What would you do if you had my 11 month old?

[Judyandherdreamofhorses]

I'd like to hear a range of opinions as I'm really at the end of my tether and think I might have to Do Something now.

DS is BF and won't take a bottle. He eats solids well.

His sleep has always been dreadful. He is mostly BF to sleep for naps, or has them in the car, sling or buggy. They're usually only short - 30 mins I suppose. For the last couple of weeks I was managing to get him to have one good 1-2 hour nap in his cot, either morning or afternoon but never both.

Nights, well, he's never slept longer than 4 hours at a time, usually 2-3, this week 30 mins-1 hour. I'm not sure how I can cope with it any more. Admittedly, he's been poorly for a few days. He's better now but the sleep isn't. When he does wake, it's taking me up to an hour to get him back to sleep again.

He won't co-sleep, so that's not an option.

If left, or even just put into his cot awake or not completely asleep, he screams and screams, kicks and thrashes around and doesn't stop.

He sleeps with a comforter and sucks his thumb.

Any non-judgey ideas? What sort of routine do other 11 month olds have? I night weaned DD at 13 months and did CC with her at 15 months.

Thanks for reading. It's long!

What time does he get up?

6.30 on a good day.

I try to have him asleep by 6.30pm, although this is getting harder and harder.

TBH I would push his bedtime back to 7/7.30 then my routine would be

7am Get up - if he's awake before that leave him in his cot to play/chat/sing

11.45/12pm Lunch

12.15/12.30 Down for a nap (1.5 hours - aprox)

6pm Bath

7pm Bed

Regarding waking up - I would soothe then place in the cot and sit in the same room, singing, bustling about so he sees your there but youre busy and he has to go back to sleep, or do the pat/shush techniqe then slowly get rid of this as he gets better at self settling.

6.30 is very early for a baby I would try 7.30 or even 8

We night weaned from the breast at 13 months using a gentle method by Dr jay Gordon see here

It was a life saver. She didn't 'sleep through' immediately but her habits changed - ate more solids, breastfed at roughly same time each day (instead of on/off) and became a happier child because she was sleeping better.

The method says to refuse milk for 7 hours at night. It isn't a long time and you can offer water and LOTS of cuddles.

DD was waking every 60-90 minutes and even feeding wasn't settling her.

We did wait until after she turned one as I wasn't comfortable night weaning before then. We also partly co-slept in the sense that she liked her own space in her cot but liked me near, so I had a bed in her room and that helped us too. Just a temporary thing to get her sleep to where it needed to be.

i wasn't fussed on her sleeping through, just to sleep for longer than 3-4 hours!

Bed times were when she got tired, around 6.30-7.30pm. And stories were a big thing at bed time rather than milk (I began giving her milk downstairs and DP started putting her to bed)

Good luck. This won't last forever. Some kids just don't sleep through till later on.

As a side note, taking the side off the cot at 17 months resulted in DD sleeping for longer periods, it's funny how some things work for you and not for others but def worth trying!

Thanks. I suppose the early bedtime seemed to work when he was younger as I have 3yo DD to put to bed too and it was nice to have baby in bed first.

Have you tried a sippy cup with milk instead of a bottle? DS never took a bottle but I went back to work when he was 6 months and he had a free-flowing sippy cup. Bit messy but he got the hang of it.

We night-weaned at 13 months. Two weeks beforehand I seriously upped his milk during the day and one night (a Friday so I could recover the next day!) I stopped offering BF in the night and just offered water. I also picked him up and soothed him upright, over my shoulder so he wasn't in a feeding position.

It worked far better than I thought possible and although the first few weeks he would drink water everytime he woke, after that he stopped drinking.

It did help cut down his wakings (but not completely).

For naps, I just put him in the pushchair and wheeled him up and down. Then one day he accepted to nap in his cot (no idea why). Now we tend to give him the choice and he still likes napping in both.

When napping in his pushchair we'd cover it up so there was less light and if he woke after 30 minutes we'd just wheel him around again until he fell asleep (or, on occasion we gave up after 20 minutes but that was rare).

I found Andrea Grace good for ideas. From her book I learnt how to stop BF to sleep : introduced a book, (always the same book) in between BF and going in his cot. Put him in his cot awake. The first two nights he cried for about 20 minutes. Then after that he stopped crying. He still won't go to sleep if I'm not in the room, but I can put him down without him being asleep.

