Sleep training 12mo

[Goostacean]

Something needs to change and I’d appreciate advice on getting it right please!

12mo, just shy of 13months, currently naps either once or twice a day. He’s starting to go down to 1 nap but after a few days of 1 nap (say 11am-1pm) he’s tired at 10am and then needs a second nap to get through the afternoon. He breastfeeds before the naps and then self-settles, same at bedtime.

Bedtime is 7.30pm and when he wakes in the night, I breastfeed him unless it’s an 11pm waking where he’s usually banged his head on the cot and woken himself up.

My work is intense and last night I slept only 23.30-06.00 with FOUR wake ups. It’s BS, might as well have a flipping newborn. I can’t function like this. Any suggestions on how to proceed??

@Goostacean have you tried short-long? So say 20min nap 10-10:20 (wake them up if have to) then decent long nap say 2-4pm with bedtime 7:30 sleeping 8pm-7am hopefully.

At 1yo it is (imo) a bit early for only one sleep and bad nights mean the baby may be overtired.

I would also try to separate breastfeeding from sleep routine (but this may be easier said then done). The advice is to BF, then put to bed and try to settle after. Some other things which may help the baby to sleep better would be complete darkness (like blinds on windows), white noise (some like it, some don't care).

Thanks for your reply! We’ve got blackout blinds and I use white nose as there have been a lot of building works going on near us.

I agree about the overtiredness but he’s taken to often fighting naps, which is a new development... if it takes him 40+ mins to fall asleep (with no apparent issues eg dirty nappy) then it’s almost impossible to fit two naps (of a decent length) in.

The short-long idea is interesting and I’ve not heard of it or tried it. Maybe it’s worth a shot! I’ve tried to separate breastfeeding and sleep trained in this regard at 5mo which was successful. Within 3-4 days he was no longer feeding/rocking to sleep and instead it was a feed, kiss, pop him down and he’d drop off by himself. Now he’s refusing to do that. And at night I get lazy because obviously I’m half-conscious too...

Can you use the exact same sleep training method you did that worked at 5 months again? We sleep trained at 5.5 months and then had to do it again at 11 months due to regressions/bad habits on my side/illness and it worked within a few days and we all got our sleep back! Hope you find something that works for you as the sleep deprivation is the worst!

It really is... we did “controlled crying” of whatever it’s called, when you reassure them at intervals. The problem is the baby shares with my toddler and I’m nervous of toddler being disturbed for ages at a time by screaming baby... maybe a few nights of pain is worth the long term gain!

Well we’ve decided to start tonight. Our eldest is away overnight so at least he won’t be disturbed, and DH will be the one going in, reassuring, offering a cup of water, shushing then re-entering at longer and longer intervals... If anyone has any advice or experience, please do share before the evening! 😰

Good luck! All I will say is that the second time we sleep trained with controlled crying he was reaalllly stubborn and i think the first night we were going in and out for a total of 2 hours (!!!) until he finally went to sleep. He’d never taken that long the first time around but it really did make a huge difference to his bedtimes/sleeping through the night even after one night of controlled crying. Fingers and toes crossed for you! Xx

Thanks. Gosh that’s intense... he falls asleep beautifully at bedtime, the issue is the repeated night wakings and associated breastfeeding, unfortunately. Hard to keep your resolve in the middle of the night though!

I feel you!! I follow/ed Taking Cara Babies religiously and it just worked for us for any sleep problems, maybe look her up on Instagram! Hope tonight goes well xx

Well it was okay... normal bedtime, 40mins of total rage when it was DH and not I that kept appearing to settle him from 2am, then 30mins of grumbling. Then settled instantly with DH at 6.30am, and his 7.20 wake up I’ve come up to feed him with white noise off and blind a bit open to signify the start of the day. Hopefully tonight will be even better! But that’s still one fewer wake up than usual, already. Probably a fluke!

Yay! Hopefully not a fluke. Fingers crossed tonight is even better xx

Well second night he fussed/low key cried between 4-5am, but the RAGE had gone. And last night I think he was only up once! And resettled with DH nicely. So I really hope by the end of the week he’ll be doing roughly 7-7, although he’s got his vaccinations today so there’s a reasonable chance it all goes to pot...