12 Month Old w/ Frequent NW and Prop Problems

[brownj59]

Hi,

  My DS's frequent NW is a product of my accident parenting, unfortunately. My husband and I have tried training him to sleep better but have never been totally consistent to see it all the way through.  But now that my DS is going to turn one soon and I have resolved to solve his sleep problems and my own! 
  We have been working with him for the last week to only nurse twice during the night.  But even though I only feed him twice he still is up 4-5 times during the night to be resettled.  The problem is that he doesn't know how to put himself back to sleep.  He needs his back to be patted (what we thought would be a good thing turn into a bad thing).  He normally wakes up after two hours to have his back patted and then can make it to the four hour mark when I will feed him.   After I feed him he will go back to sleep but sometimes 10-20minutes later he will stir again and won't be able to fall back asleep until I go pat his back.  After his first feed of the night then we starts waking up more randomly throughout the night.  Also he has started waking up early (6:15-6:45am).
  I have started to transition him from two naps to one.  He will take a long morning nap and then a 20-30 minute cat nap, but also sometimes he won't take a second nap and goes to be early.

   How do I solve the back patting issue and teach him how to go to sleep on his own?
   How do I get him to only wake up twice or even better once throughout the night?

E: 6:30am (nurse 1st and then solids)
A: 6:30-10:30am
S: 10:30-12/12:30pm

E: 12/12:30pm
A: 12-4pm
S: 4pm-4:25

E: 4:25pm
A: 4:25pm- 7:30pm
S: 7:30pm

[Layla]

Hi there,

I am just going to move your post to the toddler sleep section

[HenaV]

*bumping*

[songbird]

Hi there!

I don't really know much about routine tweaking but we went through a phase where DD needed patting to sleep from 6-10 months to. Up every 2 hrs etc just like you described. What we did (Following advice from the props board here! ) was very gradually slowing down the pats (so say a few days to a week where you pat every 2 seconds then every 3 for next week etc) until eventually the pattingslowed to a point where i'd just be waking her more by patting.  Then I just lied on the floor next to her cot.

There may be setback for example when we slowed down sometimes she would protest and depending on how tired I was I sometimes gave in but mostly I stuck with it even though it would take longer to get her back to sleep.  After a few weeks she no longer needed patting and started waking less since she can now self settle.

Hope that helps!

[brownj59]

Thank you so much for your reply.  That is a creative idea about slowing down the patting.  My husband and I tried not patting as long but it didn't work very well because he would always wake back up within a few minutes because my DS wasn't fully asleep.