will pick up put down method work on a one year old?

[CakeInMyFace]

Hi am slowly going mad with sleep deprivation as my one year old cries the minute I leave the room. Have tried staying in her room, cuddling, co sleeping...yet she is still taking up to two hours to settle at bedtime and the same if she wakes in the night. Have had the same bedtime routine since she was 8 weeks old and the same eating and napping routine since she was six months. Was wondering if the pupd method has worked for anyone and if its appropriate to try with older babies?

Google walk-in-walk-out. I think it's the pupd method for older babies. Good luck - sounds utterly hideous, my sympathies are with you!

one thing stands out to me in your post - you say she has the same napping routine as when she was 6 months old - can you post what this is please? wakeup time, nap times & nap lengths & bedtime?

Also does she cry at naptimes or is it just bedtime that's the problem?

Is she an independent sleeper i.e. can she fall asleep by herself or do you have to rock/feed/cuddle her? (I know you are helping atm but has it always been the case?)

Is she teething atm?

Most babies sleep needs change quite a lot in the first year & it might be she is telling you she needs a routine change. If she is taking that long to fall asleep my guess would be that she's not tired enough when you put her down.

I would consider this first before trying sleep training, as if it is a routine issue, then no amount of PUPD or WIWO is going to make it better. If you rule out routine, then I'd say try either Gradual Withdrawal (GW) if she's never slept independently before, or WIWO if she has.

HTH.x

at that age both my lo's had only 1 nap per day so you could look at the amount of sleep she is getting at the moment. If she still has 2 naps then maybe she isnt tired enough at bedtime to settle. You could try having a later bedtime or cutting down the daytime sleeps

sorry, should have been more clear in my op. She is on a 7-7 daytime routine, (well, usually up by 6:30am), short nap in the morning (no more than 30 minutes) and about 1.5 hours in the afternoon. I've tried cutting out the morning nap and this doesn't work (she's extremely tired by 10:30am if I do this, cranky, and can't make it to her afternoon nap). Then all that happens is she ends up sleeping for 2.5+ hours in the afternoon anyway. I never force her to sleep in the day but 99% of the time she follows this daytime sleep pattern. Also, even with less daytime sleep she does the same thing at bedtime.

I take your point about the bedtime - it's just that she is rubbing her eyes and shows all her usual signs of tiredness. But then she just rolls around in her cot, cries and screams and it goes on for AGES some nights. The odd night she'll go down with no issues whatsoever. (This is few and far between at the moment though).

The most frustrating part is that she then wakes up during the night and we repeat all the bedtime malarky over and over. It's exhausting. I suppose having a later bedtime is the next thing to try since cutting down her daytime sleep doesn't seem to work.

Feel like I'm going to cry though - this has been going on for AGES and I feel like an awful mum.

Hi, we did the PUPD method with m DD when she was about 8 months and it worked great for waking in the night and going to bed in the evenings. It took literally 3 days. However, it took closer to a few months for her daytime naps. My main problem was that I used to have to breastfeed her to sleep as she'd got into that habit. I'm sure it would work on a 1 year old.

You are not an awful mum! This part of things is incredibly hard and you have to be really determined to make headway. It is horribly familiar: hours spent of an evening trying to settle DS1 only to have him scream the moment he hits the cot mattress at which point you feel like screaming and jumping out the window. No matter how relaxing and consistent the bedtime routine, ultimately the baby needs to get the hang of falling asleep on their own. I tried PUPD and although I stuck to the rules, I think it caused more distress to DS1 than the way we eventually succeeded, which was a dilute form of controlled crying. What worked in the end was this: Go through bed time routine, in our case: bath, stories, milk/feed, lullaby, cot and leave the room. Baby then usually cries. Go back in straight away and comfort him with soothing words and strokes, but don't pick up. Then leave even if still crying. This time only go back after 10 minutes and repeat as necessary. Don't leave it for longer than 10 minutes before going in to comfort. However, ds got the idea after 20 minutes ie two visits and honestly, apart from the odd blip, we have never looked back. I think that he needed a firm nudge but he actually wanted to learn how to go to sleep by himself. Nowadays he practically throws himself in the cot at bed and nap times.

Personally I wouldn't let ds sleep for more than two hours for his main day time nap and as for waking in the night, he might need milk or water but once he'd had that, straight back to his cot so he got the idea that night is for sleeping godammit!

Goodluck, Cake. Post how you get on!

Hi Fierce
Thanks for your post! Am gearing up for another hellish bedtime. PUPD didn't work AT ALL last night, and she seemed to get more and more distressed as time went by. I cut back on naps a bit today, only let DD sleep for 1.5 hours this afternoon and 45 min this morning instead of her usual 2 hour afternoon kip. I think what you say makes sense and I'm going to try a little bit of crying tonight - am also going to to delay bedtime by 30min too just in case she's not quite ready for bed.

What I DON'T get is how she so willingly goes down for naps and is alseep in minutes with NO crying whatsoever, but how bedtime is such a different tune! Something has to change though because I'm so exhausted I'm not as attentive in the daytime as I normally would be. The hardest part will be sticking to the plan when it happens in the middle of the night.

Will let you know how I get on!

cake - I'd be wary of lengthening morning nap, cutting afternoon nap AND delaying bedtime all in one go, thats 3 changes in one go & you won't know which, if any are/aren't helping. Also a shorter afternoon nap plus later BT is likely to lead to overtiredness at bedtime, and a longer morning nap may encourage earlier waking. Just things to bear in mind.

So does her day typically look like this?

Up: 7am
Nap: 9.30-10
Nap: 12.30-2/2.30
Bed: 7

TBH I think at this age while she is still having 2 decent naps in the day she is probably a wee bit UT at bedtime. Personally, I would first of all try delaying bedtime by 15mins initially, then after a week another 15mins, so BT is 7.30pm & see if this improves how she settles at bedtime. I'd do this before trying PUPD as UT may be the cause.

My only other suggestion, if her afternoon nap already starts at 1pm or later, would be to cut the morning nap a touch shorter, knock off 5mins at a time every few days til she's napping 15-20mins, which should mean she takes her lunchtime nap slightly earlier, therefore giving her more time awake between the end of her nap & bedtime.

Hope this makes sense.x

Omama - I only lengthened nap yesterday because the night before she was up half the night and absolutely knackered, crying, cranky etc. So I let her sleep a bit longer than her usual 30min otherwise she would not have made it to her afternoon nap. However, she slept through last night with no problems - 7:30pm until 6:45am!

Today kept her morning nap to 30 min - although she was so tired by lunchtime she refused to eat and had to put her down 15 min early. May have to have a slightly earlier lunchtime I'm guessing!

Am going to keep her up this evening again until she seems properly tired (that's what I did last night) - my aim is to keep things as consistent as I can, but without getting too stuck on exact times etc as she seems to be a bit different everyday at the moment. Meaning some nights she may be more tired than others and need earlier bedtimes, while other nights she may need slightly later bedtimes. (Within reason). Although am going to aim to get her lunchtime nap earlier as you suggest (she used to sleep 1-3) so going to try to have her up by 2:30. I did that yesterday too.

She was properly tired last night and actually crawled into her bedroom after her bath which was a first! Fingers crossed this works - I think you are probably right re: UT being the issue.

Thanks everyone for all the advice - will keep you posted!