Please help me to get my nearly 1yo DS to sleep at night! (and drop his night feed..)

[mumtomoley]

A bit of history...DS has never been a great night time sleeper. His first few months I could hardly put him down at all without him crying so he ended up sleeping on me at night and having all his naps on me and was also fond of breastfeeding for hours on end.

Gradually over the months his night time sleeps progressed to sleeping in our bed, then to a bedside crib, then to a cot in our room and by seven months in his own room.

By 5 months he was also having all his naps in his cot instead of on me, and also switched to bottle feeding instead of breastfeeding night feeds were much quicker.

However he has always woken several times a night. When I went back to work at 10 months he was still waking almost every three hours and having 3 7oz bottles over night...

He is one in a few weeks and I still have a few problems with his sleep

1. He only occasional sleeps through and usually wakes up several times

2. If he wakes after about 12.00 then it's a real struggle to get him back to sleep without giving him milk. If he does go back to sleep without a feed it's only temporary and he'll be awake again a couple of hours later and won't settle without it. If I feed him straight off he will generally go through to till morning. He drains a 7oz bottle

3)Getting him to sleep at night seems to be getting harder not easier! We were in the habit that I could give him his milk and he'd relax while having it so once it was finished I could put him straight in the cot. He'd be asleep enough that his eyes were shut, but still sucking his dummy and would reach out towards the cot as I put him down so not sound asleep.

The last couple of weeks if he is not sound asleep as I soon as I put him down he rolls over, stands up and holds onto the cot bars and cries.

I wouldn't mind so much if it was just me it affected but now the chilminder says she can't get him to sleep in the cot in the daytime. The fact that he still has a night feed/doesn't sleep through/doesn't self settle is generally blamed (by those who know me) on the fact that I held him all the time when he was a newborn and have never done cc or cio.

Any thoughts help appreciated as I really can't see the wood for the trees about what to do here.

If he's genuinely hungry at night, I would tackle this first. The other settling issues will be easier to deal with when you're both getting more sleep. He shouldn't need a full feed at night so I would try and wean him off it by diluting them with water bit by bit. You also need to make sure his solids intake during the day is enough as he may be filling up at night.

Once he's off the feed, there are settling methods like pick up/ put down or gradual withdrawal which will help you. Finally, I'd also make sure his naps are right for his age in terms of timing and length. Too much daytime sleep can cause night waking.

"If he's genuinely hungry at night" This is the question!

He drains his night feed - Would he do that if he wasn't hungry?

If he doesn't have a proper dinner then we have more wake ups so there is definitely a relationship between the two. But he does eat quite a lot and is not skinny!

Average day is:
breakfast: 1 weetabix with formula, and toast
10.00 ish approx 3oz milk before sleep
lunch: hot meal (eg tuna pasta/cottage pie)
3.00 offer him milk, usually refuses it but will eat foody snacks like rice cakes etc
5.00 hot meal same as for lunch.

6.30 snack
7.30 7 oz milk feed
sometime between 12.00 and 3.00am another 7oz milk feed

Both his lunch and dinner include both carbs and proteins.

So i'm not sure where else I can get food in during the day! And he is quite heavy - not fat but has big thighs and is alot heavier than he looks. (weighed 2 pounds under 2 stone last time I weighed him)

Should I be trying harder to make him go without his night feed? I've offered him water instead but he pushes it away. So my alternative to giving him his milk, is basically him crying for a long period of time. When I have tried to not give him milk in the past he has basically just cried until I have given it to him (longest I've gone for is 2 hours doing this.)

Do you think I should try harder with this? Everyone keeps telling me he shouldn't be having milk at night now, but how do I actually get him to stop!?

Thanks for your help!

I'm just another mum with a 1yo. From your number 2, I'd say why not just give him his milk. It'll give everyone more sleep by the sounds of it.

My LO still has night feeds. The longest she's been able to do is around 6-7 hours without milk. She's fed everytime she wakes up at night. The best is when she has a feed at around 10pm and doesn't wake up till 5am. There are some days where she wakes up once or twice between 10 and 6! (Last night she slept through, the night before she woke every 3 hours. It's variable).

I feed her because I always do that as a first response. In the hope it'll put her back to sleep. (I also do it during the day as she's bf on demand, so fed on first squeak).

Here is what I have to disagree with your childminder. DD has no problem sleeping at her nursery, twice a day most days. She's never been through CC. She's always consoled when she cries. And obviously she can't be fed to sleep at nursery without me there! Maybe your LO just needs some cuddle from your CM to feel more secure? Or he needs to see what's happening instead of being left at a cot in a silent room? My DD sleeps on a little floor bed thing in the main baby room, and not the cot room. Supposedly she just dose off watching other babies. How did your CM put him to sleep?

And you are his mum so you know your LO best. We can't see if he's genuinely hungry. (No one else watches your LO as much as you). I can tell if mine is or not. She looks ravenous if she's hungry. And she'll just suck a few mouthfuls and stop if she's not. So I know if she's actually hungry when she wakes at night.

Not definite plan as such, but may be some reason to think this might sort out soon. I am way to lazy to do controlled crying or any other such sleep training - if they couldn't sleep we tended to just take them into our bed and go back to sleep. Anyway DD's issue was needing a bottle during the night, and she would guzzle a full bottle. We watered it down from just after 12 months and she slept through at 14 months. DS was a harder nut to crack, the watering down didn't work, I think it was mainly that he wanted to get up and play . I was all prepared to go down the CC route, DH wasn't and sabotaged it, but DS suddenly started sleeping through at 16 months, no idea why really, just happened.

Food intake does look good, could you try offering a dream feed at 10pm which might eliminate him waking later on?

Does he only have one nap at 10am? If so, I think he's awake too long in between that nap and bedtime and he could be overtired at night as well which is contributing to the waking up.