16 month old, how to teach change bedtime routine and teach her to self settle?

[skiesareblue]

Hi,
I wonder if anyone can help? My DD is 16 months old and has generally slept well but recently she has been waking in the middle of the night for hours - last night 23.30-03.00 for example. To ensure at least one of us gets some sleep we have been offering a bottle and if that fails taking her downstairs until she seems sleepy again but enough is enough, we need to go through some sort of sleep training for all our sakes.
Our evening routine is:
5pm supper
7pm bath followed by bottle in her room and straight to sleep with a dummy.
She generally gets up at about 7am and sleeps for 1-2 hours after lunch.
I have been reading some books, few of which agree on an approach but I think we need to change the bedtime routine so she is not going straight down after the bottle and get rid of her dummy.
So here (finally...) are my questions: what bedtime routine do you use at this age and if you have had to re-teach a child to settle herself how did you do it?
How do we wean her off the dummy?
She has no problems getting off to sleep for a nap.
I hope you can help, we are all exhausted!

Of course that should have read "how to change bedtime routine". I blame it on my tiredness.

First, I would not change everything at once as you might really unsettle her.

So she goes to sleep about 8pm?

I would say start by not going downstairs with her. Do this at the weekend so that you can sleep in the next morning, or give each other cover so that you can nap.

She has settled into the routine of getting up to play in the night, and you have to stop this.

Then stop offerign a bottle at night. I would not worry about the dummy weaning yet, as she will be more likely not less likely to sleep with dummy, I would imagine.

How about bath - bottle (to phased out eventually) then story time then bed.

And you don't HAVE to bath her every day.

sounds like we have very similar problems at about the same time!

Not sure I am the expert here - see my post below yours - but DS's routine is almost the same as yours except bedtime is 8pm. DH wants to make it later, as he thinks he will then sleep later in the morning, but I am digging my heels in on that one. Still, he is tired by 8pm and he has always gone down without too much fuss. I have to say, I have done my version of controlled crying - ie leaving him and checking up after 5 mins but not picking him up - and it does seem to have worked welll - he self settles and doesn't seem to need anything. I always tell him the same thing - Mummy is going to be just outside but you need to sleep now. I can't stay with you but you are lovely and warm and safe and are going to have a lovely sleep. love you. then i go - seems to work - most of the time...

but as you can see - this has all gone to hell in a handcart in the last few weeks and I don't know why...

but am feeling your pain!

Another thing to consider is a growth spurt - there is often one about 16 - 18 months so she might need the feed in the night.

Readerholic
You can put my DD to bed at midnight, she always gets up at 6:30am. Always has. She is 9yo now, so unlikely to change. Putting her down earelier or later just makes her cranky the next day.

Thanks for the replies.

MmeLindor she is usually asleep by 19.30/19.45. I think you are right that she is now in a routine of playing in the middle of the night but if we are not going down with her in the night, have you any suggestions as to what we are to do? When she is awake she is crying. When we pick her up it doesn't stop or stops until you put her back in the cot and then starts again. Yet when you are holding her she moves back like she wants to be lying down. Perhaps we need to try controlled crying?

Readerholic - it does sound like we are in a very similar situation and we have probably encouraged the night waking with the bottles. It is so hard not to reach for what in the short term seems like the quickest solution!

"Another thing to consider is a growth spurt - there is often one about 16 - 18 months so she might need the feed in the night."

This is possible, she has looked a bit bigger recently, if that is not a ridiculous thing to say. I used to dream feed her when she was younger, perhaps I'll try giving a bottle when we go to bed for a few nights and see if that makes a difference. Thanks for your suggestions.

how do you do dreamfeeding? DS is a big baby and has a large appetite so perhaps he is hungry and that's why he is waking. I had not considered that..

mmelindor - I'm with you on the putting them to bed later makes no difference - it's DH that thinks this might be a solution. I already think 8pm is the latest time for a child of this age - we had tried 7.30 but he often sleeps in the afternoon till 4pm so 7,30 just seems too early for bed.

I have not done it for a while but when I was I would go in to her room quietly when I am going to bed and with as little light on as possible, pick her up and offer the bottle. She sort of half woke up and drank it and then used to go straight back to sleep.

I wonder if you son would go to bed earlier if you woke him from his afternoon nap at 3 or 3.30? I generally try to get DD up by then as otherwise like you, I found she was needing to go to bed later and was then tired in the morning as she still wakes at the same time. That was of course, back when she was sleeping better...

i would even consider the opposite of a later bedtime...my DD 17 months, is now sleeping through for the first time in her life...dinner at 5, bath, milk, story, bed by 6.30, the odd little wriggle in the night, but sleeps til 6...just a month ago she was waking several times a night and ended up co sleeping...she is now in a big girls bed in her own room....she sleeps best if she has had a good daytime nap too..

the only thing that has changed is that from the moment her head hits that pillow, daddy is on duty til the morning (im pregnant and was suffering exhaustion), i know he would go in if needed and just sit with her but lie her down every time she got up.

i have come to the conclusion that sleeping is all in their mind and they just eventually 'get' it......

hope you get a good night soon.

Just to throw another alternative solution into the ring, my DD started waking in the night wanting to play for hours and I found the solution was to reduce daytime nap. If she sleeps too much in the day, she still settles fine at bedtime, but we suffer for it in the middle of the night.

Having said that I do have a child who needs fairly little sleep, she's 18 months now and has a 30 min morning nap and a 15 min catnap in the afternoon if we're out in the car. But then she does sleep 11 hours solid at night which I LOVE after the great many sleepless nights we had until v recently.

Thank you for the growth spurt suggestion, you may well be spot on! I dream fed her last night and she slept till 07.15. Result! I think I will carry on with it for the next week whilst I change her before bed routine and the it will be D day for the dummy.

The other thing is, at around 75 weeks they have a big development spurt that can cock up their sleep Wonder weeks number 10

We've recently changed 17mo DD's bedtime routine because her last feed was getting too playful (she's still bf)

It used to be DH do nappy, pjs, story, then I'd take over for last feed and put her in cot. Now, I do the feed downstairs after tea, then one of us (we take in turns) does brush teeth, pjs, story, cot. She got it immediately , I was amazed. She was clearly ready for it. Suddenly started sleeping through the night, and even more started napping in her cot in the day too. She's never done that in her life!

We've also switched to one nap, I don't know if it's related, or relevant to you, but it kind of happened naturally at around the same as changing the nighttime routine.

Stetsons - your old routine is exactly what I am doping at the moment with my nearly-14 mo. I have felt for some time that we need to change it so that he learns to go to sleep but haven't had the balls. He doesn't sleep through the night and doesn't nap in is cot with serious bf-ing persuasion. You have given me hope!!

Skiesareblue - I feel your pain. Last night my DS was awake from 12.30-2.30 and just could not get back to sleep in his cot without feeding, rocking, stroking repeated about 25 times. It's knackering.

So, I guess what I have to decide is, is 14 months too early to change the routine or should I just bite the bullet and do it now and hope he reacts like Stetson's DC?

BR44, I wouldn't have tried it at 14mo because our life was in too much flux then. Once we were settled again, there was no need to wait any more. I really was amazed at how easy it was, but that really only shows how ready she was for it.

The main thing that we did was to make sure DH did every bedtime for a whole week with the new routine, to make sure she definitely knew that this is it. She protested after a couple of days, but the next night went down very easily. DH just stuck with the plan and she soon realised there was no bf!

Good luck