Struggling to settle 12 month old

[KookyHam]

Looking for any advice/tales of similar babies…. 12 month old who has never been easy to settle; we recently night weaned and stopped feeding to sleep.

I was happy to feed to sleep but with me back to work it was not always possible, and it was becoming hit and miss whether he’d drift off anyway. Often he’d still need settled after his feed. The problem is that feeding was the only way to get him down at night and for naps without 20+ mins of furious crying.

The plus side is he’s been waking less at night recently, usually only once at 3am or thereabouts, but it’s taking 1-2h of crying to resettle him. This is with us leaning over into his cot and patting his bottom nearly the whole time: it is killing our backs. We try not to pick him up as this just escalates the crying. Feeding also doesn’t help here so I don’t think he’s hungry.

I have tried to implement gradual retreat, and am still trying, however we haven’t really been able to move away from him at all and have been patting him to sleep in the cot for many months (on the occasions he didn’t feed to sleep). As soon as I even stop patting for 5-10 seconds he resumes the crying at the top of his voice. It feels like he will just keep crying til he’s exhausted and conks out. All the crying is really starting to get to me, I feel we’re making zero progress and I wish there was a way to help him settle in a more calm way. Has anyone had a baby like this; did anything work for you?

His routine is roughly: Up 6.15am (often waking earlier but we keep him in the cot and pat him til this time), Nap 1: 9.45-11.00, Nap 2: 2.30-3, Bed 7.15pm. (I’ve tried earlier/longer naps as I’m sure he must be overtired but not much success in getting him down on time as he fights his naps too)

Thank you for any advice!

can anyone help? Crying for 40 minutes tonight and counting - I feel we must be getting something wrong

Probably not popular on here but I would offer a bottle or cup of milk when he wakes during the night.

Is he tired yet? 7 is an early bed time for a child having two naps a day. I would try a later bedtime and/or dropping to one nap.

With my first we got a floor bed, so we just laid with him to go to sleep from 12 months ( before that we either fed to sleep or rocked)
it took ages in the beginning, but it wasn’t crying it was just him tossing and turning - learning how to settle without being rocked. He’s now 4 and we read him a book and lay with him still, it only takes 5 mins for him to fall asleep now. But he can fall asleep on his own too, we all just like to do it if we have time.

we also have a second baby who is 8 months who I still feed to sleep, occasionally rock. But we co-sleep. I’m contemplating what to do next with her because I’ll be back to work when she’s 12 months too.
neither of mine were ever accepting of being put down and falling asleep with out contact from us. So please don’t worry, it is normal.

Thank you both, and for the reassurance. We have tried giving a cup of milk when he wakes in the night but he’s not usually interested and pushes it away. I am thinking of trying to change his naps around a bit, it feels we are close to moving to one nap but it’s a struggle to get through 5+ hours awake without him getting very grumpy

The first nap is messing up his night sleep because it is too early and too long.

At 12 months you are working towards one nap of 2 - 2.5 hours starting at midday. He will keep that nap until he is at least 2 or close to 3 years old.

you have two options:
a) make the first nap very short e.g. 9.45 -10.05 and do a second nap 1-3 aiming to drop the first nap all together by 15 months
b) push the first nap back until it’s 11-1 and do a small catnap on the move at around 4pm (20 mins absolute max). Eventually he will stop catnapping and you can push the morning nap back further.

Get a floor bed and co-sleep, take in turns with your partner. You'll all get far more sleep!