My 11 month old is still waking 5-6 times a night.

[Leeseyxo]

Hi, this is my first post here. Me and my other half don't know what to do anymore. I'm not looking for him to sleep through but just waking up 2 times or so would be nice.

I don't know what to say really other than my 11 month old son is still waking up 5-6 times a night. He has never slept through and we have only had one night that he has woken up once which was back in May. I'm not sure if it's relevent but he can walk, says a few words and has 7 teeth through.

His daily routine is generally:
8ish - wake-up and have breakfast
10am/11am - have a snack
12pm-2pm - he will nap, this varies a lot, sometimes he will be down for 11am or 1pm and will sleep from 30 minutes to 2 1/2 hours.
? - Lunch is usually around half hour after he wakes up.
3pm/4pm - he will have another snack
4pm-5pm - Sometimes he will nap. He could be shattered and absolutely refuse to nap and other times he will try to sleep to around 6pm.
5:30pm-6pm - dinner
6:30pm-7pm - bath
???- bed. If he skips his 2nd nap he will go bed anywhere from 6pm to 8pm but has gone bed later. If he has a 2nd nap he won't go bed any earlier than 8:30pm.

He doesn't use a dummy but he does go to his naps and bed with a bottle of milk and at wake-ups at night time we just give him water now. Once he has had his bottle at night he usually rolls over and goes straight back to sleep (he has been a tummy sleeper since we got rid of his dummy at 5 months). He uses a sippy cup throughout daytime/awake time.

I've tried to get him into a routine but if I put him bed and he isn't tired I will know about it. He will scream until he is inconsolable.

Any ideas or advice or anything would be appreciated :)

Babies vary in their routines, mine woke at 5am most days til they were probably 2 ish, first slept though from 3.5 months but was awful before thst - barely got 3 hours a night, second was waking til he was about 2.5 years old - they're all different

Personally I'd try moving back sleep times so sleep around 11am, have lunch and a play, perhaps go out in the pram and get to sleep again by about 2;30pm and not sleep past 4, then start bedtime routine and get to bed for around 7pm ish - but others will probably have a better solution

Have you checked to see if anything in the room is waking him up? Is it warm enough? Too warm? Clicking of heating or light coming through windows?

Personally 2 sleeps a day at that age is a lot. My DD didn't sleep in the day at all from being 1 unless she was beyondddddd exhausted

Maybe try getting him up earlier, keeping to a set routine and cut out that late nap?

My routine is
7-up , medicine and breakfast
8-bath am dressed
10- snack of fruit and chill time
12- diner
(She used to nap after dinner for 45 mins at most )
3-snack
5- tea
Half 6- something light for supper with in the night garden on
7- bed

I have ocd so these are my religious times lol but Both my kids sleep through I cannot complain but I found (since having DC2) keeping to a routine like this really helped. Also with Dc2 she didn't like to sleep as a baby but I knew she was fine and nothing was up with her just a baby wanting to get out of bed to mess. I did leave her to cry for 5mins an then go in and check her an lie her back down if she didn't stop and carried on like that until she eventually gave up
Drained the life out of me but it worked eventually her knowing I wasn't guna go running straight in so she just stoped bothering ! Was abit of a stand off but hey we need sleep an only so much we can take! Xx

No advice, mine did this until 2 and now at 4yo still wakes 2-3 times. I think she's just a git

No advice but I feel your pain about lack of sleep. My DD2 15 months does not sleep! We are up and down like yo-yos and she ends up in our bed every single night. It's bloody exhausting.

He could well be hungry when he wakes in the night and that's what's waking him. My two were ravenous babies when they woke in the night and would take big feeds each time. It took them both until probably 18-20mo before they stopped having a feed when they woke and just a quick drink of water was enough.
They have such huge developmental leaps that it can be hard to keep up with it all 🙂

My DD was the same. We did controlled crying at 11 months and she was sleeping all night after 3 days. Some people don't like the idea of controlled crying but it worked so well for us. She's now 15 and had shown no ill effects!

