11 month old screams at bedtime. have we created a monster?

[tulip000]

I just feel I have tried and I am making daft mistakes and I can't see the woods for the trees... HELP

My very happy 11 month old boy has been subject to our accidental parenting and even though we thought we were doing the right thing, we have to now sit with him until he falls asleep as he gets upset when we creep out the door. He wasn't always like this, but we found it easier to sit for a few minutes whilst he got himself comfy and started falling asleep (since he started crawling a month ago).

Minutes have now turned into 1hr over this past month. He huffs and puffs, rocks on all fours, cries, sits up, cries more, yawns and then screams out of frustration of not falling alseep straight away. sometimes its crying but mostly just fussing.. He shows the signs of being tired after his soothing bath and story books, but then this all happens. Whats wrong??? what have we done???. He then wakes up 45mins afterwards (first sleep cycle) and cries again. Quick hug and he goes back to sleep til 7am ish. (naps are always FINE and he couldn't care less that we walk out after saying 'night night')

He has a good 7 to 7 routine, and now we need help to get out of him having seperation anxiety (is this what this is?)
7 wake
7.30 bottle milk
8.30 breakfast
9.30 1 hr nap (grumpy if less but should this be less?)
12.00 lunch
1.00 lunch sleep 2 hrs
3.00 wake and either 3oz or yoghurt
5.00 dinner
6.00 bath, bedroom, stories, milk, hugs
7.00 bed

is he in a cot or your bed?

we co-sleep with our 11m old, i cuddle him to sleep in our bed which takes about 10 mins and he is out for the night.

i can't recommend co-sleeping enough!

first,apologies,spacebar,broken!
you,are,on,right,track,seeing,the,accidental,parenting
have,you,r ead,about,pickup-putdouun?
i,think,it'll,help,you,enormously!!!

Hi Tulip! Our DS is 10mths and has a very similar routine to yours (although ours doesn't normally stretch to the 2 hr lunch nap ). We also went through a tricky period when he started crawling as every time he went in his cot he would just start crawling, sitting, standing etc..

He has got much better at settling himself now over the last couple of weeks, although he still goes through unsettled phases every so often.

Anyway, what I was going to suggest was does he have a comforter/blanket/soft toy etc?? I slept with our ds' bunny rabbit stuffed up my pyjamas for a couple of nights so that it should smell like mummy, and put it in beside ds in his cot. He often falls asleep holding it now so I think that's helping especially if he wakes up after his first sleep cycle which he often does.

Hope that might help!

Once you have put him in the cot, leave the room, then go back every 5 mins, for reassurance till he is sleeping, especially if it is more fussing than, distressed crying. Once our DS became mobile it took her a while to get comfey.

DD was always a brilliant sleeper and then she got like this - although once she got off to sleep that was it.

I found that leaving her for 5 mins and then going back, leaving her for 10 mins and then going back, leaving her for 15 mins and then going back worked. She never cried for more than 15 mins.

The other thing I found was that whenever this happened she was actually too tired to sleep, so I would bring bedtime forward - but you are already at 7pm, which I wasn't, so maybe that won't help in your case.

As for the morning nap, dd always went back down for a nap during the morning. I would just let her sleep for as long as she needed to. Same in the afternoon. I never woke her and never found that too much sleep during the day affected her sleep at night.