15 Months old and still cant settle

**mylittletwins** · 27-01-2007 20:19

My almost 15 month old twin son is still struggling to resettle himself at night. The only way it can be done is with a bottle and sitting next to him until he falls asleep. My my husband and myself both working full time it can be tough getting up twice in the middle of the night.

Is anyone experienceing this? Whats the best way to control cry for a 15 month old?

**Rhys'Mum** · 31-01-2007 07:23

One of the things that really helped us was to introduce a rollover feed so that the little man got out of the habit of waking in the the night to demand food.

We would go in at about 10:30 - 11:00 (leaving the lights low), gently get him out of his cot and give him a bottle. We didn't interact with him, he stayed kind of groggy and quickly went back to sleep. Then when he woke at night (he was in the habit of waking about 2am) we knew he wasn't hungry and we could just pat him until he resettled.

At times we did have to use cc but it actually didn't take long to break the habit. After the first couple of days if we got to him quickly he wouldn't actually fully wake up so a couple of pats and he'd be back off to sleep and before long he was self settling. We worried about when to drop the rollover feed and we did get a few comments about how he shouldn't be needing it but eventually he just decided he didn't want it - he got grumpy when we tried to get him up and wouldn't drink it so we figured that was a pretty clear message and stopped it.

While your little one is older than our was at the time it could be worth a try.

**mylittletwins** · 01-02-2007 12:53

Thanks Rhys's mum,

It can get a little fustrating when they still get up and wont settle. I will give your idea ago.

**Rhys'Mum** · 01-02-2007 20:18

Good luck.

If it helps, as the little man has gotten older we've actually started to have really good success with a bit of patting, telling him we love him but its time for nigh nighs, a few more pats and then leaving. He rarely has even a protest grizzle on those rare occasions that he struggles to go to sleep or needs resettling.

One part of dealing with his sleep difficulties for us was ensuring we were consistent in our approach and used consistent language and sleep rituals/associations. I think we're really seeing that pay off as he gets older because he really does understand.

Even at 15 months your little one understands concepts, so you may find that while it may be a struggle for a couple of days (and day 3 is often awful and it can seem like everything is so much worse its not worth continuing with) but once he understands the changed expectations and he's not feeling a little thirsty or peckish as he changes sleep cycle he may well surprise you.

**mylittletwins** · 05-02-2007 07:57

My other concern is that he relies on the formula at night and when i tried to give him water he drank it all then he cried because he wanted the formula. To make matters worse he takes forever drinking his bottle.

I have given him less formula so he can drink it quicker but he still takes about 20 mins to drink 150mls.

**Rhys'Mum** · 07-02-2007 12:59

The little man was totally miffed when we tried to substitute water too and I really wasn't prepared to persist with it. We also found that contrary to some people's experience he wouldn't just drink more during the day because we tried to rob him of it at night. That's why we introduced the rollover feed.

He would go to bed at 7ish, we'd get him up and give him a full bottle at 10:30 - 11:00 (and he actually got real good at sucking them back much quicker than normal because there weren't the distractions) then we'd just resettle without a bottle when he woke at night. May not work for all bubs but certainly helped with ours.

Good luck with it all.

**Kaileysmum** · 07-02-2007 13:44

When DD was around 15mths old we did Tizzy Halls method, out of her book called "save our sleep", it worked great dd has been self-settling and sleeping through ever since.

**TeganRheana** · 14-02-2007 11:48

We had our son sleeping through the night at 7months. We would make sure that he was in bed the exat same time every night...we would give him his last bottle before he went to bed and if he woke during the night we would give him a bottle of warm water ...he would usually drink all of it then fall back to sleep. We never patted him back to sleep because he would usually just fall back to sleep by himself after about 4 mins of crying....all babies/kids are different and it depends on what you feel comfortable doing....I would suggest trying to give him warm water instead of a bottle...we only had to do it a couple of weeks and he was completly over waking up just for some water and didnt bother haha

**masterchefMamma** · 10-03-2007 18:04

Hi there!
I totally hear you! Our DD is 1 and for the last few months has been going thru exactly the same thing!
She used to be an excellent sleeper thru the night.
I am like others suggested going to try to wean her off the middle of the night feeds and try to give her water. I am preparing myself for many more sleepless nights as a result...and hopefully it will mean that she will learn to sleep thru.
And yes its tough as like you hubby and I get up twice or three times and both work.
Good luck to you as well.
I am sure that there are many more like us out there?