Hi all,
Please could you give me some help with my little man (10.5 months) and his sleep. I'm sorry for the length of this post.
As it's just me and him we co-sleep but previously I have put him in his cot then transferred him to my bed when he stirs at night.
Until about a month and a half ago my ds was sleeping solidly throughout the night - both in his cot and with me and he waking at maybe 7.30. After a lovely bottle of milk he'd go back to sleep for another 2/3 hours. I was such a happy mummy.
Recently something has gone wrong and regression is an under statement.
At first I would put him in his cot somewhere between 8-9pm and he'd settle himself, no crying, no fuss, nothing. However maybe two months or so ago he started to wake up when I went upstairs to bed (I'm not that noisy). I'd put him in bed with me and he'd go back to sleep immediately and sleep through until 7ish.
Then it went downhill further with him waking up half way through the night (4am ish) wanting milk (he woke up crying and wouldn't settle until he had milk).
Now I put him in his cot and he's quiet for maybe 30 minutes whilst the mobile is on but then as soon as it's finished he starts crying really hard. So I put him in bed with me (which I know is the wrong thing to do but he does that awful howling where his tongue goes funny and he goes bright red and he can't catch his breath). I give him a bottle, get him all settled, his eyes start to close, he turns away from me to sleep, he's on the verge of sleep, I say 'yay' in my head and the little bugger wakes up. It's as if I have put speed in his milk.
All of a sudden he sits up, crawls off, stands against the headboard and pulls at the curtains, yells at delight and claps his hands. All of this is with the lights off so there is nothing to stimulate him. It's also got worse because he now wakes every three hours for milk.
I just don't know what to do. My preference is co-sleeping and I only put him in his cot initially as it's safest because he can't roll off the bed if I leave him alone. I'm sure he only wakes when I come upstairs as he wants to be with me and this isn't a problem for me either.
However what is a problem is him waking up just as he drops off to sleep and crawling off and wanting to play and of course the waking up every three hours.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to how I can get him to stop thinking bed time is play time (and why does he wake himself up & start jumping around?) and how I can stop the night feeds. I know they regress but wasn't expecting him do regress this much and for this long.
Thank you and my apologies for writing such a long post :(
C xx