I've made a mess and I don't know how to clear it up

[BathshebaNessling]

I need to do something about my 11 month old's sleeping, but have no idea what to do. This will be long.

Last night she woke up at midnight (and was brought straight in with us; we developed a policy of path-of-least-resistance a little while ago), then at 3.30, 5.30 and up at 6 for the day. I am currently feeding her every time she wakes up as it has allowed us all to get more sleep, but the wakings seem to be getting worse not better, and I'm back at work in about six weeks. I wouldn't mind the co-sleeping if she was up once and then settled for the night (and when we started bringing her in with us a few months ago this is what happened - it solved the problem of multiple attempts to feed her to sleep and put her back in her cot without waking her: I could feed her lying down and she tending to sleep through till morning - but it's deterioriated.) I would prefer her to sleep in her cot though, but if this needs fixing in stages, fewer wake ups and less night feeding are the priorities.

I am slowly trying to break the habit of feeding her to sleep when we initially put her down, and probably 2 nights out of three she goes from awake to sleep in the cot with 20-30 minutes whinging. On a bad night it can take up to an hour of crying, crawling, rolling, and generally crashing about like a tiny, sleepy, confused drunk. I feed her till sleepy, we use white noise, she has a snuggly toy she's never taken a blind bit of interest in and she's never had a dummy. We sit with her, usually hand resting on her depending on how much she's rolling around, and wait till she goes to sleep.

Naps are also not good. I can only get her to sleep in the bouncy chair. The plan was to transition to the cot once her naps extended - but they STILL haven't consistently. About 50% of the time she does a crap 30 minute nap and wakes up tired. She cannot be persuaded back to sleep any sooner than about 2.5-3 hours after waking up, no matter how tired she is from short nap. It just won't happen. About 50% of the time we get a good nap - anywhere from an hour to 2.5 hours. We're mostly on two naps a day, but still occasionally three if she wakes early, and the first and second are both crapnaps. Her feet are off the end of the bouncy chair but I don't know where to begin getting her off in cot. It isn't a quick thing at night, even after a wind-down routine and factoring in her tiredness after crap naps.

What do I do with this baby?!

Other relevant information:
Weaning is shitty pile of crap. She eats very little. Completely uninterested, doesn't seem to understand she's supposed to swallow it. I fear she may need at least one night feed, so not sure about cutting it out altogether. I also worry that all the night feeds are getting in the way of her getting properly hungry in the daytime. Weirdly, she did an amazing 4.5 month stint of sleeping through (went down when we went to bed, woke up about 7ish; she never missed a night) from 11 weeks onwards. It all turned to shit at about 7 months, precipitated by a bad cold and we just never recovered.

Thoughts/suggestions? I'm not sure I'm at the controlled crying stage yet (not against it, but unless I'm at the end of my rope I'm not sure I could power through it - I'd just give in). It is starting to get my down though and I can feel myself losing patience with her - she's such a sweet, smiley baby and I find myself wanting to cry when she wakes up after every shit nap or 1.5 hours after her last night feed. I just don't know what to do!

Hi there

Sleep has always been a concern of mine since my son was born. He woke up every two hours to feed day and night until I got a sleep trainer in at 12 weeks and she fixed some major issues.

1. Cut the night feeds. My sleep trainer is a paediatric nurse and she said once baby is over 12lb, they have the physical capacity to cut night feeds. My son went from 4 night feeds to none in 24 hours. The technique is whenever she wakes, shhh and pat her back to sleep.

1. She's using your boob as a comforter. Every baby needs something to comfort them. My sleep trainer bought a jelly cat comforter and it's been at my son's side since he was 12 weeks old. Now if he wakes up, he will find it and then soothes himself. He still wakes once a night just for cuddles (he sleeps in his own room and in his own bed) but I can live with that.

1. Hunger. I note that you said baby is not interested in food, this may be why as she's hungry at night.

1. Naps. Good naps feed into good sleep at night. Have a strict routine about when to fall asleep and when to wake up. Try anything and everything. I spent weeks kneeling next to his cot to make him nap. I don't use the cry down method. If he cries, I will put the conforter on him and then give him a cuddle, then he associates the comforter with positive feeling. When he cries, I picked him up after 1min, calmed down, put down, cried, picked up. This last for weeks but it paid off. Try to sort out the day time sleep first and you will notice good night time sleep.

Hope the above helps x

Thanks for your response. Maybe daytime sleep is the thing to begin with. It's just so variable! I'm pretty good at getting her off (although I'm on borrowed time with the bouncy chair) but if she wakes after 30 minutes we're screwed - she won't go back off for love nor money but is already tired when she wakes up.

Re: points 1 and 3, don't they sort of cancel each other out? She isn't eating much, so do you still think it's possible to just cut night feeds given that? I'm worried I'm just going to have a Tired, frantically hungry baby on my hands by 4am.

Hello

Yes I guess point 1 and 3 do kind of cancel itself. My little one was only 12 weeks when I trained him so solids wasn't an issue and he was downing 8oz of milk 4 times a day. I'm not sure how to help a baby who isn't interested in solids. Saying that may be encourage your little one to have bigger feeds and less frequently?

If she wakes up 30mins after a nap, try to put her down again. My son occasionally wakes up 40 mins after for hi 2 hour nap. I will just go in of his room, comfort him and then put him back to sleep for another hour or so.

X

No solutions to offer but just wanted to say you haven't made a mess of anything! It's not your fault, some babies are more challenging than others, they are sent to try us! Don't be hard on yourself you can't mess your baby up at this age, everything is a phase. She may be teething. I fed my baby when he woke at night up til 15 months when I first introduced a sippy cup to feed and then started to only offer water at night. He was upset at first for two nights but then dramatically upped his solids to make up for it. At 11 months I just fed for an easy life though..not sure if he would have been too young then.

You definitely haven't made a mess of anything! Some babies have just different needs. My DS is certainly a challenge to get to sleep.

He is at almost 9 months and after some time of sleeping through and cutting all night feeds, he started waking up again several times a night and I made the mistake of feeding him to sleep and now I am a bit stuck. I am also not against CC but want to try everything else first. Our naps are similar to yours, so not ideal either...

So you are not alone! Could your DC be teething? I think it was teething (and a holiday that threw his routine) that messed things up for us. It also gets in the way of their appetite for solids...

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