self settle at all. I don't know where to start, he's 8 1/2 months :(

We were doing well for about 4 weeks: bath, massage,bottle,cuddle to sleep,put in cot- sadly in our room.
He woke but could be shhed back to sleep- put white noise on and dummy in.

Now we have changed nothing but he is taking forever to fall asleep after his bottle. Up to an hour. If I put him in the cot he screams and stands at the cot.
In the night he wails and peers through the bars to find me.

Help please! I am open to CC but I'm not sure he is as he is difficult to calm down once he starts crying.
He doesn't feed in the night and doesn't seem to need to.

I'm desperate and pregnant and have been poorly with this pregnancy. There have been lots of tears from both ds and me. Poor Dp doesn't know what to do!
TIA

Poor you. It is so frustrating when you think you have cracked it and it all changes again. I was recommended a great book by our Health Visitor called 'Teach your child to sleep' by the Millpond clinic. It has loads of suggestions for teaching your child how to self settle. It is such a difficult age as separation anxiety can set in, they are teething, they are learning to move around, so going to sleep and staying asleep is a challenge.

We did the gradual retreat method with DS1 it is fairly gentle but a bit long winded. It might take too long if you are due fairly soon. In the book they say 3 weeks but we found it was a bit longer than that because we are softies!!! It basically involves gradually separating yourself from them every couple of nights. From rocking them, cuddling them, lying with them, sitting with them, sitting near them, sitting in room, sitting outside of room, to leaving them.

I hope you are feeling better.

Sorry to hear things are hard.

It's worth pointing out that around 9 months sleep goes a bit mad especially self settling, due to a development leap. So anything you try will either not work or be very hard. So might w worth waiting a couple of weeks. He might have separation anxiety. I'd suggest cuddling to sleep and doing what works - keep trying to put down drowsy, keep your hand on him and say night night and give reassurance. You can then gradually do less and less until he self settles, but if it doesn't work just do what does. I promise you it will get easier again in a bit.

We also found it easier to self settle by putting him to bed earlier. Might be worth a try?

These things come and go in phases. DS is 17 months and even now, doesn't always self settle if there's something wrong. By treating it like that, it's easier to deal with. He just needs his mummy or daddy a bit more sometimes than others.

Thank you for your replies am off to sleep now but will reply in the morning

Good morning, well last night started well. I merged his naps into one and he went to sleep after his bottle without much fuss and really quickly.
He then woke a couple of times but by 10 he had woken and was very upset so we had a cuddle and he fell back to sleep-eventually and I put him down again.
He woke again in the night(didn't look at the clock)wouldn't go back so cuddles in our bed he didn't sleep well tbh.
As you say Iggly he is having this massive development leap- crawling, wanting to stand and cruise around everything. It's great to read someone telling you to keep going, makes me feel better. What you said makes perfect sense, sleep deprivation and pregnancy knocks that out the window for me!
lorisparkle I will definitely look into getting that book, hopefully once we are over this development leap we can do the gradual approach, I am too much of a wimp and DP even more so to go all guns blazing with CC.

Thanks ladies, I will report back tomorrow with tonight's events.

Sleep deprivation is a terrible thing - they use it as a form of torture you know!!!

I forgot to ask about naps - they make such a huge difference to night time sleeps and how well they settle. I have failed miserably to get a good day and evening routine for my LO as I have two older ones but when the day and evening routine work well I find he sleeps much better.

Let us just hope for more sleep hey!

It is torture! So is his whinging when he is over tired but won't sleep bless him.
I've managed to keep him up until 11 today. He's napping now so hopefully if gets an hour in then tonight should be better. Ever the optimist!
I'm hoping once he is sorted DP can take over his bedtime as I'm going to have the new LO to look after.

I suspect DS has a dairy allergy and in the process of getting it sorted. Hopefully that will help too.

Honestly I wouldn't cut his naps out. If he's less than one, I reckon he'd still need a couple. He'll sleep now but could backfire as the lack of sleep will catch up! I'd suggest one short morning one (45 mins) and one after lunch at 1ish. Honestly he's going through a phase so it's better to be consistent until it passes.

No you are right, I wouldn't cut them out but I am wary of how long he sleeps. He tends to have a longer one in the morning and about 40 mins in the afternoon. Which suits me fine.
We are desperately trying to be consistent. He lasted in his cot until 4.20 this morning. He has favoured this hour since he was small. He woke up about 8.30pm last night and couldn't get back off.

I am blaming this on the fact he seems to be very snuffly and has a bad cough (doc app. sat morning just to check it out).
I did manage to get him back down at 9.30ish.

Sigh, these phases eh? I'm going to singing 'this too shall pass' until he's 18 aren't I?