How does your 15month old get to sleep and what time?

[cantpickyourfamily]

My dd was always bf to sleep at night time. Now I lie in bed with her for ages untill she falls asleep, sometimes when I leave the bed she wakes up, so I send my whole evening in bed with her.

Sometimes she takes hours to get to sleep so will often still be awake at 10pm.

Anyone else got or had simular problems?

DD is nearly 15 months. She still bfs to sleep each night and is put in her cot asleep. No advice but sympathies, it's hard losing your whole evening.

dd used to bf to sleep but lately she has bf and then had a story downstairs and then i say are you tired, she says yes and then i say do you want to go to your cot and she gets my hand and walks to her cot, then she lies there a while and i stroke her back and she nods off after about 10 mins.
i find if i ask her when she is ready she does it but if i just took her up she would resist.
she normally goes about 8 to 8.30 which is late but she only sleeps 9 hours so it gets us through.

ilovetochat - how old is your dd?

i had to stop bf dd as she wanted to bf constantly and woke up every 1-3 hours at night to bf, now that we have stopped she often sleeps all the way through or wakes once for a drink and back to sleep.

But as I say she is in my bed so that is probably why, if she slept alone I would never get any sleep.

My ds used to bf to sleep, he self weaned a week or so after his first birthday, but we kept up an evening bottle of cow's milk and he usually falls asleep during that. If he's not asleep, he's usually pretty close so when I put him in his cot he just lies there babbling to himself for a bit and he drifts off from there. He's 13 months....

headfairy - that sounds great, my dd would never drink milk from a bottle or cup.

oops. Just re-read your question... we usually start ds' bottle at about 10 to 7, he's done by about 10 past whether he's asleep or just sleepy. He's rarely awake beyond 7.30.

she is 15 months and normally feeds morning and night but didn't feed this morning so i'm going to see if she wants feeding now, hopeful!

Everyone said to me as soon as ds was born "get him used to a bottle soon, you'll really appreciate it" I'm so glad I listened. It was a faff, but from four weeks I was expressing three times a day (went down to once a day as milk supply increased) so he could have a top up bottle of ebm at bedtime, so I guess we set the routine really early.

ilovetochat - your dd sounds very grown up, my dd never wants to go to bed

headfairy - i wish i would of done the same, my mum always put us to bed with a bottle and never had the problems I've had.

DD hasn't had a night time bf for about 6 months. She has a bottle of milk. When it is ready she climbs onto the sofa, lays down, has her milk, waves bye bye to us waits for us to take her to her cot. She then chats/reads/flicks the (redundant) light switch for 10mins to half an hour or so then goes off. This is what normally happens. Occasionally she will have a cry but usually this is how it goes. She does have a dummy, and doesn't usually go down to bed till getting on to 8pm.

Best bit of advice I was given. Hope you find a solution soon. Do you co sleep? Does your dd have her own cot? What happens if you put her in there while sleepy but awake? I've never been one for letting them scream themselves to sleep, just too heartless for me, but I have been known to let ds whinge and moan a bit before he goes to sleep.

Sympathy to you, cantpickyourfamily. DS is approaching 15 months and only in the last 3-4 weeks has he started settling himself. He's started the night in his cot from around 6 months but when I say that it took me an hour or two each night and he always went into the cot asleep and sometimes he'd be in bed with me 45 minutes later! Until recently I would spend up to an hour in the room while DS fell asleep - sometimes patting him.

Nowadays he has a BF in the chair by the cot at around 7 and he will often come off and look at the cot and say "dub" or something, which seems to mean bed.

I think this is an age when you can tell them all about how good a cot is and be surprised how much they understand you. I also think leaving them in the cot with a box of toys (or a bag full of balls - cheap in Argos and hours of fun chucking them onto the floor) is a good thing so it's familiar and safe for them.

Also, just be prepared for whatever you do to take forever. Otherwise you will get impatient and resentful and when you feel like that, nothing's easy.

PS I came into this topic for advice on his night waking, which is frequent, so it's not all good!

