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View Full Version : 15 month old sleep dramas.. help please!



Blue&Pink
25-06-2006, 14:43
I am at my wit's end!

DS has never been a great night sleeper but always a pretty good day sleeper. The longest I've ever had him go overnight is 6 hours, and then dribs and drabs the rest of the night. I used CC on him when he was younger and it worked a charm; but a weekend access visit with his father ruined that habit and he's refused to go with it again since. I got him into the habit of co-sleeping once when he was sick and now he co-sleeps pretty much every night. Except he sleeps fine in his own bed during the day, and not at night.

He has one solid day sleep - roughly 2-2.5 hours. He has an average bedtime of between 8pm and 9pm. He eats plenty, so he really shouldn't be waking from hunger. He also does not put himself to sleep; he gets comforted to sleep, whether it be that he goes to sleep on his bottle, in the car if we've been out somewhere, or by being cuddled/rocked by me. If he wakes due to a soggy nappy I change him and have trouble getting him to settle again; I offer a bottle if I can't settle him, which he will happily take but then still won't settle.

I enjoy co-sleeping with him don't get me wrong. But we are both restless sleepers and it often causes us more dramas than anything else.

So far I have put him in a big bed.. thinking because he's so tall (83cm's) the cot was too cramped.. and because he has a habit of moving around so much he used to bump into the sides and ends of the cot.
He has a night light, not too bright but not too dark.
I use a heater in his room of a night-time before he goes to bed so that the air in the room is warm, I lay his pj's in front of the heater for a half an hour so he gets into warm pj's and goes into a warm room and warm bed
I have put a radio in his room as when he sleeps in my room it is with the radio on

Last night I put a t-shirt of mine around his pillow like a pillow case hoping that if he could smell me it would help, but to no avail. He was awake within 2 hours.

I'm almost out of options; short of buying a teddy with my t-shirt on it for him to snuggle into I don't know what to do? My Dad suggests putting the baby gate across his bedroom door and leaving him cry but he can cry for 6 or 7 hours without stopping and I won't be able to handle it.

Again, he sleeps perfectly fine in his room during the day, but not at night? I know 90% of his night-wakings now is probably habit, but I really want to break the co-sleeping as he has a fantastic new bedroom since we moved house and I went to a lot of effort to set it up really nicely for him. It just seems a shame he won't enjoy it.

borntobemummy
25-06-2006, 14:51
I don't really know the answers, but I'd say that the problem would be due to habits forming, whether from weekend visits and co-sleeping. I am an advocate of controlled comforting..just to let him know what is expected of him. If he is likely to cry forever anyway..I'm not sure, you might have to keep coming back to him after longer intervals and laying him back down and telling him to sleep without interacting too much. I suggest you ask you ECHN or maybe a paediatrician.. HTH :hugs:

zactyl
27-06-2006, 01:52
Sounds pretty normal for a 1 year old to be waking in the night for a feed. Because he's now in a big bed, it might work for you to lay down with him in his bed when he wakes up for a feed, give him a bottle and go back to sleep (gently saying "it's time for sleeping" and rolling so he's against your back if he tries to engage you in play). If you wake before him, get up and go back to your own bed.
This worked really well for my daughter and I (my partner wasn't comfortable with 3-in-the-bed co-sleeping).
Hope this helps with your situation. :)

survivamum
18-07-2006, 20:44
I know what you're going thru. My DD is 2yrs and she's slept thru the night about 10 times! We have had success with controlled crying in the past too but there always seems to be something that disturbs the pattern and I just couldn't go through it again. :crying:
For now, we put DD to bed and just sit on the floor next to her and hold her hand until she's settled. DH goes first then we tag team.
We had a chat with her and told her she needed to sleep in her own bed and were consistent with putting her down in her room. She knows that she can come into our bed during the night if she needs to. And it's still a pain in the butt having 3 in the bed at some stage of the night, but I've just surrendered to it.
She's got to grow out of it at some point!:fingerscrossed:
It's pay back for me too....I did it to my folks until I was 5!:eek:

If DH or I feel like the sleep disturbance is getting too much, one of us goes to her bed when she sneaks into ours. 2 in a bed isn't so bad.

Good luck. Do whatever works for you....hopefully you'll get some good nights sleep.:sleeping:

babylover111
18-07-2006, 23:05
Does she tend to wake up at the same time? Because habitual waking tends to happen at exactly the same time each night

susmamma
19-07-2006, 08:36
hi there - my little one didnt sleep through until 15 months old when we bought a brilliant book called "the no cry sleep solution" by elizabeth pantley.
neither my husband or i are fans of control crying but after 15 months of getting up to ella on average sometimes 10 times a night we were both totally and utterly exhausted.
we started the book when she was about 13 months old, so it took us about 2 months to get serious results. some people get results in as little as 1 week. we had teething troubles and moving issues and holidays and illness that kept interupting our progess. however we noticed a difference with her bedtime routine immediately. previously she'd cry and fuss until 9pm. after 2 days of putting her in the nighttime routine she was asleep peacefully with NO CRYING at 6pm. PURE BLISS.
hope this helps. i know how totally stressful it is and how it consumes your every brain cell trying to work out how to get your child to sleep. we have number 2 on the way in october and ella is now 17 months old. will start new baby on "no cry sleep solution" straight away. wish i'd been given that book as an option when ella was little instead of being told it was either put up with no sleep or control cry.
good luck!
xx