what to do with a 15month old?

[nearlyreadytopop]

DS now 15 months, sidecar sleeper until 6 months when he was moved to his own room. Night weaned at 12 months, no real issues. He has slept through about two weeks in total since he was born. The sleep issue has been getting progressively worse. He had the cold and chest infection and was teething last week so spent most nights in our bed. If he is in with us he sleeps all night no problem, I even have to waken him up in the morning so I can go to work. The past few nights I have fed him, he falls asleep, I put him in cot, he wakes and cries for an hour. Its so distressing for me to see him cry but Im at the end of my tether.
options that we have thought of are;
co-sleep, this seems to be what he would prefer. Just not sure if its a good idea for an older baby?
or
toddler bed, we can lie beside him till he falls asleep then sneak off.
I dont even know whats normal, I used to blame the frequent wakenings on bf but now he doesnt want to feed at night. Just dont know what to do :(

Is he always asleep when you lay him down in bed for the night? Can he self settle? If it is the norm for him to be fed to sleep, then its likely that is contributing to his wakings. When he wakes in the night (as all Lo's do), he will a) be disorientated as he's not where he was when he fell asleep and b) need the same response from you i.e. feeding to sleep to help him back to sleep, since he doesn't know any other way, whereas a baby who can self settle will just roll over & go back to sleep, make sense?

What you do depends on whether you want it to stop, and whether you are prepared to do some sleep training. Co-sleeping is the easy option so you all get some sleep (though factor in a wriggly toddler I'm not sure how easy that would be lol!)

If you can't bear to see him cry, sleep training will be hard, but there are more gentle approaches you can use than CC or CIO. If he's never self settled something like Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution may be a good read, and you could perhaps try using her Gradual Withdrawal technique, though initially you will need to break the feed to sleep association & put him down awake.
x

thanks omama for advice. He is one of those rare babies who never really fed to sleep, always made him drowsy but never fully over. He has always fallen asleep being held after a feed. I think he can self settle as occasionally he will sleep all night so HV says he must be able to do it. My husband can put him in the cot awake and with a bit of patting and shushing get him to sleep. If I am there he stands and cries:(
We have been cosleeping the past few nights and he sleeps all night but we however dont, its just not working for us. He loves to be with me, hes my little velcro baby and I just think he doesnt like being on his own. I did cry cc one night on advice of hv but it was horrible, I felt so cruel. But on the other hand some mornings he is so tired after a very disrupted night that I wonder that that is bad for him and maybe I need to toughen up and try to train him to sleep.
Off to read some no cry sleep solution in the hope of sleep enlightenment.

Thanks again

Can you sidecar the cot to your bed with one side off and then work on putting the side back on at a later date? This is what we did and DS adapted really well. I do think it's a good idea to try and change only one thing at a time and stick with it for a month or so before making another time.

I think being patient (I know it's hard) is the key. There's a lot of development stuff going on at this age, you'll see him come on leaps and bounds in the next few months with skills, understanding and communication. We've got DS (19 months) in his own cot next to the bed, falling asleep on his own and sleeping all night for about 2 months now. Before that he was feeding to sleep (after about 2 hours messing around) in our bed and waking maybe 6 times a night, feeding all night... As I say I think the key is be patient, make one change at a time and probably be prepared for setbacks.

FWIW if I wasn't pregnant I'd probably still have him in the bed with us, I think it's a completely natural thing to do and all children will grow out of the need to be close to their mummy eventually! I think if they're made to feel secure when they feel vulnerable it gives them confidence.

I also agree that babies need the same environment when they wake to the way they fell asleep, if you can work on getting DS to fall asleep without being held I think he's less likely to need you when he wakes after each sleep cycle.

Best of luck!