11 month old has never slept through, now getting worse and Im back at work - HELP !!

[Myneaux]

My 11 month DS has always been a bad sleeper.....the best we ever managed was a month of his sleeping until 5am when he was about 6 months.

Since then he seems to have got worse and worse. There is no such thing as a typical night but what often happens is that he will go to bed at 7pm and then wake up at about 10....we can usually get him back to sleep with a cuddle relatively easily. He will then sleep through til about 4am when he wakes up again. This time he is wide awake and the only way to get him back to sleep is to give him a bottle....he doesnt fall asleep straight away but after an hour he is usually back in his cot where he will stay til 6ish. Then we are up for the day.

If he doesnt wake up early he can sleep til about 3.30 but then the only way to get him back to sleep is to feed him.

I feel at the end of my tether....it is impossible for me to go to bed in a relaxed state because i am always anticpating a wake up. I am now back at work and dont feel like I have had a good nights sleep in a year.....getting up at 4.30 each morning means its often difficult to get back to sleep and its killing me. It just seems ridiculious that DS is nearly a year old and Im still feeding him during the night.

DS doesnt have a dummy (we got rid of it at 5 months when that was interfering with his sleep) and he sleeps reasonably well during the day (hour nap in morning and hour nap in afternoon).

We have tried CC but found that it only worked for a short time and as soon as he got a cold or tooth we didnt feel it was fair to leave him. We find it really difficult to leave him if he wakes because he is so mobile you can hear him banging around the cot....at by the time we do go in to get him he is wide awake anyway. We have limited success in putting him down awake for the same reason.

please tell me they eventually grow out of this !

DS woke and had a bottle until he was about 15months. I just found it far easier to give him some milk so he'd go back to sleep and so could i.

He also didn't sleep past about 5am until he was about 2. Sorry that doesn't help but you're not alone in have a dc who doesn't sleep through.

It's bloody awful though but he will eventually get better. Saying that DS is 4 and still hardly ever sleeps past 6.30am but at least he doesn't wake in the night for milk anymore.

i did find however that it was once ds would go to sleep on his own at bedtime that it was easier to get him back to sleep in the middle of the night, so maybe its worth trying CC (if you can bear it) at bed time so that he learns to go to sleep on his own.

Well I have a similar problem. My DD was a good sleep from 4 months until about 6 months then she started waking in the night. She's 10 months now and still waking most nights.

I know how you feel about not being relaxed when you go to bed because you're anticpating a wake up call.

My DD goes off to sleep on her own every night and she has a dummy. She usually stirs around 11 or sometimes 1am but I pop her dummy back in and she sleeps again. She wakes some time between 4 - 6 am and I also give her a feed to get her back to sleep and a cuddle. Sometimes she'll go back to sleep but if it is nearer 6am she doesn't.

I too am hoping she'll grow out of it because I'm back at work very soon too.

So don't worry you're not alone.

Ok you say he wakes at 10pm and you get him back to sleep by cuddling. Just a though have you tried giving him a bottle at 10pm instead to see if this helps him sleep longer during the night?

We had a very bad sleeper to DD didn't sleep through untill 13months and then she'd only go for one or two night in a row and wake up again. I actualy feel that even at 11months 12hours is a long time to expect them to go without a drink or food. I certainly can't go that long without a drink and if I wake in the night I need a drink then to.

I think you'll also find that the experance you've had with CC is typical it's not really a permenat fix as anything that disturbes there sleep puts you back to square one.

Good luck.

Sorry don't mean to offend anyone here but I've never liked controlled crying and have never used it. But I also recently read an article on the bbc website about how leaving your baby to "cry it out" can harm them.

Here is the link to read for yourself and make your own mind up

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8636950.stm

I just want to say that sometimes there is no magic solution. My DS was waking at 12 and 4am until he was 2yrs old. I went back to work when he was 11 months. It was hard, but I coped because I had to. Even now he can wake about 12am and then up again at 5.15. I guess some babies are just poor sleepers. I'm sorry I can't offer a solution, just wanted to share that you are not alone and acknowledge how you feel. It used to help me, when up in the wee small hours, to think that there were other mothers doing the same in other houses across the country!

Yes, another thing that helps to think about when you are up in the wee small hours is that it is just you and your little baby together at the moment. That is all they really are, little babies in need of their mummy. I've come to accept that my DD will wake and sometimes I will just take a deep breath and hold her close and enjoy the cuddles. Sometimes I find the calmer and more relaxed I am with her the quicker she goes back to sleep.

I don't know what you want to hear. Surely you know that an 11 month old does not need to feed in the night and that in order to have unbroken sleep, you need to stop giving him night bottles.

So here it is: Stop night bottles. Cuddles and a bit of water if he is thirsty is all he gets from now on. It will be hard for a couple of nights but then the habit will be broken and he will sleep through.

Also, treat 6 AM wake-ups like night-time - a cuddle and a kiss and back in his cot. Don't give his bottle until 7 AM or whatever you feel is a reasonable wake-up time for the family.

Thank you all for your comments...it seems as if there are no magic answers (to be honest I never thought there was !) but it is at least nice to know you are not alone. Sometimes it feels as if you are the only one who is doing this and even though you have tried everything you cant help feeling that you are doing something wrong.

I think the best I can do is to try and put him down when he is awake and hope that helps a bit and just wait for him to grow out of it. My mum recently confessed that I didnt sleep through til I was 3...so maybe it runs in the family!

Having tried CC before, with some success, I dont really feel that it is an option any more...DS is just too mobile now that if he wants to be up he will not go back to sleep.