My DS is almost 11 months and this is our current routine

Awake 5.30-6am (wishing this was later)
Bottle 6/6.30am
Breakfast 7.30-8am
Nap 9am normally for 1-2hrs
(if awake at 10am then a snack)
12pm lunch
2pm nap again 1-2hrs
4.30 tea
7pm bottle, bath, bed
(I think personally I need to push my bedtime to make it a bit later)

Thanks. I've looked at the Jay Gordon method for night weaning and am thinking of doing that in a couple of weeks when DH is off work. I guess I'll just survive till them.

He's had better naps today - I made sure he got one in the morning and one in the afternoon, but they required long breastfeeding and lots of cuddling. I can't always fit that in with DD's nursery run etc (15 mins by car, so very disruptive to napping!).

I have a 12m old who was waking at 6am and bed at 7pm.

We changed bedtime to 8pm and he now wakes at 7am. Much better.

He takes 2 naps. A 90 min one in morning and a 20 min one on afternoon.

Personally I'd change the bedtime

I've read through all your advice again. He woke at least every hour last night and was awake for a while each time, including from 3-5am. He hardly slept all night. Obviously not did I.

There doesn't seem any way to soothe him. Nothing worked, not even feeding. Poor baby, I even shouted at him once. Thank goodness I'm at my mum's and she had him and DD for a few hours while I slept this morning.

Yesterday I managed to get him to have good naps and put him to bed about 8pm.

Sorry you are having a rubbish time-I'm going to go completely against the grain here and say stick with early bedtimes! DS 13mo is a mess with a bedtime later than 6.30-and yes he's up at 6.15ish but I can cope with that. Does he have tummy ache/allergies? Teething?

Does he self settle at all? With that frequency of wakings he isn't hungry-it sounds like he comes into light sleep and then can't get back to sleep again.

Could he be going through a development milestone phase?

DS' sleep was terrible (worse then usual) between 5 and 10 months.

With hindsight, I think it was because he started rolling at 6.5 months and was walking at 10 months. In between he learnt to sit up, commando crawl, crawl on all fours, stand-up, cruise, then finally walk unaided.

So I'm not surprised he slept so badly, although it was awful to live through.

Does he move a lot in his sleep? I found putting DS in a double bed with me (DH was booted out) meant he woke up less as he had far more space to roll/crawl around in in his sleep. I didn't sleep much but had a happier baby the next day...

We eventually put him in a single bed (against the wall, with head and food boards and a barrier) at 14 months which also helped - wish I'd thought of it sooner!

Hope you get some rest soon.

Yes, I did find earlier bedtimes better with DD, and DH gets up with them in the mornings. Heavens, if he slept all night I'd be leaping out of bed at 6 myself!

Getting to the point of shouting was awful last night. Makes me think anything I do would be better. It's not like he's getting a smiling happy mother in the middle of the night!

No allergies. He has been poorly and is teething. I know this probably explains the recent terrible nights, but it's those on top of the 10 previous bad months that's killing me.

I'm supposed to be looking to return to work. There's no way I could at the moment. And my brain doesn't function well enoug anyway!

Nicholeus, he doesn't seem to have enough space in his cot and wakes up when he hits the sides. DD is in a cot bed with sides off, so perhaps we could look at giving that to him and upgrading her bed.

I'd definitely look at changing the bed. Made a huge difference to DS' sleep.

Ds is 7 months but very similar. Until last week he,d deteriorated from 2 to 1 hour max in any one go at night, feeding for ages in between. He also hardly sleeps in the day and only in push hair.

Last week I decided I just had to do something. He was waking all the time because he only was able to settle by feeding every time he stirred. We started putting him to bed awake, sitting with him til he goes to sleep. Rub back, pat, sing etc but don't take out of cot again. First night he cried about 90 mins but it decreased after that and he now settles quickly and generally sleeps from 7 to 10, when we resettle him quickly without taking out of cot. Then at 2.30 feeds for 10 mins. Then at 5.30 comes in bed with me and feeds til 7. Sp much better than every hour!

I recommend Reading. Andrea Grace gentle sleep solution.

Thanks. He just won't go to sleep in the bed with me, that's why we never co-sleep. He just doesn't sleep.

