My ds will be turning 1yr in 10 days time. I am seriously at my wits end now, mainly through lack of sleep.
We have had him in a routine from very early on, goes to bed at 7.30pm - a slight nightmare in itself if we are ever to venture out the house at this time because as soon we reach bedtime we have major tamtrums if he can not be put into a cot!
He gets himself to sleep within a maximum of half an hour and we dont hear a sound from him once he's gone into his cot - until about 1am. Then all hell seems to break loose! He seems to have decided this is the time to get up???
Screams and cries, wont be settled back in his cot, refuses a breast feed, and just tries to climb off the bed if we put him in with us. We have the room in total darkness but makes no difference to him. After about 20-30 minutes of continually laying him down in his cot his crying quickly escalates into full blown tears and screaming. It's then a battle to try and lay him down, his strength is quite amazing. He refuses to be held if you get him out the cot and for a few weeks it was taken well over an hour for him to eventually fall asleep, but by this time the amount of noise he had made had woke my 4yr old daughter who also then became upset that her brother was crying.
So, for the past few nights I have just been bringing him downstairs, tried not turning on any lights but this didnt deter him from trying to find his toy basket, just made it near impossible for me to see exactly what he was upto, so now we've had lights on and Ellis playing for anything up to 3 hours. Still,no matter what time he eventually decides its time to go back to sleep, 4.10am this morning, he still wakes up bright and breezy at 7.15am. Unlike me who has to drag myself from bed, on the verge of tears!
I really dont know what to do - health visitors advice to begin with was to give him dinner earlier and then a snack closer to bedtime as she thought he must be hungry (even though refuses a night feed?) This has made no difference, he has no interest in food after his dinner, so I resorted to giving him a bottle of formula at bedtime but again, to no avail.
Any advice would be great, am I the only one with a nocturnal child? lol