12 month old v unsettled at night. What's going on?

[madmarriedNika]

I really feel I should know the answer to this as the child in question is my second... But I'm stumped. DD turn 1 last week and for the past 3+ weeks has been sleeping very badly at night (she was pretty good before that). She doesn't want to go to bed and takes a lot of work to settle her (I usually end up resorting to BFing her into a semi-coma state then popping her into her room- and often it's 9pm by then). She then wakes a couple of hours later crying and is again hard to settle. Most nights she doesn't want any more milk but just won't settle- so we end up co-sleeping. She's v restless though still and so I'm not getting much sleep at all.

I know she's teething, which is what I've been blaming it on (and dosing her with calpol/nurofen/Teetha etc.), but this has been going on for so long. I am up with her at least 3 or 4 times each night.

I try to settle her into her cot awake so she learns to settle herself (and she's pretty good about her daytime naps- probably because she's exhausted from her bad nights!), but I'm not great at controlled crying and the patting/rubbing etc. through cot bars doesn't seem to sooth her at all- only lifting and lying on me.
Any tips would be most appreciated. We need sleep (DD as much as me!). Thank you.

I don't know the answer, but understand, as we have gone through similar! Things seem to fluctuate from excellent to poor. I have put it down to developmental changes, and persevered with consistent patterns. I often let DS cry for a while before returning, longer interval each time and eventually he would fall asleep.

Same problem with my nearly 11 month old. He's been sleeping through since 12 weeks but this last month his sleep has been appauling. I don;t know whether it's just separation anxuety, teething or just devellopmental but I'm knackered! I can't leave him to cry, he just stands up and gets hysterical and is so hard to calm down. I have to pic him up but with co sleeping he is stll very restless and keeps waking up cring til I sit up ou stand with him. It's so hard cos I'd got used to him having 12 hours sleep and now it's all gone wrong somewhere!

Good to know we're not the only ones- though I wish our LOs were sleeping better

Last night was the same, I tried really hard to keep settling her back in her cot but at 4.30am gave up and she came in with me- and slept fairly well. Before that it has been nearly every hour from 12, and she'd yell and yell.

I have decided to really push the bedtime routine and keep the consistency if at all possible, even if she cries a bit.... She didn't want to nap this afternoon even though was rubbing eyes etc. so it took me until 3.15pm to get her to sleep, she's sound now but know I need to wake her or else she'll never want to go back to sleep at 7.30pm!! arghhh what to do....

There was a thread on mumsnet about the pick up and put down technique. Have you ever tried it? We did it for a while, but changed it to suit us. So instead of picking up, I sat next to him and rubbed his head, then stopped rubbing when i thought he was alseep, and eventually removed my hand.... and he would wake up again! I would repeat it, and eventually it would work. This went on for about eight weeks, every couple of months or so.

My DS is now two, he sleeps through, but it is a marathon to get him to stay in his bed! Once he goes, he sleeps deeply.

I haven't met anyone with the perfect twleve hours a night, settles quickly or wake up in the night baby yet! i don't think they exist.

Once you have checked they are well, and not in discomfort, all you can do is try different techniques until you find the one that works for you and your babe!

I have exactly the same problem - my bub is 1 this week and we were laughing at how well he sleeps 3 weeks ago...since then he has been waking up at 3am and refusing to go back to sleep until (well today he still hasn't slept since 3.30am and it's now 11...I have no idea what's happening....I think it's down to developmental change..?