Night time wake up strategies - what do you do?

[josiebones]

dd (14mo) has always been abit hit and miss with her sleeping. lulling us into a false sense of security by sleeping through v young, then periodically giving us night time hell since. We have coped, because the really bad nights haven't lasted more than a couple of weeks.
Until now. Since about 11 mo she has got worse and worse, and we are up every night for at least 2 hours (anytime between midnight and 5am), where we try everything we can think of to settle her.
shush, and reassuring hand, water, milk, sometimes painkiller, holding her, leaving her.
So I wondered - what do you do with your 1yo? How do you get back them back to sleep in the shortest time possible?
We both work and are starting to get a little desperate..

this sounds v similar to DS. Slept through from 7 weeks 7-7. Then at 20 weeks with the arrival of the first tooth it all changed. We now have days of 7.30-6/6.30 but we also have weeks of very disturbed nights. DS is now 19 months. I wish I had a solution for you. It does seem to be highly correlated to teething so really we have no choice but to wait for painkillers to work. Now he's a little older I can ask him what's wrong (always teeth) and explain it to him, but it still takes time. I will watch this thread with interest to see if anyone has any solutions!

with ds (15 months) I try to leave him for as long as possible before going to him (its a big effort to get out of bed in the middle of the night!) If he does not seem to be settling and/or the crying gets louder and more persistant then I go to his room, give him a quick cuddle if required, give him his taggy blankets, soft toys back, switch on his music box and leave him to settle again. I rarely offer water, I never offer milk and I stay in the room for the shortest possible time. I would then repeat the above if required. He mostly sleeps through but still has some bad nights when teething or ill, or sometimes just because!!

I'm watching too, dd 18months is a nightmare, a bloody nightmare, she seems to cotton on to what we are trying to do very fast, and then any sleep training doesn't work any more

Sounds like my DS (DC2). Gave up in the end and brought him in with us. Now he is nearly 4 he still comes in if he wakes up but is quiet and still and goes straight off. THe rule is that he ALWAYS goes to bed in his own bed. That way DH and I get our eves to ourself. Sorry not very helpful, but it worked for us - he just seems to need us. DD1 and DD2 sleep in their own rooms with no queries -

Will be watching with interest too. DS (16 months) always a good sleeper until he got very poorly just before christmas. Is better now but we're still not guaranteed a good night.

DH and I agreed a strategy which we try to stick to. Otherwise, we were doing different things and then arguing over it. I am 34 weeks pg so sleep is very important to me at the moment!

I don't think our strategy is particularly successful but it's the best we could come up with. When DS wakes, after about 5 mins, one of us goes in to lie him down and so he knows that we've heard him. Then we just leave him to cry it out. It's really hard and I hate doing it but he normally settles within about 45 mins. As I said, not that successful or quick!

Looking forward to seeing some other suggestions...

My DS (18 months) has always been a fantastic sleeper up until about a month ago - when suddenly, he didn't want to go in his cot at either bedtime or nap time and would scream as soon as he saw it so he was going to sleep on our bed and then we would move him. He would also wake up at least once every night and end up in our bed again where he would fidget like mad.

Ended up leaving him to cry at 4am one morning when we had just had enough - he lasted about 5 minutes and went to sleep. Tried it the following evening at bedtime - screamed for about 5 minutes maximum and slept through, the next night was about 1 minute, the next night was 1 scream - and that is pretty much it. On the odd occasion he has woken up in the middle of the night since then, I just go in, pick him up for a cuddle and then tell him it is still sleepy time and put him back in with his music on and leave the rom - he will cry for a few seconds and then go back to bed.

He has definitely got the message - he now goes to sleep without any fuss in the evenings and probably only wakes in the night once a week now.

I realise we were very lucky as looking at Bristols post, I don't know how I would have handled 45 minutes of crying.

Oh, we also put a nightlight in his room (one of those ones that is a torch aswell) - no idea if it makes things better as we did the 2 things together but maybe worth a try?