Toys in the cot is a good idea. But not recommended is leaving them in bed with a book with buttons that say words. They might then proceed to press the buttons for an hour. They will then crash out on top of the book which you and DH will have to gently extricate without pressing any of the buttons yourself or disturbing the baby. A bit like a Crystal Maze challenge!

At night, in cot after a bath, story and cuddle. We turn out the light, give him another cuddle then put him in his cot and sit in the chair until he drops off. Takes about 15 mins. With one of us there he doesn't make a fuss as long as we occasionally mutter something soothing. If we're not in the room all hell breaks loose. We found that it has to be dark when he goes into his cot, and he needs quite a long cuddle before he goes in. Funnily enough during the day he's usually a lot better and happy to be left.

If only his marvellous going to sleep skills translated into sleep all night skills. Then that would indeed be cause for celebration.

MurderousMarla - it happened really slowly. I went back to work doing a 7 day fortnight when ds was 8 months old, so I went from doing four feeds a day to doing three feeds a day (morning, bedtime and dreamfeed at 10pm) and pumping at work once a day. Because of the nature of my job - I'm always out on the road and it's very unpredictable -
I stopped pumping at work after about 6 weeks. I carried on like that for ages and ds didn't seem to notice anything different. Gradually due to the pressures of work I started only feeding ds just twice a day, either morning or bedtime and the dreamfeed. My dh would give ds a bottle of formula for whichever feed I missed and I'd bf the other one.

Eventually after his first birthday I dropped the dreamfeed. I think he was really ready for that though because he was waking up and getting really upset for a week or so before I dropped that feed, whereas he always slept right through it. I suppose eventually all that led to such a reduction in my milk supply that he started to prefer the bottle, he was always happy to bf first and then have a top up of ebm, but eventually he got so frustrated with my reduced milk that he'd be really fussy on the boob and just want the bottle. Eventually it got so bad I was giving him a bottle of cow's milk before the boob because he was so desperate for it. This carried on for about a week before I decided to drop the boob one night and see what happened. He didn't even notice so I decided it was best to just drop it all together.

I'd put myself though such hardship to get to one year, my hours at work are crazy and it was getting to the stage when I was torturing myself all day thinking about getting home to feed just to keep my supply up. It had always been a bit tenuous, so to keep it up for a year was really hard work.

Sorry, this has turned in to a bit of a novel! I didn't really intend to give up bfing, and I don't feel I did really give up, more like we jointly gave up. I'm not sure it's possible to do without having something to replace it. Perhaps I'm wrong. DS has always had a bottle from an early age, even at bedtime, he was a slow weight gainer so I was topping him up with ebm from four weeks so I think that definitely helped in my situation, as I was very gradually moving from boob to bottle. Good luck, I hope you manage to find a solution.

headfairy - we do co sleep and dd has got a cot but think she is put off by the bars so may just turn it into a bed now.

i tried putting her in awake and she goes crazy.

I tried to let her cry it out but it killed me and she got so upset she pooed twice.

TBH i am just happy not to be bf anymore as it was more comfort sucking then drinking that dd was doing and i found it very draining.

My DD self weaned at 15months (think milk supply was very low due to me being pregnant) but just said no and shook her head when offered. After two weeks I stopped offering it, but it did make the evening routines more interesting!

We do dinner around 5.30, then bath 6.15ish (after the dirty nappy if poss!). Then we try and keep her in her bedroom and read on the sofa. When she seems a bit drowsy we hold her on our laps, pick a particular book with a song (eg a star and sing twinkle, twinkle). She then relaxes and sometimes climbs off my lap and onto the sofa and shuts her eyes. Or I say lie and and shut your eyes and she (sometimes) does it. We give her a good 10 mins like that until very relaxed before transferring her to her cot. If she cries at that point I ask her to lie down and shut eyes in cot and carrying on singing/stroking her back until breathing is even again.

Can say it always works, sometimes she runs screaming around the living room like a demented banshee after the bath. In those cases, I just leave it for another 15 mins. Sometimes we offer a snack like cheerios or banana with her water. (She isn't at all interested in milk).

Generally ok. Good luck though, life after BF'ing very odd at first (and a bit depressing for mum too). The la leche legue book 'how weaning happens' was helpful and interesting (though didn't need it in the end).

sorry, long post.