My 23 month old still wakes 4 or 5 times a night. I feel your pain.

If his last meal is at 530 he will wake up hungry. Try a big bowl of porridge at about 8pm. Then down to bed at 9.
Don't give him a bottle for water in the night as he will be sucking for comfort. Offer him his sippy cup so he can have a drink and then doze back off.
And try shifting the nap times to earlier in the day.
Could he be teething?
Is his room too hot? I always found a cool room and snuggling bed clothes were a better combination.
I do feel for you, keep going.

My 12 month old is slightly better but we found going back to milk at night helped as he was actually hungry.

His routine is

6am wake up

By 7:30am dressed milk and breakfast by this time then play until

9:30 snack

10:00 nap time between now and 11:00am

11:45 ish :- lunch or dinner

1:30pm bottle and snack

Between 2pm-3pm nap

Between 4-5pm dinner and dessert

6:30pm bath stories and bed by 7pm

Naps last anything from 30 mins to 2 hours ( though will tend to skip one of the naps if having a longer one

A good night is a 10pm wake up for bottle and then a 3 am wake up for bottle

Will not take bottle at any other times Tried

I know they say they wake for milk but he will go back to sleep with water but wake a hell of a lot more so figured he was really hungry and not seeking comfort

1 long nap or two short naps should be enough during the day. (Aware every baby is different)

Maybe try keeping him up until after lunch then down for a sleep. TV, running around, games with balls/lights or music, books.

I'd cut out the late nap. Use the above and a splashy bubbly bath followed by books so you're stretching it out and making sure he is tired. Also maybe offer a yoghurt or banana etc before bed to eliminate hunger.

Mines has 1 nap a day in the morning. Dropped the afternoon nap and we just knacker ourselves out so then it's time for bed and sleep.

💐 for you. Broken sleep is torture.

I also resorted to cosleeping and developmental leaps and teething meany a million wake ups. I couldn't focus at work so just brought into bed.

Didn't get sleeping through til after night weaning at 21 mo and even now at 2.5, it's still only maybe once per week.

He stopped napping a couple of months ago having been down to one since 10 mo. It's made bedtime easier but doesn't change amount of waking. Only thing that really helps is not having one of the endless stream of colds and physically knackering him

What does he fall asleep to? Does he fall asleep whilst he's drinking?

A tip I was given by a sleep professional that seems to have definitely improved things for us is whatever they fall asleep to needs to be the same throughout the night. So my son was falling asleep to lullabies but in the night they weren't playing so he was more likely to wake as something was 'different' to when he fell asleep. Now I only play a few and turn off before he's asleep and he falls asleep to silence, and it's silent in the night and he definitely wakes far less often now.

Attached explains it better

Hello, I wanted to offer some advice. I am no expert but I have twins and we had problems with them sleeping through so did lots of reading and spoke to a sleep consultant so these are the tips that we found helped us.

I think they recommend babies of that age sleep for 2.5 hours a day in their naps (1 or 2 quantity wise). My nearly 15 month old twins have two naps a day and average 2-3 hours in total. It wasn’t till they slept properly during the day that they started sleeping properly at night as they say the nighttime is due to tiredness (such a vicious circle)

I would say your routine isn’t giving him enough time to nap and he is too tired when he does go down. There is a certain amount of time they say they can be awake for before they need a rest. If he is waking up at 0800, I would say he needs a nap by at least 1100, and a second nap in the afternoon but we were told to never start a nap after 1530 as they don’t build up enough tiredness to go to bed properly if they nap after this time. I would say he is going to bed too late too, can you try him earlier? He may be too tired hence why he won’t sleep. We were also told to make sure they had as much food as possible during the day and particularly before bed to try to prevent any chance of it being hunger that wakes them up. Does he eat well during the day?

Like I say I’m no expert, just trying to pass on what we were told and found helpful us. It’s so hard when they don’t sleep and it’s awful...I hope it gets better for you soon