no crying sleep solutions - any tips ?

[tomps]

My 1 year old dd has breastfed to sleep until 1 week ago, when she decided that despite having exactly the same routine & naps as usual, and despite drifting off during feeding, she would prefer to wriggle off my lap and potter around her room for another couple of hours - feeding/suckling every so often - until eventually feeding off to sleep 2 hours later than usual. This now seems to be her new routine, but i'm finding it reall frustrating. We're not going to try a crying technique. I have the E Pantley 'no cry' book and she suggests daytime naps are the key, however I've tried every permutation of morning/afternoon napping/not napping and it really seems to make no difference other than curtailing her social life, as I have to take her away for her nap. NB I can ony get her to nap in the pushchair or car. Any suggestions ? Thankyou ...

This sounds very much like my dd. She started to get "fidgety" at bed time when she was about 7 months, so I stopped breastfeeding only to discover she was the same with a bottle. Sometimes it takes 3 hours to get her off because even though she may be very tired she'll still be jumping around the room and just taking a swig of the bottle every now and then. The cure for me was to take her on to my bed and lie down with her. Curtains closed, lights out, door shut. She had me with her, a nice comfy bed and very little space to run. It took about a week for her to get into the swing of this but now she knows that when it is time for her bedtime milk she goes to the bed with mummy and is usually asleep in about 15 minutes. I then carry her to her cot. HTH.

I found instituting regular hours was an effective way of getting my ds to sleep. It works for adults too! I did this at 8months so it was easier, I think. We were very firm. Bedtime was always the same routine, tea, bath, play and storytime, bed. My ds stopped wanting a night feed at around this time anyway.

In your case, I think you should maybe stop thinking it necessary to feed her to sleep at this age - your dd is maybe growing out of this naturally. And by insisting on it, you might actually be keeping her up and awake. Instead, you could feed her as normal, but when she starts to get wriggly, stop, maybe sit with a book and read a story then tell her it's time for lovely bed - I talk a lot to my son, keeping up a murmured stream of chat - 'oh, it's lovely bedtime now, sleepytime, time to go to sleep, that's it, into the cot, and into your sleeping bag, all cosy blah blah blah' then I kiss his three toys as few times, stroke his hair and kiss him and then leave. It think it's possibly that if she is pottering around, she is interested in the world asking for some winding down time by herself, so maybe instead of just feeding you need to give her some book time. I also find that if my son starts to fidget, wriggle and get off my lap it's an absolutely 100% sign that he is tired and needs to sleep. I can keep him up but it's not in his interest at all. So I keep an eye on the clock and he is always in bed between 7pm and 7.30pm. Have you tried giving her lots of cuddles and then putting her in her cot awake with her toys, talking reassuringly to her, stroking her hair etc, and then leaving her to it? She might not cry at all or just cry very briefly. My ds often cries just as I leave, but is almost invariably asleep before I am halfway down the stairs. I think his cry is a mild protest, not a sign of anguish or anything. More 'just a minute mum!' than existential angst. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, follow her cues if she not longer feeds to sleep, try a change without expecting it to involve lots of crying and maybe allow a couple of cries as it seems to me that this is how some babies either wind down or make their last half-hearted protest before they get their sleep. BTW, my ds slept through without any nightime milk from 8months.

That has also worked with my son. He has the routine - tea, play, bath, milk, teeth, stories, cuddle (with both mummy and daddy if we're both in) with light off and into cot. We have virtually never had any problems getting him to sleep (any issues have risen from him waking in the night). He virtually never even cries - and if he does its very brief.

One is a good age to instigate a routine because kids start to understand rules and order. My DS knows he is allowed 3 stories which he can chose for himself (OK after four nights of "ten little ladybirds" I have been known to hide it ) and before the last one I always say "last one - no more" which he now repeats.

Its got to the point now that if I deviate from the routine he tells me off.

He also has a dummy, which I think has helped.

My ds chooses his own stories too. He toddles to the book basket, picks them out and toddles back, allexcited to sit on my or dh's lap for storytime. Then it's upstairs for last cuddle and bed. It's so easy now!

Thanks for your replies - I know it's time to get her going to sleep on her own and I've been meaning to start very soon, but the deviation from our usual routine coming from her just threw me. Probably I should use this opportunity to make my changes too. Funnily enough, I had decided to just hold on to her firmly tonight when she started to wriggle off but we had the first nice easy bedtime in ages and she went to sleep no probs ! Not until 9.15, but at least I didn't miss all of Celebrity Big Brother ! cheers

Hi tomps, I am going thru the same thing. My 8 month old is struggling with sleeping in her cot and staying down for the night. I invested in the Pantley book, No cry sleep solution. I have really made naps a must to see if it was the problem. Ummmmm, not so sure. The one thing is that I have learned to look for the signs of sleepyness and get them down for a nap, a bit of a struggle but you do get there. I was ignoring the yawns and rubbing the eyes and left her too it, mistake.
Still frustrated with the continuous waking during the night.

Good luck catsfirst. I'm lucky as not working so getting up in the night not tooo much of a problem, though a proper night sleep would be nice ! And dd usually only wakes once these days and goes back to sleep quite quickly after milk (still b/f-ing at night !) The most reassuring thing I got out of pantley (and this website) was that SO many children wake in the night, but they do often grow out of it ... You probably would prefer to do something about it though, and there's been quite a lot about this recently - here Hope you find something in there that helps. Like you, I'm not convinced about the nap thing, though need it for my sanity (and opportunity to go on mumsnet during the day), but often she has no nap then goes to bed earlier and sleeps longer over all ... Do you feed during the night ?

Also try here