12 month old refuses to lie down in cot

[blanchedevereaux]

My DD was always a good sleeper until about 2 months ago.

She is BF and slept through from about 7 months old. I do tend to feed to sleep and the only problem I do have is that she isn't good at soothing herself but her bedtime BF knocked her out 9 times out of 10.

Since the end of September she has been waking through the night and we haven't had an unbroken night of sleep since. Initially I put it down to being on holiday and then she had 3 teeth come through, then a d & v bug.

Her sleep seems to have gone to pot and I feel like I have tried everything. PU/PD, patting, feeding, but most nights she ends up in bed with us where she inevitably gets a BF.

I want this to stop as me and DH aren't getting good quality sleep as she is such a wriggler and I am going back to work after Xmas and would like her to be more settled at night so she has the energy to get through a day at nursery.

I decided to try CC a week ago and gave in after 4 hours (1am-5am) as she cried and cried with no respite. She stands up in her cot and won't lie down unless I lie her down. If I pat her to sleep she leaps up like she was pretending the moment I try to leave the room.

She just won't lie down at all. I've tried sitting on a chair next to her, sitting on the floor, holding her hand, etc, and don't know what else to do. I feel that if she lay down she'd have more chance of settling herself as once she stands up I swear she could stand there all night.

She has recently moved to one nap a day and I can usually get her to settle for this in her cot (in the rare occasion we are in) by patting.

Any ideas on how I can tackle this? She has been awake tonight since 9.30 and I am just going in and patting her every 10 minutes but the moment I leave the room she gets up and starts crying again.

I feel for you I really do. I'm in a very similar position, except DS is coming up to 15 months and has NEVER slept through apart from maybe two or three times.

We've done our fair share of CC, which has worked occasionally and got us to a point where he wouldn't wake more than once or twice and then be easily settled. But the last time we tried (about 3 weeks ago) he got worse over the week and it got to a point that I couldn't spend another night listening to him cry non-stop for 3-4 hours.

So - my compromise. If he was going to end up in our bed he wasn't going to get any breastfeeds until I was ready to get up in the morning. He previously used to pester and pester until I sat upright and fed him. But this time I decided to ignore his pestering till he'd either go back to sleep, or if not (after say 20 mins of mauling) DH would take him downstairs and give him a cup of warm milk. It's worked so far, haven't breastfed him earlier than 6am for the past three weeks. And we've had a whole run of the best night's sleep since he was born.

Small battles. If you're happy to co-sleep just to give yourselves a break for now, then do it but hold firm on the feeding. Perhaps she'll stop waking up once she realises she's not getting any milk from you.

Hope that helps and Good Luck.

btw, DS is currently asleep in our bed after waking up in his cot. DH put him to sleep there earlier and we'll be joining him shortly.

Thanks for your replies, Digitalgirl.

She eventually went off to sleep at midnight. I think this is the first time she has ever done this on her own!

She woke again at 5.10 I went in after 10 minutes and gave her a kiss and laid her down and she was asleep by 5.27 and slept until 7.45.

So I am going to persevere with CC and see how it goes over the next few nights.

Just another question for those that have tried CC - do you do it for naps too?

Thanks!