1 year old sleep woes

[CamWHU96]

Hi all,

As you can probably see from my previous posts our son has never slept well. It is really getting on top of us and having an effect on both myself and my fiancé. There has been no let up bar one week in June. It’s a minimum 4 wake ups a night if not more.

He has a routine. Dinner between 5pm-5:30pm. Bath 7pm asleep by 7:30. Between 7:30-10:30 he sleeps lovely. By 11pm he’s in with us. Usually before the last week he’s go until 2am then wake then again at 4am and up for 6-6:30am , that would be a good evening. The last week from 11pm he’s just wanted to be held on my fiancé lap with her leaning on the head rest. If she tried to move him to cot or next to her laying down he wakes up and cries. He’s very fidgety.

we changed him to cows milk round 3 weeks ago. He isn’t constipated. The only thing we can think of and what’s been said to us is maybe he’s hungry and cows milk doesn’t cut it anymore. However when we feed him we can’t physically make him eat anymore. Please any ideas or help would be great.

[Mum7644885]

Hi Op,
Sorry to hear you’re having such a rough time, years 0-2 can be really hellish on the sleep front. Sometimes, little ones can just be really bad sleepers, mine was for the first 12 months, but I suppose one thing you can do is examine in a bit more detail.

So they are 12 months ish,
How many day time naps are they having ?
Do they go to nursery ?
Are they teething currently ?
Are they sick ?
what is their sleep environment like ?
when they go to bed, do they put up a fight or quite happy to settle ?
When they wake do they cry and scream loudly ? Or just more upset, want comfort etc ?
When you leave them during the night, what do they do ?

It sounds like from the info you have posted (of course could be wrong) that it may well have just become a habit the constant waking, if there is no pain from teething, no discomfort from illness, eating well in the day and optimum daytime sleep in the day/ enough wake time before bed, it’s habit driven …

Something I used was a method where you go in, give them a kiss on the head and say, I’ll be back in a minute to give you another kiss, then go back straight away and give them a kiss, then say the same, walk out the door, go back in, then do the same but extend the time between the kiss and going back in. I did it when I couldn’t get my little girl back to sleep and it seemed to confuse her, which made her quieter and more likely to relax between the wait time, it takes a lot of patience but in time, it worked.

I also think, if they arnt screaming and you have a monitor, just try and leave them a while, aslong as they are safe, it won’t hurt to see if they can get themselves back to sleep. I now say to my lo (but she is 2) okay I’ll be back soon to check on you, or I’ll say I’ll bring her milk or something, but I don’t go back and usually she’s so tired she just goes back to sleep between waiting