please tell me this is temporary!

[BauerTime]

11mo DS has recently become impossible to settle after his night feed and is currently walking round the lounge as if its the middle of the day (woke at 2am). He wakes for bottle, then spends the next hour at least thrashing about, sitting up whilst asleep and then falling back to a laying position, rolling around and generally being unsettled. He is asleep for most of this, or at least semi-asleep. I unfortunately can not sleep whilst this is going on as i have to bring him into our bed because otherwise he continuously smashes his head into the sides and ends of the cot.

some nights he will eventually settle, and others he will fully wake like tonight.

he has also stopped going to sleep at bedtime. He usually has a bath, bottle then straight down to sleep, but for the past week we have had to resort to driving him round in the car for 15 mind or so to get him off so that we can actually go to bed ourselves.

I am really struggling with this. Up until recently, aside from illness, he has always slept fairly well, usually just waking the once for a bottle and then going back to sleep. I could cry. He doesn't nap well either, today he had 2 maybe 30 minute naps so ive had zero time to do anything and no break from him. My only break is sleep and that's been a total of 3 hours tonight. Lucky me.

I think he is on the verge of walking unaided so im hoping that this is a result of that. Once hr nails it please tell me that normal service will be resumed!

How is his eating? Presumably he's on 3 good meals a day plus snacks.

He really shouldn't need a night feed at 11mo. I wonder if you were to phase it out altogether his nights would be undisturbed > ergo he may be less likely to wake at all.

We are in the process of phasing it out. I'm doing less scoops than oz of water in a bottle and will reduce over the next week or so until its just water. I'm not sure about going cold turkey as its so hot at night i don't want to take away any fluid at the moment. If reducing the milk powder doesn't work though we'll try this next.

i know we probably should have done this sooner than 11m but he is always ill and so its never really been the right time before and i was hoping he would drop it naturally but he wakes for it earlier now if anything rather than going longer.

Could it be a wonder week? If so, it's a case of riding out, whilst trying not to introduce (or re-introduce) bad sleep associations (e.g. feeding to sleep, if that's something you don't want to do).

What happens if you just leave him? I know DD often sounds like she's really thunking the side of the cot (usually with her legs, rather than her head) while she's asleep, but it never actually wakes her up or upsets her.

Your poor DS . And poor you - it's so stressful when they're ill.

My DD is definitely more unsettled just before she has a developmental leap, so perhaps when he figures out the walking that may help too, as you say.

Oh, and even though DD has been night-feed-free for ages, we always keep a sippy cup of water in her room in case she wakes up thirsty.

I'm hoping its a wonder week!

its definitely his head he is hitting, ive stood and watched him. He sits up in his sleep and then falls back down. This can go on for an hour or more so im not comfortable to just leave him as its so many knocks to the head!

I think that the problem is partly because he usually (outside if illness) gets so sleepy on the bottle that we have always been able to just put him down and he rolls onto his side and is asleep. So any deviation on this he we cant cope with!

My niece is a nightmare sleeper and in terrified that we are heading that way. My sister had been doing what we are currently going through every night for over 2 years and i know i couldn't cope with that.

50% of me knows we have to just ride it out, but 50% of me is thinking that if this turns permanent then it will be all our fault for not bring able to stop it.

I'm at a complete loss what to do. I know the night bottle has to go and i want to sort that by the time i return to work in 3 weeks but if that doesn't help then I'm buggered!