Desperate..please help

[lemonsherbet]

My 10 month old has stopped napping and sleeping. He has been in nursery (I have to work full time) full time since March. When we started nursery he had 2 naps a day and used to settle after moaning for a couple of minutes. The past month or to it is very hit and miss if he has more than 1 nap a day in nursery and somedays he is only having 45minutes in total. When I pick him up he is obviously exhausted. They tell me they have tried to settle him but he has refused his nap.

I am sat here having for the past 2 hours tried to get him to settle. I don't know if I am doing it right. I tried settling him by rubbing his back, then leaving him-he screams and I pop back every 10mins.Usually I just lie him down and rub his back. Then leave again. I had this last night and in the end I ended up picking him up and he fell asleep on me.

It is like he has forgotten how to self settle and only wants to sleep on someone. I am trying to make it so we co-sleep after midnight. But I desperately need him to sleep during the day and at least at the start of the night. He sleep seems to of got worse over the past month. I have gone from having a baby who would sleep during the day and at least go down at night no problem. Now I have a screaming exhausted baby. I really want to avoid CIO, but am so desperate.

I have to get things done at the weekend and I need to get some sleep myself at night. I just need some good advice please

I would strongly suspect teething at this age, particularly if he's settled alright before. My good sleeper was only ever trouble when teeth were erupting.

Have you tried all the usual remedies in abundance? Teething gel, calpol, ibuprofen?

Otherwise, just try and get him down for the night earlier to avoid any further overtiredness - it will pass.

Hi that sounds very hard.
Not sure how helpful this is but my first thought was he is obviously as you say getting very overtired.
Will he sleep in a buggy or only on someone?
I would try to get the naps in any which way and break the overtired cycle.
With my DS who is now 11 months - cracking the naps and migrating these into the cot only when his sleep times were sorted helped the nights to improve. Even now if he gets too tired he is much more likely to wake in the night.
Do you think they leave him to cry at nap time at nursery ? If so might it be worth also spending some play time with him in his cot each day to make sure there isn't any negative association there?

In any case if it's been going on for over a month I think in your shoes I would want a meeting with the nursery to see what else they can suggest. If they have him for 5 days you won't be able to achieve much without their help. My DS nursery for example would use a vibrating bouncer for a baby who couldn't settle. I am not suggesting by the way they leave him to cry in a CIO way - am just realistic that they can't be as responsive as we might be (I have two DCs very happy at nursery)

Good luck.

I am sure it is not teeth. Have tried the calpol etc. Yesterday after 3 hours I ended up letting him fall asleep on me. DH tried the evening put down. He used to always be asleep at 7pm. Last night was till 10pm. DH even tried getting in the cot with him. He ended up having to fall asleep on my DH.

He will also nap in the car and occasionally in the pram. Just feel gutted I worked really hard before nursery making sure he could self settle and would go down for naps easily. They even commented on that when he started. Now he can only settle unless we go for a drive on one of us. I will talk to nursery tomorrow. Thanks for the advice. Since it seems to be getting worse rather than better. They tell me they try rubbing his back and doing the shush pat approach but that is not working.

I'm coming at this from the pov of a mum with a baby who has allergies, so feel free to ignore if you don't think thus is relevant...

My rubbish sleeper was in fact sleeping ok at 9/10m old, but then we had a similar experience to that which you describe. To cut a long story short, her ever increasing amd varied diet contained more and more of the food (egg) that she couldn't tolerate - her sleep was crap because she was uncomfortable in a way that calpol couldn't fix. Is it worth looking at his diet to see if there is something that is upsetting him? Dairy products often upset LOs (temporarily) as their wee tums can't quite process them yet.

Good luck, it's hard when they sleep dodge.

I also have an allergic baby and had a very similar experience. Especially with night sleep.

Another thing that happened at this she was dropping to one nap at midday. He was exhausted for a week or so but he then started napping for around two hours and has done since.