9-12ish months: what one thing did you do to improve your lo's sleep?

[Edie78]

Just that really - nighttime and naps.

Our ds is 9mo, sleep is not terrible but not great either. Some things we're doing such as pushing back night feed (bf) later and later are working. After some good nights a few weeks ago, I was convinced that a yogurt at lunchtime was the answer but maybe the sleep deprivation is clouding my rationality.

So, CC and CIO aside as they're not options for us, what is the one thing that really made a difference for you? What were the results and how long did it take to see any change?

My DS is 12 mo and I am currently doing a sleep training programme with him. He was also not terrible but not great either. He has now started to sleep through ( from 7-8 to bf at 5, then sleep till 6.30). He also has two solid naps - 1hr in the morning and 2 hrs in the afternoon. What made a difference for me is realising just how much sleep he still needs and putting him to sleep when I see the first signs of tiredness rather than thinking that the more tired he gets, the tighter he will sleep. He now has 3-4 hours between naps and that is working very well for us. We have also brought forward his bedtime. It used to be 8-8.30, now it is close to 7-7.30. The book that has made a massive difference for us is "the sleep sense program" by Dana Obleman. Some crying is unavoidable though if they need to learn how to self-settle... :-(

My DS is 11 mo and you'll see that I have been on many of the early waking threads. So not perfect, but good in that he does 7:30am-6am (ish) pretty steadily.

This week I have had two 6:30am wake ups (which is amazing for us!) and both times he'd had a very heavy, starchy dinner - last night was chicken risotto. Sounds silly, but I often find with DS that he'll faff at tea time if he's had a big lunch, so my strategy is going to be persevering on a heavy tea I think!

Also found that making sure he didn't nap after 3pm seems to help quite a bit - so he goes to bed tired, but not knackered. But every child is different, so use your judgement...

Good luck.

We put dd in her own room at 12 months and she slept through straightaway, well til 4.30am anyway which was her default wake up time until a few weeks ago. This is only potentially helpful if your dc is still in your room obviously

Things that worked for us:

• putting DD in her own room
• regulating daytime naps to a schedule and keeping naps the same length
• carby teatime and full bottle of milk before bed
• not letting her lunchtime nap go beyond 3pm
• working on a 7-7 daytime schedule with bed no later than 7, sometimes earlier if overtired
• the same bedtime routine every night

Thank you - really helpful. Keep them coming! I've noticed that a filling tea and no late afternoon napping do help so maybe I'll persevere with those.

Last night was pretty good for us - asleep by 645, woke at 2 then again at 3 when I brought him into our bed and he slept (and grazed it has to be said) till almost 8! A lie in!

Noticed your thread and read initial posts with interest, as ds is almost 9 months and could certainly sleep better, as you say it seems that peope are suggesting no naps afetr 3pm, which i think would be fine if i could get ds to nap properly after lunch? Without wanting to highjack your thread, woukd be intersted to see if anyone has suggestions on improving naps?

Also i don't think you are off track with the yoghurt for lunch, i have a friend whose baby is now 15 months and she said baby started having two hour post lunch naps when she had two courses of lunch, so filling up her tummy apparently did work!

mrsred what time are your DS's naps (I'm assuming he has one in the morning and one after lunch?). My DD would have 30 mins at 9.30am and 2 hours starting at 12.30/1pm. She would always be awake by 3pm and generally not start to get tired until bathtime at about 6.30pm. In bed by 7pm.

There are ways of improving daytime naps so post up what usually happens and we'll take a look! :)

I too read this thread with interest, as DS's (8.5months) sleep has always been a bit, how to put it nicely, shite... I certainly don't want to hijack your thread, but I wouldn't mind a little outside opinion on our routine to see if anyone has any ideas? Could I post what usually happens here, or should I start a new thread?

Many thanks :)

tickleme63 post away!

My dd's sleep improved hugely when I cut out night feeds. I went 'cold turkey' at about 7.5 months - wouldn't have persevered if it was hellish for her or us but a few nights of a n hour or 2 of cuddles and after about a week she was pretty much sleeping through. At that point I was still doing an 11pm dream feed. Once things were settled I brought the dream feed earlier and earlier then cut that out. Not for everyone but worked well for us.