I also dont see how I can give up the bottle....we always try to get DS back to sleep without it and he rarely has it until the 4.30 wake up. The fact that he polishes off 7oz suggests to me that he is probably hungry by then

You really are not alone, DD2 (4.5) has probably slept through a dozen time s since birth, we just get on with it now.

Most nights into our bed by 2am.

She will eventually grow out of it.

I'm sure my DD was still on one night feed at 11 months. She is generally a hungry person and still eats a lot during the day now.

She just naturally gave up the night feed. She is now 2 yo and doesn't always sleep through the night without a cuddle and more often than not wakes at 6am.

We have some good nights and some bad nights and most of the time we can cope but I can remember being so relieved when she slept through regularly - uninterrupted sleep makes a huge difference.

Tbh I would say that at 11 mo this is probably not unusual and doesn't mean your DS will never sleep through - although I know it seems impossible at the moment.

Not sure if this will help but my daughter a similar age (see separate thread on morning naps) and when she wasn't sleeping through a couple of months ago we were given advice by a HV which really helped. The first was ensuring a really good dinner (to keep her full overnight), and having it later than we had been doing - I'd been feeding her at 5.30, then moved it to 6.15 and upped the quantities. The second was to offer her water, not milk, if she woke in the night. Did this for a few nights and was soon a different (sleeping) baby. Oh, almost forgot, another thing was to move her bottle from after the bath to before her bath - so there was no chance she'd fall asleep on it and then wake later needing the same bottle/feeding cues.

DD still wakes and has a bottle in the middle of the night at 15 months. She's become much easier to settle down though.

Like Irons I am also watching and reading this keenly as what you describe is my 13mo DD's sleep patterns and behaviour to the letter - also going back to work full time soon, so desperate to get her settled, or at least teach her to settle herself.

Gavotte's three-point advice seems worth a try too. Hopefully we'll all find a way through this.

My dd (16 month) was waking up every 2-3 hours at night for feeding until about a week ago. Now dp settles her without feeding by shush patting. She is now sleeping until 5, waking for a feed and then sleeping again til 7 or 7.30. BUT she is more clingy and needs more feeds during the day, so my guess is that she was waking because she needed the food and comfort and not because she could not get herself to sleep on her own. I think what i am trying to say is that lots of babies do need food and comfort during the night and you need to find a compromise that gives them enough and allows you to be sane the next day. Never blame yourself for the fact that your child does not sleep through. it is not your fault

I am definately sure that DS is hungry when he wakes up....I am not sure that it is hunger that is waking him up at 4am but I think that if he wakes up at this time he decides it would be nice to have some early breakfast rather than go back to sleep !

I do somethimes hear him wake up earlier in the night and he does usually go back to sleep on his own so I think he is capable of self settling if he wants to.

I will persevere with trying to feed him more food and later on in the evening....unfortunately after being a great eater for 11 months he is now starting to mess me around there too (am hoping its temporary due to yet another tooth coming thru).

I guess I had always thought that he would be sleeping thru by now so I just have to get used to the fact that he isnt going to change overnight just because Ive gone back to work or he is about to be 1 year old.

At least we have good coffee at work !

In Muslim countries, people who will fast the next day set their watches to 2 AM and have a hearty meal at this time before going back to bed. After a whole month of this during Ramadan, they are not fasting in the day but they are still waking up at 2 AM with grumbling tummies. Of course they don't eat and in a couple of days, body loses the habit of eating at that time.

You see where this is going

Of course your DS is hungry when he wakes at 4 AM, as that is his habitual "meal time".

You don't need to do CC, by the way. Stay with him, hug him, walk with him, sing to him, whatever, BUT Do Not Give Him Milk. I promise you that in less than a week, he will sleep through.

Ok, so the last 3 nights we decided to grab the bull by the horns so to speak and tackle this.

1st night was pure hell - would not go down, 10pm and over an hour of her standing up in her cot wailing over the side, us picking her up, putting her down, saying 'lie down', shhhh, cuddle teddy etc. Wanted milk 'mi-mi-mi' at 2am, but did not, could not relent, hence the usual performance for another hour or so.

2nd night - have been making daytime progress teaching her about lying down and cuddling teddy, then 9pm and another hour of crying... 4am and an hour, back killing me with all the picking up to lie her down straight, stooping, stroking in her cot - no rocking her to sleep this time! DH took over at 5am for half an hour then she slept beautifully til 7.30!

Last night - went straight down 10 mins after cuddling teddy at 8.30, only picking her up to lie her down 4 times, and with a bit of head stroking in her cot (finally she lay down of her own volition).

Tonight - she smiled, cuddled teddy, reached for her blanket, cried a bit but didn't stand up, heard my voice outside her room and quietened, and 5 mins later DH went in to find her fast asleep.

And yes, the later dinner helps, so does the water instead of milk. I placed a non-spill beaker in the corner of her cot so that she doesn't have to shout for it and fully wake up. Also glad she's found teddy for security. I make sure I involve teddy in the bedtime routine too.

Hoping that someone reading this will take heart from this, as on Monday, I never believed we'd EVER get past the pitiful wailing and glazed teary eyes pleading for milk. Stick with it - yes it's lonely at 4am, but it may be the last time you have to do it (for a while).

Just thought Id add an update

DS has been sleeping even worse than normal, and not eating...had assumed it was the results of yet another cold making it difficult for him to breathe.

After 2 hourly wake ups last night I managed to get him a docs appt this morning and apparently he has a really bad case of tonsilitis.

Once he has recovered and is eating normally again I will have a go at some of your tips and hope it makes a difference.