Can't get my 11 month old to go from standing to lying down in his cot

[cazzawoo]

Hi,
Looking for any help on the issue that we're currently struggling with below as it has been going on for months now and I can't keep going on with so little sleep.

My son is now 11 months old and is a very bad sleeper. We've been trying to sleep train him using no cry approaches as we once did a controlled crying session and neither baby nor I to could take another one of those!

Our routine: bath, breastfeed, story, lights out, put him in his cot (sleepy but still awake), put on white noise. He starts crying as soon as he realised he’s being put into his cot and as soon as I’ve put him down he pulls himself up to standing holding on to the cot edge. At this point I pick him up enough to move him from standing to lying down on his side. This can take at least a dozen times before he starts to lay down for long enough for me to hand on his belly and another on his back (to stop him from rolling) and I rub his back. He cries through most of this time, not hysterically though. I speak to him throughout saying “it’s just sleepy time” and “don’t worry mummy’s here”. His toy monkey is next to him in the cot.

When he wakes in the night the first thing I hear is him crying through the monitor and when I go into his room he’s stood up holding the edge of the cot. So I pick him up enough to move him from standing to lying down on his side and repeat as above. He can wake any number of times from just 5 or 6 to almost nearly every hour (and some really bad night he literally wakes up 10 minutes after falling asleep!).

My partner and I both work and we just can’t keep this up any longer. Any advice would be greatly received in terms of alternative approaches or how we best deal with getting him to lie down himself. Should we physically move him into the lying down position or just encourage him to lie down? When we’ve tried just asking him to do this it has taken over an hour to get him to actually lie down, stay down and fall asleep.
Many thanks for your support!!
XXX

Lots of sympathy from me. My son is twelve months and is very nimble at standing up. We have a video monitor so I will wait for a couple of mins t see if he will lower himself down.. During the day he will at night (once or twice a night) nothing like what u go through! And he will not lower himself down. So frustrating! I thought it was hard when they couldn't move let alone this.
Do u dream feed at ten ish at all? X

We have a very similar problem with our 11mth old. I have taken to staying in the room with her at bedtime, and laying her down every time she stands up. The first time I say "sleep time" and then after that I am boring mummy with no eye contact or talking. I keep doing it until she falls asleep. The first time it took me an hour and a half in the middle of the night which was tough but after that it improved to 15 mins at bedtime and just once in the night. I think that by falling asleep in her cot on her own (altho I was in the room) she wasn't developing another crutch for sleep - previously we'd been patting her for hours!! I wonder if by stroking and talking to him he needs you to help him fall asleep and then can't resettle himself in the middle of the night? We certainly saw a reduction in night wakings after we did this. I hope that helps x

My 1yo ds is exactly the same, EXACTLY, down to what you describe about waking every hour, sometimes within 10mins of going to sleep. He pops up immediately, I sometimes think he can't even roll over without waking and standing.
It's so very hard, I'm getting bugger all sleep, just as I doze off he's up again.
I'm trying to get him to self settle as we had good results with that, but it seems to have all gone wrong again. Newest development is an incredibly loud screeching when he realises I'm not going to pick him up and rock him to sleep. His throat must ache!
Much sympathy , OP.

Hi, sorry to hear you seem to be going through the same as me and my family!
It's so frustrating and exhausting. I've come on these forums as I think I've exhausted my welcome talking to other family members and friends about my battle to get our ten month old daughter to nap/go to bed/sleep through.
She's never slept well and she's never slept through totally. She's gone from crying when rocked to crying when put down and now she can pull herself up she repeatedly does so for at least 2 hrs at a time every bed time. Naps aren't much better, she'll sometimes go the whole day with just a one hour nap at 10:30-11:30am and she'll still fight bedtime sleep for hours.
Then she'll wake every hour at night.
At 7 months old I tried the cry it out method as I couldn't take any more battles for sleep day and night and it was affecting my 5 year olds sleep. Cry it out didn't work even though we were consistent with it for a month. My friends have sworn by it and I do think it's a good method for them but it just didn't work on getting my baby to sleep better. I then tried going back to basics and rocking her etc but she fights that relentlessly too. Now She's 10 months old she can't be held easily when she's planking lol and kicking. So comforting and rocking doesn't work either. Nor the staged withdrawal. If I try to settle her in her bed it seems to make her worse and if I stay I the room she keeps trying to get to me. I'm at the end of my tether, I'm tearful most nights because I know the battle ahead and it feels traumatic for her and us. I try my best to put a brave face on but I constantly worry it's me doing everything wrong.
Sorry I don't have any advice or tips as nothing has worked for me. I've shamelessly hijacked your post hoping someone can suggest something.
My dd is bottle fed but she's never been comforted by a bottle so doesn't get sleepy off one. My eldest slept great so I don't know what I've done wrong this time.
Hugs to you all X

Sounds silly but does he know how to lie himself down?

My baby does this too, although it was cured after a few nights of putting him back again and again! I don't think I did anything differently, just luck and personality!

Sorry, that was meant to make you feel better. As in, I have no magic expertise. It came across as gloating which after waking at 5am, I am definitely NOT doing. X

We hired a sleep consultant when DD was a similar age, and this is quite a common problem I think. I can give you some of the tips she gave us.

Firstly, make lying down a game out of the cot. I would pretend to fall to the ground, pat it, and say 'mummy lie down, can DD lie down?' She thought this was funny and started to lie down when I patted the floor, we then moved the same technique to the cot.

Also, when you put DS into the cot, put him in sitting up, not lying down. As a PP said, a lot of the time they don't actually know how to lie themselves down.

So, I would put DD in the cot, or the mattress and say lie down, which she would. Of course, this would have to be repeated several times and there were tears involved, but it helped so much as she was able to settle herself from a sitting position if she got up during the night (we later had to put her in standing up as we encountered problems further down the road, again, this really helped).

Hope this helps!