14mo bedtime is a mess!

[GinnyBee]

I really don’t know what we’re doing wrong and why it’s got to be such a fight every night! 😭 he’s never been particularly good, but recently it’s next level battles! We’ve always supported him to sleep by either nursing or bouncing. I weaned a few weeks ago so now it’s just bouncing. But he just HATES going to bed! 😢 it makes me so sad, and frustrated. And I don’t understand why it’s so terrible, we’re always with him, and always respond when he wakes at night, so it’s not like he’s had a traumatic separation with bedtime.

He kicks and screams, tries to jump out of my arms, if I let him roll on the bed in an attempt to let him play himself to sleep in case he’s done being bounced he will get off and run out the room, or just keeps rolling around all over me, fetching books, and will do it forever! And even if he starts out calm and sleepy cuddling and rolling he will soon get excitable and ramp it up.

Schedule varies. We get up around 6.30-7am every morning. Then when he’s at home with me he naps any time between 10-12 and sleeps around 2 hours. He goes to nursery two mornings a week and when he’s there he hasn’t napped for a couple of weeks now, so I pick him up at 1 and put him straight to bed when we get home and then wake him at 2.30 in an attempt to keep bedtime at a reasonable time but that doesn’t work.

So for example today he was up at 6.30, went to nursery so didn’t sleep until 1.20pm and I woke him at 2.30pm. We had dinner all together as a family at 6pm, started winding down at 7 and he was obviously tired, rubbing his face, wanted to just sit quietly and have some milk. But every time I tried to make a move to carry him into his room he kicked off! At 8pm I decided to just go, and he tried to squirm out of my arms and shouted for a good while until he FINALLY relaxed and stopped fighting it and eventually fell asleep at 8.30pm.

This is the routine every single evening now. The timing or length of his nap doesn’t matter one bit, bedtime is still awful. I’ve tried earlier bed and that’s a disaster. Once he’s asleep he mostly sleeps through now, bar one or two very quick wakeups before 10pm but then goes until the morning. Every now and again he also has a split night and is awake 2-4am but again, there’s no reason I’ve found why this happens sometimes. Maybe teeth? His bottom gums look a little bumpier, so those lateral incisors are on their way, but not imminent I don’t think. I’m desperate for him to go to bed earlier because I feel like there’s never any time to unwind in the evening 🫠

Hi @GinnyBee

I think we were in the due May2022 thread together?

I just wanted to say i am in the exact same position with my 14 month old.

He has literally never fell asleep anywhere but in our arms whilst we bounce or feed him (not even pram or car, in fact he hates them). I have no idea how to stop this. He is just on the fo constantly, i cannot see how he would settle enough to fall asleep on his own.

He fights bedtime too. If i know he is tired i try and just hold him until he settles but obviously not forcefully so this doesnt always work.

You said you weaned recently. I just wondered how this has been? And how did you do it?
Im thinking about weaning soon but worried about making things harder for myself cause hes easy to settle in the night with a boob!

@TunaJacket yes hello fellow May mum! Weaning was actually super easy. At 11 months we dropped to one night feed almost accidentally - I went out to dinner so dad was in charge at bedtime and while he had formula available he ended up not using any and just bounced him when he woke up as well as stayed sleeping next to him after the second wake (this was when he was still waking every 2-3 hours). I then only fed him when he woke up after I’d come back home which was around 1am (I was home earlier but they were both asleep). Then the next wake after that he was already back asleep pretty much as soon as I touched him instead of asking for a feed. From then we just decided to try it again and only give him one feed overnight. That ended up working just fine, even though he still kept waking every 2-3 hours, but only wanted cuddles. Then when I wanted to cut the last feed I started delaying the night feed gradually over like a week or so until we got to not feeding before 4am and then not before 6am. After that it was easy to just treat it like morning and give him breakfast first.

I was still doing nap time and bedtime feeds for a while, to get him to sleep. Then a few weeks after night weaning I dropped the nap feed first, because he was already used to napping at nursery without it. When that was gone I dropped bedtime feed when it stopped sending him to sleep and I had to get up and bounce him anyway. So in some ways he self-weaned I guess 🤷🏼‍♀️ it just wasn’t putting him to sleep anymore so was kinda easy to stop.

Thats so helpful, thank you!

Did he not really ask for it much throughout the day? My LO is fed for nap and bed, but he can ask for it multiple times throughout the day as well. Sometimes i can distract him, but he definitely does it for comfort over hunger cause he can breastfed after a full meal sometimes. I feel bad denying him but i know ill need to tougher up if im gunna make the decision to wean!

Did you say your LO has a floor bed? We currently cosleep and i feed him back to sleep (if he slept a 2 hour block that would be a good night!). Im torn between night weaning so i can at least share the wake ups but always worried im just make things worse by actually having yo get up! But anyway... if we do night wean we'd probably move him into a cot or floor bed at the same time so just wondered how you got on with it.

Sorry to butt in again. But I nightweaned ds partially at around 15 months and fully shortly before I fully weaned at around 2 and 3 months.

I read around about it a fair bit and decided to night wean but still feed on demand during the day. I think that was definitely the right decision as I know of people who have done it the other way round and it just seems to mean no end of night wakings. It's not so bad nightweaning because they are tired and do need to go back to sleep and that does win over in the end.

@TunaJacket Yes he's in a floor bed since February. We have also spent many nights sleeping there with him. We were cosleeping too before the transition, I had a king size mattress on the floor and his cot sidecarred to it, I took the legs off and put that on the floor. But it was taking up most of the room so needed a smaller bed, but something that could still fit an adult next to him too on tough nights. It's been great tbh! When he was still waking lots it was a bit annoying having to get out of bed, but overall I still slept a bit better because I could move around and get comfortable, the cosleeping situation was really bad for my back and hips, and the mattress I had before was old and knackered so not very supportive and comfotable. I'm glad to be back in my own bed and the new floor bed mattress is so much better than the old thing.

And yeah by the time I decided to night wean he wasn't having much milk in the day already. I was doing "don't offer, don't refuse" from 11 months and he just didn't actually ask that much. Mostly in the morning for a while but in the day he was busy with other stuff and eating foods well and didn't seem interested.