loveisagirl
After reading a lot about slep etc, we have been focussed in getting day time naps sorted, so now have on in the morning around 9, or about two hours after he wakes up, and then another after lunch, which starts between 12.30 and 1, but if i can persuade him to sleep then, he usually only does so for half an hour to forty five minutes. Which means i am then trying to persuade him to sleep again so he is getting enough nap time each day, our best nights sleep seem to be when we have been out in the car loads, which although boring for him, and cetainly not possible everyday, petrol strikes and cost etc, he sleeps almost all the time, meaning he has closer to what seems to be recommend for his age.
Rough routine...
6.30/7am wake up and feed (he is breastfed) (but if has one since midnight ofen not interested)
7.45/8am breakfast
8.30, play, nappy change, get dressed
9am - sleep for 35-45 minutes
10am - offer a feed, ofen not interested, play, go out for a walk or similar, offer a feed around 10.30 &11, will usually have small feed
11.45/12 lunch, usually takes a while to do this, after lunch, change nappy and then straigt to bed, sleeps for 45mins approx.
1pm, go for a walk, meet friends play etc... Will often fall asleep if we go out for a stroll, but ofen not until nearer 4pm, offe a feed mid afternoon, again will have something, but not a lot.
4.45/5pm, dinner time, usually takes around 45 minutes
5.30, bedtime story, up to bed, lay out pyjamas, run bath, bath, cream (has eczema) feed both sides and into bed around 6.45/7pm.

We have tried to do a few things which are cetainly helping, e.g. Not feeding him to sleep, he always goes to bed awake, trying to sshhhh him in the night, my dh has been doing this, to reduce the number of feeds he has at night etc.

He is great at going off to sleep, which was a project in itself a couple if months ago, but now is brilliant, our remaining things to solve are...

Ideally sleeping through, or with only one waking(on a good night he can sleep from 7 until 1 or 2am, but then seems to wake more frequentky until morning, every 1.5/2 hours.
Napping for a longer afternoon nap

Sorry for very long post, and spelling mistakes, have new tablet thing which although convenient, is tricky for correcting typos!

Many thanks Edie78 :)

This is our rough day :

6am Wake, BF
7am Breakfast (BLW)
8am Nap
9.30am Wake, BF
11am Lunch (BLW)
12.00 Nap
1.00 Wake, BF
3.30 BF
3.40 Nap
5pm Wake
5.15pm Dinner (BLW)
6pm Bath
6.45pm BF
7pm Bed

Wakes normally around every 2-3 hours at night, BF (on good nights...)

Doesn?t exactly feed to sleep - he comes off the boob and dummy goes in.

For bedtime I feed him and then Dad cuddles him for a bit (rocking if needed) and puts down in cot - sometimes awake and he can settle himself to sleep sometimes (but rarely), but more often than not he?s asleep when he?s put down and then shifts himself around to get comfortable. (No difference to sleep on the nights where he self settles to when he?s put down asleep)

Have seen him on the monitor put his dummy back in himself, if he can find it.

BLW so not really having much in the way of solids at the moment.

Is normally tired (rubbing eyes and fussy) around 2 hours after waking up.

After a long phase of only having 30-minute naps, he?s now napping longer and I hate to wake him up. He takes all of his naps in his cot (finally!). Again rocked to sleep :(

Some days - if he has woken a little later in the morning and therefore his naps are pushed back - he manages with only two naps but is on the verge of OT by his bath and usually gets quite upset during lotion/pyjamas.

His bedtime routine has been in place since 8 weeks, but it is sometimes still such a struggle to get him to sleep without rocking him. We do bath at 6pm, moisturise (has very mild eczema), brush teeth, take upstairs to his room, new nappy, pyjamas on, into sleeping bag, feed and then more often than not rocking. But although he's rubbing his eyes and getting fussy, he never really seems drowsy (unless I pop his dummy in straight after feeding him). He's babbling and is too wired for a story or anything like that - something I'd love to change as I love reading to him.

My main goal would be getting to one waking at night for food/cuddle, whatever, and eventually sleeping through but hubs and I are finding it very hard to continue the way things are.

Sorry for the humungous post! Any advice would be amazing, thank you! :)

Feed as much as possible during daytime - give water and cuddles instead of milk for nighttime wakings.

And (very) controlled crying at bedtime, with lots of patting and reassurance, but not in the middle of the night.

3pm cut off for afternoon nap.

(that's not specific advice to tickle btw - it's just what worked for my two at about 9 months when they were just waking once a night for a feed and I felt they understood the concept of bedtime)

Mrsred, I think it's the short LTN and having an afternoon nap (most 9 mths old have dropped this) which is causing the waking. And habit! The frequent wakings after midnight are a sign that daytime sleep needs adjusting. Also, are you sure he's not hungry?

I would aim to lengthen the LTN and cut out the afternoon nap. If he sleeps best in the car, I'd take him out in the car for a free days to get his body used to having a longer sleep in the middle of the day, and try to eliminate the afternoon nap at the same time.

