I can't have another night like last night......

[Olipop]

I'm at desperation point. My lo is 8 1/2 months old. He goes down to sleep in his cot around 7pm. Around 9.30 'the waking' begins. He wakes and cries, I feed him (bf) and put him down. If I'm lucky he'll sleep, if I'm not he'll cry and I pick him up and try to settle him. This cycle has been getting progressively worse with wakings every hour or so for the last couple of nights. Around 3.30 he hits crisis point where nothing will settle (but I can tell he wants to be asleep) and I end up going into the spare room. He'll then bash me around for 45 mins or so then fall asleep. He wakes here and there and I just feed him.
I don't know what to do. Please help..he used to be quite good at sleeping (never slept through though) but I can't carry on like this.
Thanks

my dd was like this and i work full time. i solved it by co-sleeping which i still do. she sleeps in her cot till i am ready to do go bed and whenever she wakes after that she stays the rest of the night with us. i am still bf at 18 months. she goes to nursery full time and has never had vomiting or diarreah or a course of antibiotics.

i vaguely remember 'encouraging' her to stay in her cot till i was ready for bed myself. its probably part teething and reaching developmental milestones where they are more aware of their surroundings and realise that you and them are separate people who can be in separate places - scary to them. it is the onset of separation anxiety. i realised around this stage that i couldn't do cc so went to partial co sleeping route.

thanks for everyones advice..I'm going to get an early night in preparation. Thanks again..I've been reading out your posts to my dh.

Olipop - do you think that the dummy could be part of the problem? It's another prop which he could develop a need for, until you find yourself having to go in just as many times at night to replace it as to feed.

Just don't want to think of you having to do CC now, then again at a later point to get rid of the dummy, and again to get rid of the 1am feed (which I really don't think he needs from what you've said he eats in the day).

Good news from my end - DD woke from her afternoon nap after half an hour (friend's baby screaming disturbed her), and for the first time ever during the day, she resettled herself. Took her 7 or 8 mins, so was happy that I was delayed getting to her by watching another friend's LO whilst friends shuffled cars on drive!

Last night she woke at 4 and took 45 mins to resettle, but that's the first proper night wake for a few days now.

olipop
if hes napping 45mins and then 2hrs thats quite a bit, i would definitely shorthen that 1st one, bring his lunch nap a bit closer to noon let him have the big nap then and see how it goes.

olipop my ds at 8 1/2 was still breast fed but i stopped the night feeds at that point,(i had engouh and also had my dd) he got a good feed an hour before his bedtime, 7.30pm and there were 3 nights he woke but it was no more from me and after that slept like a rock. he got plenty of food and 3 feeds in the day from me, and i feed him am and pm til 13mths from 9mths.

Co-sleep? is that wise? what about sex life?

lol mmad! Don't think those of us with non-sleeping babies have one of those anyway (or is it just me ?). The problem we had with co-sleeping was that DD didn't actually sleep that way!

cosleepers still have a sexlife. why would that not be possible?

is it wise? yes. that is how we evolved and the majority of babies in the world still sleep.

Hi Olipop. If you're unsure about controlled crying, perhaps you could try just sitting beside ds' cot (no eye contact etc) while he tries to settle himself. That way you won't feel like you're abandoning him. Once he gets used to settling himself with you there, you can move further away each night, until eventually you should be able to leave the room for a few minutes and he won't get upset. Then one day you'll find he falls asleep while you're out of the room and there you go - problem solved!!

Have only skimmed the thread, so sorry if this has already been suggested! Good luck anyway !

I can only continue to recommend Dr Richard Ferber's Solve Your Child's Sleeping Problems. If you would like to borrow it you can email me on

lovelymarslady at aol dot com.

Sorted my DTs in a week!

thanks again everyone. He woke at 9.30, I sh'd him and he settled. The next wake up was dead on 1am. I didn't feed him (on everyones advice)and it took a while to settle hime...an hour and 45 minutes in all but he certainly wasn't crying the whole time...bit of wriggling and getgting up on his knees (I set the video monitor up in the bedroom so that I could be sure he wasn't crying from being stuck!) In the end he settled and woke again at 5.30. I classed that as morning, opened the curtains and gave him a big feed. He had a 45 minute nap this morning at 8am and 1 1/2 hrs at 12.30. He was very very tired tonight and went down at 6.30.
DH is in the spare room again tonight and we're ready to go.
With regards to the dummy I just dont feel I can take it away yet. He sometimes settles fine without it (like tonight).

sounds like things went relatively well and he's definitely not hungry at 1am!
Mine settles with a dummy and he never wakes looking for it - we only started giving it to him to sleep though at around 8.5 months, along with a fave stuffed animal so together they would act as bedtime signals. It worked a treat.

Anyway I'm sure tonight will be better for you. Well done!

Well done Olipop. I bet the 1hr 45mins will reduce significantly if he wakes at the same time tonight.

Good news from us - DD settled last night within 2 mins of going to bed and slept for 10 hours exactly!
She's had 2 long naps during the day today, so just hoping she doesn't shorten her 10 hours any more tonight. Would love to find a way to move some of the daytime sleep to nighttime now, but hoping that will come naturally in time. For the moment she can't really manage more than a 4 hour stretch of being awake.

Hope we both have good nights tonight.