How to teach a 1 year old to soothe himself when he wakes up.

[margarita]

My son is almost one year old.  I can't believe that he still doesn't sleep, but I feel guilty about the fact that I have contributed to him still waking up.  He wakes up two times, "out of hunger" i have convinced myself.  I would like to know two things.

- How can I help a one year old to soothe himself to sleep if he wakes up? The two times he wakes up, he just need a bottle or reassurance to fall back asleep.  Should I just stop giving him a bottle?  Should I let him cry when he wakes up, until he is asleep again?

- He falls asleep with his bottle, but I want to stop this.  Don't want his teeth to suffer from it.  What is the fastest and simplest transition for him??? 

Thanks.

MS

[Beata]

Okay, so check out sleeping for toddlers and many of the postings on this board, but here are a few things I did...

before I go into that, you need to decide how committed you are to making changes..or I should say, do you want to do baby steps, all at once, etc. because I firmly believe that change take super consistenvy and is REALLY frustrating for the little ones.

I started weaning at 11 months, before that my dd woke many times a night. I cut out all night feedings with pu/pd. Then once I started weaning day feeds, dd started waking less and less. Also, during night wakings I would do Walk In/Walk out. Once she was about 11.5 months, she understood when I said "mommy is right in the next room if you ever need me" it took weeks of consistent pu/pd and then wi/wo, some night wakings lasted 2-3 hours, but I PROMISE the got shorter and shorted to the point that Cate started sleeping 13 hours a night PLUS naps. Going from no more than 4 hours between wakings, I consider that a MIRACLE. These days she wakes occasionally, but it is usually related to teeth or sickness.

So think about how ready you are to commit to ending night wakings because from my experience it took MANY nights/hours of crying (all while I was right there with her) but as we all know change stinks! And there is no point in making the los cry/change their patterns if we can't follow through.

[Colin Macs Mom]

You've already got fabulous advice from Beata! I just want to reinforce the importance of consistency. You CAN fix those issues, but you have to be 110% committed to it and be willing to stick it out for a bit until you both get through the transition. If you are not committed and consistent, it won't work.

I also urge you not to let him cry until he goes back to sleep - we do not support CIO around here as Tracy believes that it breaks the trust between parent and child. As Beata suggested, go with walk in walk out. There are stickies in the FAQ section, one on How I Stopped the Night Feeds with a 9 mo. Old and another on the Gentle Removal Plan. Give those a look! With the night feed, you could either put less in the bottle or water it down until it's eliminated.

[Beata]

Margarita, how is it going?

[margarita]

Hi, everyone, and thanks for the help.  I will start to try everything on Sunday. His first birthday is tomorrow, and we will celebrate on Saturday, so I feel guilty about starting sooner.  I will keep you posted on how it goes next week. Thanks again!

MS

[JoC]

Hi Margarita,

My ds is almost the same age as yours and i could have posted your problem myslf. I am having exactly the same issues. My ds has been doing quite well, but in the last 2 weeks his sleep is all over the place. He was normally waking at around 5 and i was giving him his first bottle as this was, to be honest a quick fix. Now, however, I faeel for his own sake i should be helping him sleep through til at least 6.30. Once he has the bottle, he will sleep til 7 soundly. I think I have instilled this habit, but as you, I am not sure how to help him transition from a 5 o clock bottle to a 6.30-7.oo one. I am not sure what Walk in walk out entails. I did 2 hard weeks of pu/pd when he was about 6 months and it did work. He has had 8 teeth in about 8 weeks, god bless him, so i know this does not help. My partner has gone away today for 4 months to work in the middle east and I have 3 weeks of school hols left before I go back to work I have to get this sorted before then, or I don't know what I will do. I hope some of you guys can help he both of us!!
I too thought by this time he would be sleeping, but i know it is me who has caused the problem in the first place.

[Beata]

JoC...there is a lot of good information about WI/WO on the sleep for toddlers board, but I basically understand it as the next step once PU/PD no longer is an effective tool. I went from PU/PD to just PD to WI/WO...

essentially Cate would never fall asleep when I was in the room, so pd worked (Cate would stay down only if I was right there, but I would not leave, so the next step I took was to start leaving the room for 10 seconds, and back and forth until she stayed down and fell asleep while I was in the hall. When we started it took hours, but eventually worked and then night wakings started to stop (because she learned to fall asleep without anyone in the room.

To this day we have occasional wakings due to illness or teeth, but who doesn't, right. Most weeks we go without Cate calling to us at night (sometimes I'll here her wake, but I always wait, and 99 percent of the time she falls asleep again.

Best wishes and check out those boards.

[JoC]

Beata,
thank you. pu/pd seems to drive ds insane now he is older. I will try wi/wo and look on the boards.
Thanks again

[JoC]

Morning (here in England!), I hope your ds slept ok last night Margarita. I have a couple of questions if anyone can help.
My ds woke this morning at 5 went back sleep til 5.30, then i spent the next 1 and 1/2 hours doing wi/wo. 
My query 1 is that as this took us to 7am, which meant he was now screming cos he was hungry, can wi/wo work if he just screams for that long it is feed time so he sees that if he just keeps crying I will eventually feed him?
Also, it says on the other postings to wait til they have scremed for 10 secs or so, but if they stop, start counting again. Does taking two breaths then starting screming again count as a break? I don't want to rush in cos I felt that I was actually stopping him from falling asleep, but I kept going in.
This was the first night so maybe he will fall back to sleep quicker tomorrow (wishful!). TIA

[Beata]

Hmmm well I can answer that I would probably not count that deep breath as a break in the cry...but I also think here, just use your judgement. If you think that it would be better to wait a bit longer than do so, but the general advice is we are talking less than a minute, IYKWIM. Once Cate began to get the idea here, I would wait a bit longer and longer. Also, I would use my voice..."momma's right in the hall if you need me, I'll always come if you call me, etc."