Try and avoid any feeding at night, you may need to consider sleep training to get him used to self settling every time he wakes x

Little bump for any advice :)

hi tickleme
Not sure i can give you any advice, as you can see we have similar problems to you!
Just wanted to say hi! Wondered also if each nigt is similar, as although we have got evening routine pretty much sorted, ie ds will go to sleep soon after being put down, the night waking doesn't really follow a pattern, so having read quite a bit, it seems more tricky to solve, as some nights are bette than others, and it does rather obviously seem to depend on how welle has bfed during the day, but some days he is just too distracted and wont feed much at all!
P.s. I am envious of the length of your ds day time naps, any tips?

Hi Msred

They do sound similar don't they!

We tried everything to lengthen his naps as I was getting very worn down with trying to make sure he got enough sleep in the day as he needed 4 naps and more often than not it was a battle.

Things improved around the time that we started insisting on his cot for his naps but I'm dubious as to whether it was that that helped, or whether he just had to grow into longer naps. Sorry that's not much help :(

Hope things improve for you soon!

Hi tickleme,
Which bit would you like to tackle first and what would your approach be? if you're happy to do controlled crying or the Baby Whisperer pick up put down then I suspect that the night wakings would really settle down (they did very quickly with my dd). The approach is basically to teach you LO to settle without rocking or milk etc. Everyone wakes in the night and goes through light and deep sleep but the trick is to know how to put yourself back to sleep. The baby whisperer book is very helpful and insists that ALL babies are able to do this with help. Apart from a dummy does your ds have a bear or blanket or comfort thing as this would probably be a good time to introduce one?

I also think that the naps could be tweaked - I found that less daytime sleep (and definitely a shorter morning nap) helps with the night sleep - aim for 45 mins not before 9am and then 1.5hrs max after lunch? and definitely no sleep after 3pm. What do you think?x

Hi tickle - I am probably going to annoy you with this, but would you consider some spoon feeding in addition to BLW? He sounds to me that he might be hungry - I completely understand the concept of BLW, but it sort of depends WHAT they're feeding themselves.

I do a real mix with my DS - he'll have weetabix for breakfast (which I obviously feed him!) and then a BLW lunch - toast/sandwiches/hot x buns/satsumas/pear etc, and then I usually try and give him something off a spoon for supper. Things like risotto, spag bol, quiche & potatoes etc.

There is a definite correlation between the stodginess (sp) and volume of food my DS eats and how well he sleeps. I also saw drastic changes in the length of naps particularly when he started crawling, then cruising and now sort of walking.

Thank you for your posts :)

CC not an option, and we're sort of starting a variation of pick up put down at the moment. We've stopped rocking him and just cuddle him a bit and pop him down awake. He's settled himself to sleep for the last 3 nights after minimal fussing, but does it follow that he can do the same if he wakes in the night? Or is that a different skill?

Working on a comfort object too, not interested at the moment... Considered a Sleepytot but he sleeps on his tummy so wonder how that would even work - would probably yank it out more than it already falls out! Mind you, last night I only had to pop it back in once before Hubby and I turned in ourselves.

I guess I worry about cutting his naps as he really seems to need them. Yesterday he had a nap at 3.30-5 (long, but only had 30 mins at lunch and couldn't be resettled) but was rubbing his eyes again by 5.30 during dinner. I'll try pushing his morning nap back till 9, but he struggles to get past 8...

We'll start trying a little more spoon feeding with him (I suppose we're not strictly BLW, but are encouraging him to self feed more than we are feeding him ourselves). Mainly because he tends, at dinner, to rub whatever he's having (spaghetti bolognese for example) into his eyes...

Thank you again for your suggestions. I guess the thing I'd like most is to lessen his feeds during the night/consolidate them into one feed.

My theory (backed up by Dr Richard Ferber, who may be a bit gung ho on CC but has done a shedload of field work on the subject) is that yes, the ability to self-settle at bedtime is strongly linked to the ability to roll over and get back to sleep in the middle of the night - RF compares it to an adult going to sleep in bed and being moved to the bath by unseen forces in the middle of the night, or having your pillow randomly stolen by a mad pillow thief; naturally you'd be a bit wary and unsettled.

So my theory is self-settling at bedtime + elimination of night feeds so no longer waking out of routine-driven hunger + developmentally ready + no SN = sleeping through
May not work for everyone but worked for my two

Re-reading back that's not quite clear - RF's analogy is with being nursed/cuddled to sleep and then put alone in a cot.

Agree with string about self settling & resettling.

We cracked it with DS at about 4/5 months, but he still wasn't sleeping through without wake ups until about 6/7 months. I bf him until about 8 months, but DH and I decided to night wean at 6 months. Meant that only DH would go in to him when he woke up.

It was hard going and there were obviously tears, but over a few weeks he started to go through. DH would offer him water and milk from a bottle (he wold usualy have one bottle a day anyway) but over time he decided that it wasn't worth waking up!

He still sometimes wakes up and has a chat, but no longer cries out for us and pts himself back to sleep.

But he does wake up fecking early...6am usually.