I don't have a routine as such, which is where I now think I'm going wrong. Just think I've got it all wrong. But I just couldn't let him cry for 90 minutes, even if I was in the room with him. I'm sobbing now just thinking about it. He'd be looking at me, begging me to pick him up or feed him.

It might not be 90 minutes. I did the Andrea Grace method and introduced it very gradually.

So before it was bath, BF to sleep, into cot.

Then I did bath, BF, book, BF to sleep, into cot.

Then bath, BF, book, into cot. The first night he cried for 25 minutes (I spent the whole time hugging him through the bars, singing to him, holding him)

The second night he cried 10 minutes, but not very hard, and I held him through the bars the whole time.

After that he stopped crying when put into the cot awake. It'd just take him anywhere between 2 and 40 minutes to fall asleep.

And I will admit thats where I gave up. For weeks I'd sit next to him singing or receiting a story until he fell asleep. Often up to 40 minutes. Then I had five 40 minutes evenings in a row and got really pissed off . So I took DS back out to the living room so I could eat.

10 minutes later DS was yawning his head off and I put him to bed and he fell asleep immediately!!

Now, we do bath, PJs, BF then DS sits with us whilst we eat and watch TV and as soon as he yawns he's put to bed, no fuss. Yes it means he goes to bed fairly late but I'm not sitting next to him for ages coaxing him to go to sleep...

Okay, I've downloaded the book. Will read it during tonight, I suppose!

Have you tried putting him in with his sister?

My sis had two appalling sleepers and tried everything.

This is what worked for her.

Hadn't ever thought of putting him with his sister. Interesting idea.

I settled him in his cot awake for the first time tonight...

Hope last night went well for you.
My DD2 sounds quite similar to your DS. (which I struggled with as her older sister would settle in bed with me, generally fed back to sleep etc).

DD2 would wake for long times at night, and frequent wakings. Often she would take a small feed, but it wouldn't really achieve anything - ie it didn't send her to sleep.

So, she was still in our room. I decided that I would offer the breast at her first wake up and then every three hours thereafter (ie if she woke at midnight I would feed but then wouldn't offer till 3am again). This gradually became just offering at first wake up to not offering at all overnight. She didn't need the food element of the breastfeed and the comfort wasn't achieving anything for us.

In terms of getting her to go back to sleep, I think we did a mixture of lots of techniques. When she first woke I would pick her up and cuddle her, maybe walk around the room, until she either stopped or lessened her crying. Then I would put her in her cot. She usually started crying when put in. I would put her back into a lying position if she was trying to sit / stand up. And shush and rub/pat her back. Once she was settled there I would go to bed (same room). If she started crying I left her for two minutes. Then I went back to her, and tried to lie her down and shush her, but if she was too upset I would pick her up again until she was calm(er).

I have never particularly thought controlled crying was something I would want to do with my children, and I never did it with DD1. But this I think is kind of a version of controlled crying.

DD2 was sleeping through within a week, I can't remember exactly how long it took but I think it may have been as much as five nights. Which at the time felt like an age.

Now I hear her waking in the night once or twice a week. She is in her own room now and generally she has gone back to sleep before I get to her bedroom door.

(my DD1 was also an appalling sleeper, but I dealt with that with part time co sleeping and copious amounts of overnight breastfeeding. And she started sleeping through bt herself at 13 months old. So there is always hope!)

We're on night 2 of The Plan. I read Andrea Grace and decided to act immediately. It's going extremely well, thank goodness.

I'm feeding, then book, then into cot awake at bedtime. This went remarkably well both nights - about 20 minutes on and off crying the first night, none at all tonight. In the cot, I'm stroking him and humming.

For night wakings, I'm waiting a bit longer than before to see if he'll self settle, then feeding. Aiming to reduce the time of the feeds over the next week. Keeping him awake, or waking him up after the feed (harsh and hard!), then cot awake. Again, better than expected. He's just cried half heartedly on and off for ten minutes and is now asleep. We're in a hotel, so I'm glad it was only that long!

Wakings are already less. It feels like we're working together, rather than fighting each other.

Yesterday, he had two long naps. Both were in the car as we had a long journey. But the first was amazing. No crying, I just put him in his car seat, told him it was time to sleep, and he smiled and went to sleep. I hadn't even set off.

Fingers crossed for the rest of the night. I'm expecting another waking before morning...