10 Month old poor sleep! Send help!

[Chloe7245]

Hi all, some advice if any of you can please!!
My 10 month old DS has never been able to settle on his own or sleep through the night. He has to be rocked and patted for every nap time and every bedtime. I have tried Ferber method and gradual retreat - he just isn’t that baby. I have also tried letting him cry at set intervals and popping in however that doesn’t work either and it’s so stressful - I have never let him CIO. We have gone from nights of no lie, getting out of bed upwards of 50 times to settle him (yes I counted to make a point to my lovely rested husband) or other nights of 3/4 awakenings however is awake for sometimes hours at a time. I am seriously at my wits end. I have adjusted nap schedules (more day sleep, less day sleep) I have tried different bedtimes and longer and shorter wake windows. DS now seems harder to get to sleep and transfer in the cot where he almost instantly wakes and is wide awake playing at nap time. I am wondering if he is just the type of baby that doesn’t need naps? I am sick of our day revolving so heavily around his sleep as it’s just a nightmare.
If anyone else’s baby has an experienced a drop to 0 naps please let me know! Maybe that’s why his night sleep is poor? Maybe he just doesn’t need it? Then I read his night sleep could be poor because his naps are? It doesn’t matter as some days he can have up to 3 hours worth of naps across 2 nap times!
Is the rocking to sleep the cause of all our issues? As a note, he still wakes between 9pm - 11pm for a bottle and almost always wakes between 6:30pm(bedtime) - 8pm and has to be resettled.
If nothing else works what do we do?? Any advice for a mum in the trenches would be greatly appreciated thank you!

At 10 months old he definitely still needs nap and probably 2 a day. The average age to drop to 1 is 15 months so he could be there early but dropping the nap altogether is typically sometime between 2.5 and 3.

I expect it’s the rocking and transferring. As they get older they usually need to fall asleep where they’re going to stay asleep. Imagine if you fell asleep all cuddled up with your partner in bed and woke up on your own on the floor. Would you roll over and go straight back to sleep or would you be wide awake demanding to know what the hell happened?

How long did you actually try the sleep training for? When you decide to try these things you have to commit and stay consistent. Ferber or controlled crying is probably going to be 1-2 hours of crying on night 1, reducing by night 3 but could take a week. Gradual retreat I would expect weeks if not months. Either I’d pick a method you feel you can do and make sure you stick with it or if sleep training isn’t for you then I would co-sleep. But baby needs to fall asleep where they’re going to stay asleep.

Thank you @InTheRainOnATrain I completely agree with what you said. We tried Ferber for 6 days and the gradual retreat method for all of 3 days (that was an absolute no) and I’ve tried Ferber a few times since. I guess I feel guilty letting him get so upset for as long as 2 hours but I guess that’s normal and it’s time to try again for my own sanity

I have a 10 month old whose sleep is not great but improving. The rocking to sleep is likely to be a factor for you, unfortunately.
When she was around 7 months old, I stopped rocking and feeding her to sleep and started some gentle sleep training, similar to gradual retreat. I put her in her cot awake, stroke her and make sssh noises until she fell asleep. The first few nights were awful- she cried a lot and it would take up to 45 minutes - 1 hour to get her to sleep- but we saw a small improvement immediately. She went from waking up every 20-30 minutes between bedtime (6.30-7) and 10pm, to once an hour. Soon went up to 2 hours. Now she can go from bedtime to 10.30/11 with no wake ups or just stirring. Bedtime does still take a while some nights but I have my evenings back! She still wakes up every 2 hours after the first wake up but it’s because I need to work on the night wake ups and with starting nursery, illness and teething there hasn’t been a good time (although the last few nights have been better on their own).

Id suggest looking up Sleep well with Hannah- she is a sleep consultant - and read her book- what she says makes a lot of sense and her plan is where I got my strategy from. Consistency is key.

no advice on naps I’m afraid- my daughter’s naps are inconsistent, but on the nights she sleeps better, she has had less day sleep.

Hi @ThankYouFish your situation at 7 months sounds so so similar to ours. DS goes down at 6/6:30 and has constant night awakings until 9:30/10pm until I fed him again. We started to get longer stretches after that until 2/3:00am however that changed recently hence why I am so at a loss and I started the sleep training last night. It took him 1hr 20 minutes to fall asleep, however towards the end I did have to shh and pat him as he was in such a state (broke my heart). He then stirred around 40 minutes later however put himself back to sleep. He was in the deepest sleep I have seen in months!! He then woke at 11:45pm however I did feed him as he didn’t take much of the bed time bottle. He went back down and slept until 4:15am where I sat on the floor next to the cot and shh and patted again and he went back off until 6:20am. We have had a massive improvement!! I have rocked/cuddles to sleep for naps today and put him down int he cot however they have lasted all of 30 minutes an ago. I’m hoping tonight isn’t as hard and he has some longer stretches of sleep! Thanks again for the advice, I will look at the book by the sleep consultant you recommended