DS has never been a particularly good sleeper, he has the odd couple of days when he suddenly sleeps thro, but mostly wakes at least once a night (I class this as between bedtime and 6am-ish) sometimes 2-3 times. He's 17 months.

He's fine at going to sleep in his cot by himself and rarely wakes earlier than midnight, so his main wake-ups are of course when we want to be sleeping.

Until recently our tactic was for me to bf him back to sleep, have him in our bed etc. However, after a particularly hellish night on Friday, we decided that things needed to change. So on Saturday night DH and I talked tactics and agreed that we would offer water, no milk. Would not take DS out of the cot unless extremely distressed, but lie him down and sit with him (but no interaction) until he was happy for us to leave/was asleep. Then of course the little sod darling slept through, his ears must have been burning , so last night was the first night on the new regime.

It wasn't too bad. He woke once at 3.30, I offered him water but he didn't want it. Managed to persuade him to lie down fairly quickly, but did end up having to pretend to sleep on his bedroom floor for well over an hour (tried to leave at one point but he wasn't having it). I crawled back to bed at 5 and then he woke me at 6 and I fed him. I probably got less sleep than when I just do whatever it takes, but am hoping the gentle approach will pay off in the long-run.

Ceebee - yes, 45 mins is very hard but has only happened a few times. I also forgot to mention that this all coincided with him refusing to go in his cot for his daytime nap. He was always so good at sleeping. Would go in his cot awake and settle himself day or night. He'll still do it at night but not in the day. Have taken to rocking him to sleep in the day (something I vowed I would never do) and then lying him on the sofa where he sleeps soundly.

I feel better knowing that we're not the only ones.

bristols - we had a phase over Christmas where DS suddenly started screaming when put down for his nap, think he didn't want to miss the fun. As DH was home he took the opportunity to cuddle him to sleep in our bed and then transfer to the cot.

I then moved on to putting him down and popping back in after a few minutes yelling to lie him down and rub his back until he calmed and went to sleep. Today was v funny - I stuck my head round the door to confront the red faced toddler standing indignatntly in his cot and said 'DS are you going to lie down and go to sleep', and bugger me, he did exactly that . No other intervention needed, slept for 2 blissful hours...

DD was the same after I stopped BFing her at about 12 months, and as I was pregnant we came up with our method.
LO cries, go in, say 'sleepytime' kiss and lie them down/tuck in. Leave room and shut door. If LO cries again go back in and repeat with no kiss, 3rd time just lie down and leave. DD used to scream instantly we turned to leave but I would always shut the door behind me before openeing it and going back in. Sounds mad but it seemed to reassure her that I woudl go back IYSWIM.
When she wasn't standing up I would stroke her hair/pat her back and then leave again, going straight back in if she hadn't stopped. This was harder but after a few goes she would stop when I went in.

It is hard, and may involve spending a few nights outside the room but it works so well that at 23 months I only have to go into her room and she lies down and says 'mummy tuck?' for me to tuck her in, and then says 'sleepytime, i know' and quietens down.

I very rarely have to go in more than once now, but DH, who used to chat and pick her up for a cuddle and ask what the matter was can't go near her at night as she knows he will give in and screams louder. So be rigid and consistent with whatever you do and it will get through eventually.

Sorry, went on a bit but hope it helps!

Bristols - just a thought about the daytime nap. As I said before, DS was exactly the same and would scream the minute he saw his cot so I decided to make going for his nap a 'fun' thing. His favouritest thing in the whole world is being read to so at naptime, I decided to put him in his cot and sit besides him and read a book to him - and then give him the book to read himself whilst I leave. It worked a treat from day 1 and now, when it is naptime, I ask him to choose his own book (they are downstairs) which he does with great excitement, runs to the stairgate shouting up and then when we get to the top of the stairs, I swear he would throw himself in the cot if he could! Since we started doing this, he has slept like an angel for his naps again.

ceebee - thanks. I definitely think it would help if there was some sense of routine to his lunchtime nap which is basically what you're suggesting. I'm sure that's why he goes to bed so well at night - because we do the same things in the same order night after night. Sounds like a good idea...