I want to know why ds wakes soon after being put to bed. I want a REASON.

[thatsnotmybelly]

I want a reason that involves sleep cycles, or blood sugar, or chemicals or hormones or SOMETHING.

He has a good supper.
He has a nice bath.
He is warm, clean, comfortable.
He is fed to sleep, so has good belly full of milk.
within the hour he wakes up wailing and nothing but another breastfeed will calm him or convince him to go back to sleep.

Once asleep for the second time he often sleeps through until morning, or at least until 11 or midnight.

He is 16 months old.

WHY??? WHY does he wake up so soon after being put to bed? I need a reason.

Because everyone wakes every so often in their sleep, but don't notice and normally just go back to sleep. Because he is waking up somewhere different to where he fell asleep, he is frightened and waking up properly and crying.
To solve this you should put him down awake.

Lol @ because he can.

abbierhodes, if it were any of those things, surely it would happen for his daytime nap too? And the rest of the night too? He can sometimes sleep all the way through to 5 or 6am, so he must have woken and self settled. It's just this ONE pointless waking, 20 - 40ish minutes after being put to bed.

its because everyone rouses and adultsjust roll over and go to sleep but he wants to hae the same stuff he had to go to sleep again

I'm hoping they grow out of it cause even if gecko goes down sawake and without me she always wakes every two to three hours [yawn]

I think it's something to do with toddlers that age having a sleep cycle of about an hour- as I understand it the beginning and end of night is when sleep lightest so most likely to wake up. May also be habit thing if knows going to get a bf(but no criticism from women whose dd will only sleep If held first).

seem to remember ferber says a sleep cycle is around 40 mins or so.
when the dcs were small, I worked out they tended to wake after 40/45 mins if they were especially tired. I know it's counterintuitive but I used to try to push back their naps to get around this. Sometimes it worked .

Yup, it's the end of his first sleep cycle. DD1 used to do this, I think especially if she was over-tired. It stopped when I refused to give her that extra feed to re-settle her. It was a hardcore 2 hours of screaming, but no problem after that.

YY! The tireder he is, the more likely he is to wake!

Okay, so, lighter sleep at the start of his night's sleep, making it harder for him to self settle at the end of his first sleep cycle? Is that my explanation?

Not exactly.

I think it's to do with plummetting into a deep-sleep cycle straight off, rather than sinking down through the layers as you do when normally (rather than over-) tired.

So you fall into your deep sleep too quickly and when that cycle finishes you surface (because it's so marvellously refreshing?) and quite often wake up, rather than just drifting off into another sleep cycle.

Lord, it was a long time ago, thankfully.

Ferber covers this, I'm sure.

Yes, that's exactly it. DS1 was fed to sleep for 1st nine months and always woke after half an hour. DS2 self-settled from day 1 and never does. Go figure!

For a while I thought it was because on days when he was too tired he would fall asleep on the breast very quickly before he had enough milk, and would then wake a short while later and be cross because he was hungry. On days when he was less tired (or just nicely tired) he would feed for longer before drifting off and would be less likely to wake within the hour.

I no longer believe this can be true though, because he has an enormous belly full of pasta and plenty of milk before bath. He's not hungry. It's something else. Carmelita, your plummetting into a deep sleep thing sounds promising.

In my experience with my ds I think this happens because you are feeding him to sleep

So when he wriggles in his sleep/rolls over - he thinks hmmm somethings different and wakes up to find the nipple/bottle

I'm not convinced. If he were only able to drop off to sleep on the breast he would need me to feed him back at the end of every sleep cycle. He doesn't.

He self settles overnight.
He can go to sleep with his daddy when I'm not around.
He sleeps for a couple of hours for his daytime nap.

He can self settle.

I agree! My son is 17 mths - goes down awake and settles well but wakes two or three times before midnight after which he self settles and sleeps until six thirty-ish. He too can easily sleep for a couple of hours for his daytime nap. Why????
I've wondered if he does more wees early on in his sleep and this wakes him up ...