Letting his sleep cycles run my life -- and going MAD in the process!

[TS123]

I've been "going with the flow" when it comes to DS's sleep needs. I haven't been a believer (so far) in setting a strict sleep schedule -- I don't stomach the thought of keeping a tired baby awake, nor waking a sleeping baby and everything I've ever heard about "getting your baby on a schedule" involves doing these things from time to time. That being said, I've reached the limits of my tolerance because DS (now 11 months old) is sleeping at night at 6:00/6:30pm, waking at 4:30/5am, napping at 8:00am (for 30 minutes) then again at 11:30/noon (for 1 1/2 hours). DH and I are exhausted waking at that hour, I'm always rushing to feed DS his lunch and he's usually too tired to eat well, and we can never take him out for supper because he's too tired. In the past, if I've tried moving his sleep times slowly (by 15 minutes every day), he seems to be so sensitive. He never sleeps any later in the morning despite a later bedtime, so he's more tired the next day and if I stretch his nap times even a little later, he's overtired and takes longer to settle to sleep and sleeps less. HELP! What should I do? Have others had success adjusting their child's sleep schedule? I really need some advice.

I would say, if you have reached that point of desperation, to...

set a bedtime convenient for you, we have chosen 7pm as it gives dh an hour with dd when he comes in, but it gets her out of the way so we get an evening to ourselves,

then...stick to it! following a little routine can help
ie bath, story, bed...

but you have to stick to it!!

(we found night time bath didnt work as it excites her so much, so she has a morning bath)

I dont know how you are feeding, but you can cc at 11 mths can sleep for the whole night no feeds, so leave to cry for 1 min, then go in and say ssshhhh
then another 5mins, if still crying, say ssssh

then 10 mins , say sssh from the doorway ETC

then see how it goes, slowly am waking should get later, esp. as darker in early mornings now,

then through the day get used to waking the baby up to keep the nights smooth if neccessary..

30min nap about 10/11am
approx an hour nap after lunch
30 mins nap no later than 5pm

there are lots of books available that can help, it takes 1week -2wks for results so you do have to grit your teeth and be determined, but at the end of the day a happier mama = a happier child.

hope this helps, best of British

Thanks,
I agree that I really have to just pick a bedtime and stick to it. I aim for 7pm but when DS looks so tired, and I'm knackered myself -- I just can't resist putting him to bed early to get an extra 30 minutes to myself (but then I pay for it in the morning). I've never been consistent for 2 weeks so maybe that's why I've never seen results. One thing that I can't imagine is stretching DS to a 10:30/11am naptime! He currently won't last even 3.5 hours from the time he wakes up. If I push him longer, he's hysterical when I do put him down and he wakes up after 15-20 minutes crying (clearly very overtired). Optimistically, if he ever sleeps until 6am, that naptime would still be very hard. To answer some of your other questions: he rarely ever wakes in the night, and I never feed him if he does; we follow a consistent bedtime routine and I never have bedtime or naptime battles. That's why a big part of me thinks I should leave well-enough alone. Do you think there's a chance he'll outgrow this on his own?

have you tried "waking to sleep" - if baby is habitually waking you wake them an hour before they regularly wake the theory being that this disrupts their sleep cycle and sends them into a new one ... the Baby Whisperer talks about this and there is a website you can check.