Oh, let me say, that since my dd NEVER fell asleep on her own before I started this, I believe that I actually did the thing where I had a chair in her room and I moved it closer to the door each day or two. Then I started WI/WO....sorry, I completely forgot that until just now. When I did that, I'd tell her mommy's just going to sit by the door, in the hall, etc. Then we got rid of the chair completely.

I don't know the answer about the morning feed. My gut tells me, give him breakfast at the proper time. And a nap at the normal time. It was hard for us to keep her up when we went through that, but I'd do anything I could to keep her up.

BUT the warning here is my dd did not stop waking early until I forced her to wait until a bit later in the a.m. to have her nap (the BW books or boards say that because the baby might realize that they can nap not long after waking i the morning, they will keep waking early (or something along those lines). It was true for us.

[JoC]

Thanks, that makes sense, we were awake from 5.30 this morning and he napped for 2 and 1/2 hours. I should have got him up. He has just gone off for nap now, will keep it really short!
Thanks a lot for the advice. i'll try again tonight.

[jonsmommy]

I hope it's okay for me to jump into this thread because I seem to be in a similar boat.  My 11 month old son has never been a good sleeper and out of desperation we started cosleeping again when he was about 6 months old.  We actually all love cosleeping but ut we decided something has to give because waking up every 1-2 hours was destroying me and our relationship. So his crib is still sidecarred but we added the 4th wall back on and started PD about a week ago. It seems to have helped in that I can get him to go down by himself and he will actually sleep a 3-5 hour stretch in contrast to his usual wake up 45 minutes after going down. The problem is after that first stretch he is a nightmare. The last 2 nights have been awful.  2 nights ago he was asleep at 8 instead of his usual 6:30 - 7 (DH's idea...BAD) up at 9 and back down with one PD then up at 1:30, 2:30, 3, 3:45, 4:45 when I finally laid him in bed and fed him with him staying latched on for an hour as I dozed, then took him off at 5:45 and he tried to stay awake, back in crib and slept till 6:45. And of course none of those wakings are easy, he cries then sleeps for 5 minutes then gets up again and repeat.   Then when I thought it couldn't get worse last night happened...He slept from 7-10:30 then 10:30-1:30 and then was up every 10 - 40 minutes from then until 6!!  I was beginning to think his molar was finally coming through since I can feel it under the skin but I gave him tylenol and teething tablets and he still woke up every 40 minutes. Each waking then took 5-10 minutes of PD and crying.   I just don't know what to do anymore and what I am doing wrong.  I thought that after more than a week things would be getting better not worse!

He goes to bed early
He has had a routine since a few weeks old
I have night weaned him
He puts himself to bed with me in the room but not touching him
White noise, music all night long
He is on a 4 hour EASY

I don't believe in CIO for our family but it's getting to the point that I don't know what else to do. I know that even in my darkest hours I can't just let him cry alone without me at least shushing him and reassuring him. Tonight we move the crib off the bed so we will see how that goes. I thought doing it slowly like this would be easiest on him but now I'm not so sure.  The only thing I am sure of is that I am totally at my wits end and completely exhausted and that something has to give!!  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[JoC]

Hi Jonsmommy, hugs to you,
I did pu/pd with my ds when he was 6 months old. He is a very spirited baby and it took just over 2 weeks, there were times i thought I was going to give up but i perservered cos I had done it for 5days then 7 days etc. It did work so hold on in there. I think you have to keep in mind that they are screaming out of frustration, not cos they are hurt etc. I try to keep this in mind, they are creatures of habit and if things change that they are unfarmiliar with, cying is the only way they can show it, obvious stuff I know!
I am not sure if you should keep on with the pu/pd or try the wi/wo cos of your lo's age, don't know. Maybe someone can advise.
My ds is fine going off, nap times are fine and as i said so I know it does work eventually. He is waking at 5 habitually now so i know it is not hunger, but I have always fed him.
We too had long night of screaming but just keep remembering it is in their and your best interests.
Good luck for the next week cos I think it may take that long, but it DID work VERY well for us. I am hoping that this next phase will work too, even if it takes a couple of weeks.

Jo

[jonsmommy]

Thanks for the encouragement Jo.  I am definately planning to stick with it I just hope these unbearable night wakings start getting better.  He just went down in a record 5 minutes so I am feeling hopeful.  He seems to "get it" to start the night but fights, fights, fights in the middle of the night.  Fingers crossed he does better tonight!

~Yasmin

[Beata]

Yasmin, what's his schedule? How long are daytime naps...phew, I am having flashbacks  ...I used to go through the same thing!

So I have a few ideas, but spell out the schedule, and then I'll write more...but in case it's not tonight, a few things that come to mind are, maybe his daytime sleep is too much...I think at this age the total sleep is 14 hours...I have to check; second, if not that then maybe he's just overtired...all the night wakings...we has a bad time again a few weeks ago, and someone suggested putting Cate to bed even earlier - wakings early in the nigh suggest overtiredness, and it worked (there was construction and her naps were also non existent, and finally maybe it's time to wean him off of the white noise or music? Just some thoughts, and like I said I'll have more when you send the total amount of sleep, naps, etc.

It's always hard when we are trying to figure things out, but I promise he WILL become a good sleeper. Don't let him CIO...I know from experience the only reason you are considering that is because you are exhausted 

So, HUGS, try to rest a bit more during the days for now....and we'll talk tomorrow. Beata