What do you DO when bf to sleep doesn't work any more??

[BertieBotts]

Erm.. yes, basically, DS is 9.5mo and bf doesn't seem to be the magic tool it once was to induce sleep... what do I do now?? He is getting so overtired in the evenings and nothing seems to calm him down. Worse, when he is overtired he likes to bite, which is annoying and painful!

The one thing I won't compromise on is I refuse to leave him to cry at all, even the gentlest form of CC, not an option.

Thanks in advance for any ideas

Message withdrawn

it is normal development and change of sleep pattern, you can fiddle around with naps and move bedtime. tricky though, best to avoid inducing 5am waking by mistake

Oh and I have tried:

Limiting naps
Limiting bf during the day
Bathing
A relaxing rainforest sounds thing
Taking him for a walk
Getting fresh air during the day
More solids during the day
Solid meal closer to bedtime

Pick up/put down if he gets upset about going in his cot and staying with him, holding his hand/rubbing his back. He's probably going through separation anxiety along with learning to pull up and starting to babble/learning to talk so it's not an easy age.

Watching with interest.

When it stopped working for us we started rocking ds to sleep. Unfortunately that then started taking longer and longer to work, and we were spending our entire nights and days walking up and down desperately trying to get him to sleep, and he was so overtired all the time that he was constantly grumpy. So in the end we did resort to a form of controlled crying, but only leaving him for 2 minutes at a time and then if he got very upset staying with him until he went to sleep. It took a few weeks but it did work, and now he goes down at night and for naps brilliantly. I never thought I'd be able to leave him in his cot awake and smiling and he'd take himself off to sleep, I'm still amazed when it happens!

If you didn't want to leave him to cry on his own, which is very hard, would you sit in the room with him next to his cot, comforting him? You might be surprised at how quickly he actually does go to sleep.

Pushchair or sling as an emergency measure?
I'm afraid I'm another one who left the room in desperation at this stage and ds went to sleep after 2 mins yelling. It wasn't a magic solution though.
have you got a partner who could do it? And you be out of the way?
Starting bedtime earlier (as early as 5pm if overtired) might help a bit so you avoid the horrors of overtiredness.
How does naptime work?