Sleep training not working! Help!

[karpouzi]

My DC2 is now 13 months.

Before: I could always put him down very easily. He was sleeping through the night from 3 months old till about 6 months where messed up his night sleep by waking him up to feed him. He had issues with his growth/ gaining weight due to reflux/lactose intolerance so we were doing whatever we could to help him.

Now: Fast forward, he is absolutely fine now, caught up with growth and reaching all the milestones as expected. However, we cannot put him down to sleep at night without rocking him or staying in the room. We tried the cry out method for about one month. He just doesn’t get it. Instead of learning to sooth himself, he is just exhausting himself by crying and he eventually falls asleep. He usually cries for about an 1h until he is down. FYI during the day he max sleeps 1h-1,5h in total. He is not a big napper either.

What shall I do? It drives me crazy! I feel we tried everything. Door open, door closed, go in every 5 min to check on him, let him cry till he falls asleep. He is more than 1yo now, we cannot keep rocking him to sleep. Any other ideas?

Oh dear, sleep training woes! Hang in there, dear! Maybe try adjusting routines or gentle methods like soothing music or a calming bedtime story. Sending sleepy vibes your way!

You can keep rocking him to sleep, no law against it. Letting him cry for an hour each night is going to create a lot of anxiety for him around bedtime. If he goes down within an hour it doesn't seem like such a big deal for one of you to stay with him.

Why can you not continue to rock him to sleep? Surely that preferable to him crying himself to sleep for an hour at a time?

Make sure he consumes enough calories in the day and gets plenty of fresh air. It’s not a miracle cure but does help get small children to sleep quicker

What’s the daytime routine like? What’s your bedtime routine? How do you respond when he’s unsettled?

Have you tried things like a sleeping bag, white noise/sound machine (got a great one off Amazon with night light). I rocked both my kids to sleep until I couldn’t possibly anymore, I agree it is very exhausting. Then moved on to the noise, and a story whilst LO’s in bed (without the actual book though, as they just want to grab it). The story would usually get them off to sleep and then I’d sneak, like a ninja, out of their room 🥷

Floor bed and cuddle him to sleep? Hold his hand/rub his back as he falls asleep - my daughter always settled with this after I stopped feeding her to sleep. Letting him cry himself to sleep for an hour doesn’t sound right; He clearly still needs you to support him to sleep.

What do you want to do, put him down awake and he will fall asleep on his own?

My son is 2.5 and is no where near falling asleep alone. Why can't you rock him and put him down after? He is still a baby and wants you, perfectly normal and you haven't seen progress with cry it out so it's not likely you will anytime soon.

I know it's hard and can be time consuming and it takes up part of your evening but if it's the quickest and most calming option then maybe it is actually working.

There is nothing wrong with rocking him I guess. We just feel the older he gets, the harder will be to teach him how to sooth himself.

Yeah I know. My heart breaks hearing him crying. We thought that this method will be effective after a week or so but it’s been a month so clearly doesn’t work.

Yeah, that’s what we did with my eldest son. He trained him when he was about 8 months and the cry out method worked like a dream. 3 difficult nights and that was it. We can rock him to sleep. The issue is that during the night if he wakes up then he cannot sooth himself at all whereas my eldest son used to get his dummy and go back to sleep

haha! Yeah he is a sleeping bag and white noise on. We tried reading a story to the eldest one in the same room but my youngest was just jumping in his cot and throwing him dummy out of the cot. We have a troublemaker in the making 😂

He is 3 mornings in nursery and two at home. He either has one big nap (1-1.5h) or two short ones for about 30min. Other than that he is full of energy, playing all day and crawling. We generally sooth him with cuddles and a dummy during the day. Same as night really

The older he gets the more developmentally able he will be to calm himself down, for now he needs you to do it as he's still a baby, so there's absolutely nothing wrong with soothing a 12 month old to sleep, despite what all the books say! Babies haven't read the books. It's hard when you're tired but it will get better. It's also hard when as a younger baby they've slept pretty well, but teething, brain development, illness, separation anxiety all impact on sleep around this age, so ups and downs are all very normal.