Questions on gradual retreat

[sharond101]

Thought we had mastered the night wakings with gradual retreat and relaxed the rules a bit. DS is beginning to go to sleep again with his bedtime bottle and coincidentally occcasionally waking in the night again for anything up to 1hour 40minutes. He also rises early, between 6 and 7. I am shattered! My questions are,

How do you stop him falling asleep with his bed bottle? He is impossible to rouse at this time once he has drifted off.

What do you do when he waked in the night? I tried the greadual retreat method last night and we spent 1hour 35minutes throwing a dummy around his cot and 5 minutes of Mummy holding before he went to sleep. It's hard to stay motivated in the middle of the night when you know a cuddle could put them back over more quickly.

I dunno. We have similar issues when DS doesn't get enough of a day time nap. It generally doesn't last long - two or three days. Last week he woke up a few times because he was cold. Short term fix was feed and back to sleep before we realised what caused it. Got a warmer sleeping bag and he slept through. Then he woke because he was teething and v snotty. Brought him in to bed with us and fed him and he slept until 7. Twice. Last night he woke for half an hour and went back to sleep in his own bed.

Certainly for DS, night waking is generally caused by something - although it might take a while to figure out what and to fix it - rather than sympomatic of a change in behaviour. There may be better solutions than ours though..