What can we do other than controlled crying? (long)

[stollibolli]

Hello any helpful suggestions welcomely received as to how we can help our 18mth old sleep for longer periods for the night.

Our little boy is still not sleeping longer than 3hrs at a time throughout the night, he wakes regularly at 12am, 3am and 5am he will settle back in his cot after a breastfeed most of the time but regularly ends up co-sleeping around 5am. This wasn't too bad when I could have a nap in the day to catch up on my sleep but he has started to drop his daytime nap.

He dropped some daytime feeds when we introduced solids, he eats 3 meals and has a couple of snacks a day obviously if he eats lots at one meal he eats a bit less at the next.

He has the majority of the time a good bedtime routine as in meal, bath, story, milk and then he falls asleep in my arms before I transfer him to his cot. On a few occasions though it has taken an hour or two to get him asleep.

His puts on weight slowly and has dropped down a couple of centiles on his graph but is following his own line. I did wonder if he wakes a lot at night for a feed because he's not getting enough in the day.

I really don't want to try the controlled crying method as I feel its not for us but its getting harder to cope with the lack of sleep.

thanks

[HarderToKidnap]

What have you tried?

DS woke up for a night feed until 14 months when DH started going in to settle him with the offer of a drink of water. He was sleeping through within a few nights. However, he was always a decent sleeper so just needed nudging. Feel for you x

[CreatureRetorts]

I'd be surprised if he's dropping his nap - very young.

What does he eat? Fussy eater?

Have you tried cosleeping for more of the night?

[RandomMess]

There are a few things going on:

He needs to be cuddled to sleep - so when he wakes in the night he doesn't know how to get to sleep without being cuddled again.

He is hungry during the night/used to being fed - you need to drop the night fights so he consumes more during the day instead.

Would you be happy to co-sleep all night instead?

[stollibolli]

We used to co-sleep the whole night but after pressure from various sources we felt we needed to move (progress) to cot/own room etc. Dad works away a lot so he has got used to only me getting him asleep and will cry for me if he knows I am around rather than going to sleep with him.

May sound stupid but if I try to drop a night feed will he not just cry until he is fed or should I just offer water.

I probably would prefer to co-sleep all night if that works better for all of us but is it a backward step as he does sleep most of the time in his cot.

We did BLW so he has always ate basically what we do apart from anything too hot. He eats most things apart from boiled eggs and he's not too keen on sandwiches.

He has dropped his sleep these last few days after a week of sickness which changed his sleep patterns completely. He has gone down at night ok with no fuss obviously because he is so tired. But again its only been a few days.

[RandomMess]

You could have his cot in your room next to the bed so you're co-sleeping with some extra space

Do what works for you!!!

You could try offering water instead of milk at night.

Could he be overtired - sometimes they actually need far more sleep than they are getting and that causes waking during the night bizarrely enough.

[Patchouli]

I was wondering about him being overtired too - from not having daytime nap / naps.

[Theonlyoneiknow]

I would address the night feeds first, try reducing each night feed by a minute each time so that he gradually makes up for it in the day time. Then when his,feeds arE onlONLY a minute you know its not from hunger. You can look at different methods to stop him waking out if habit.

There is some very good info on the sleep sense website let me find a link. We did the above then their verbal reassurance method which is basically CC but was done after 3 horrible nights.

[Theonlyoneiknow]

Sorry I meant sleep store
www.thesleepstore.co.nz/sleep-information

[stollibolli]

Thanks for all the suggestions I will try to reduce the night feeds and go from there. Will also check out the sleep store for tips.