11 month old bad sleep associations

[Hoolahlah66]

Apologies for the long post but please read and reply as I’m desperate.

My baby is 11 months in a couple of weeks and i am at the end of my rope with his sleep habits. He has never settled himself and it’s all our fault and I fear there is no way out!

When he was around 3 months old my husband came up with the ingenious (!) idea to cradle him whilst gently bouncing in a gym ball - baby almost instantly fell asleep! Great right? Here we are 8 months down the line and 13kg and he still has to be put to sleep in the exact same way. Some nights he will go down with his bottle (another bad sleep association). But other times he will suck the bottle dry then cry Until he is bounced to sleep which can take anywhere from half an hour to and hour and a half. Sometimes he wakes in the night and just lies in my arms in a daze, no crying, whilst I’m bouncing on the ball and it’s a battle of will as to who will give in first.

Our backs can’t take it anymore! As a side note he is also a very tantrumy baby. Possible separation anxiety at the moment, as I can’t even leave him playing on the floor in the living room and walk 10 feet to the kitchen for more than 20 seconds (in full view of him) without him making a whingy cry And chasing after me at full speed and climbing up my legs until I pick him up. I have to be on the floor with him at all times, heaven forbid I attempt to sit on The sofa or chair whilst he is playing on the floor at my feet.

I really don’t think the crying out method will work as he gets so worked up to the point of sweating and snivelling. He also cries whenever I lay him on his back to change his nappy any time of the day. I don’t know if there is something wrong with him, but he is just so needy and can also be very aggressive grabbing my face and really purposefully pulling my hair out all the time even when he is happy, constantly climbing up me and throws a fit if I stop him from doing something ( like climbing on the open dishwasher door Or trying to eat the dogs food). He is almost walking and physically quite advanced and is a big boy (100th percentile for height weight and head size) but seems to also act like a stroppy 2 year old.

Sorry for the rambling post but I have searched high and low for ideas but the crying it out makes it sound so easy (after a week baby should be self soothing etc) but I just know it won’t work for us!

What have you tried so far?

Nothing really, I just don’t know where to start. I’ve switched his daytime feeds to before nap so I can’t put him to sleep with a bottle rather than bouncing but obviously that isn’t sustainable either. He isn’t a frequent walker in the night but also has never slept through.

Whinging and clinginess during the day is a sure sign of a baby who is sleep deprived and very over tired. It sounds like you need a complete overhaul of your baby's sleep, including daytime naps.

I have no doubt that you'll be mega surprised at how different your baby behaves generally when he isn't so chronically overtired.

What is baby's current daytime routine?

When does he go to sleep for daytime naps, usually for how long, where does he sleep and how do you get him to sleep for these?

Also, what is his feeding and eating routine for the day? It is at routined times? Does he feed in the night?

So hi routine is normally:

6.30 wake and bottle
7.30-8 breakfast
9.30 nap for around 40 mins (hour on a good day. Get him to sleep by bouncing as previously described.
11.30-12 lunch
2-2.30 nap for around an hour maybe once a week he will surprise me and sleep for an hour and a half.
5pm dinner
6.30 wind down story and bath etc
7pm bottle and bed often bouncing if bottle doesn’t send him off.

Wakes around 12pm for a bottle but often won’t go back to sleep without the whole bouncing routine can be awake for about an hour and a half and will. He is generally ok and doesn’t wake often but when he does it’s a major battle to settle him back down and as I said he is just getting too big And we know he has to learn to sleep by himself. I just don’t know what sleep training method would be best and where to start really!

Before you start thinking about sleep training, there are some other things to consider first.

You mention baby never liking to lie on back. Have you had this checked medically? It could be reflux - whereby stomach acid flows upwards from stomach giving baby a burning pain. One of the symptoms of reflux is when baby doesn't like lying flat. There are lots of medications you can get to solve reflux.

You can raise one end of baby's cot (say by putting a tin of tuna under the legs at the head end). That helps so baby is lying on a flat surface, but by being tilted his head is above his stomach, helping digestion issues.

Another thing to consider is, is baby getting enough calories? I have experience of a large baby; my youngest was a 91st centile chunk. She ate huge, huge amounts as a baby. You mentioned in your OP about a bottle being drained and this is what made me think of calories. It should be that baby never finishes a bottle, always offer more milk than baby will drink.

So consider, how is weaning going? If baby is eating finger food, is enough being actually eaten? Are you giving enough of all food groups, including a focus on protein (often more difficult to get into baby, with how difficult meat is to chew)? Are there plenty of carbs and fats? Try to keep most/all calories from savoury food rather than sweet things like fruit. Is baby drinking enough, in terms of fluids and milk?

For daytime naps, is baby sleeping in your arms or are you putting him down once asleep? What's he like if you go for a big walk? Since baby responds to the repetitive movement of bouncing to sleep, a pram walk may lull baby to sleep in a similar way.

Finally - question about your parenting style. What is your balance of needs between being willing to take your time and make gradual changes over a long time frame, or wanting quicker results and being willing to tolerate baby being distressed to achieve that? It's a sliding scale, not one thing or another. But it comes down to how much distress you would be able to tolerate, for some families it is none, others might consider a little, others more and so on.