Is this normal?

[Bug-a-boo]

My little guy is almost 14 months old and we are on day 9 of sleep training. I was expecting (or was told) that we would have 3-5 bad nights and then the miracle would begin.  No such luck. Does anyone else's child cry/scream every time you put them to bed? Will that change? Is it unrealistic to expect he will go all night and I won't hear him crying in the night? I am beginning to think this isn't working, are we giving up to fast?

[Layla]

{{{HUGS}}}

Can you please post your routine. Are you sleep training for naps as well as nightsleep?

What method are you using?

Layla

[Bug-a-boo]

We aren't sleep training for naps yet. We were told to wait 4-6 weeks until he gets used to the nights before we change that up too. The first night we put him in his crib wide awake and stood outside his door and talked him to sleep using key words. (He cried for 1 hr 10 min and then slept from 10pm-6am) The second night we did the same thing except we shh-ed him more and used less talking. (It only took 20 minutes for him to fall asleep but he was up a few more times during the night). The third night we shh-ed a bit but tried not to too much. I slept outside his door for the first four nights and shh-ed every time he woke up, less and less each night. Tonight is the 10th night and now when we start putting him to bed he knows what is coming and starts to cry, as I had mentioned.
Our routine is hard to stick too as he wakes up at different times but this is what I have been able to establish
7:30-8:00 breakfast
9:30-10:00 snack (usually raisins, he loves them!)
11:45 lunch
12:30-1:00 - nap, here is gets hard because some days he sleeps for 2.5 hours some days he sleeps for 1 hour
5:30-6:00 supper
7:00 bath and to bed

He seems so tired in the morning and I think he would possibly nap but we were told he should be able to go the whole morning and that his body just needs to adjust.

I can't believe how exhausting this whole process has been, especially emotionally. I can't stand listening to him cry until he falls asleep and then listening to him cry when he wakes up in the night and not being able to go in. That is part of the training, leaving him to learn to self soothe. His 1 year molars are coming in and I know I can't make the pain any less but it seems to heartless to leave him on his own. We have been giving him motrin before bed to help though.  Today he was fussy and whining all day and I saw another tooth poked thru.  He also starts playing with my hair when he gets tired, I am pretty sure it is a comfort item for him and I let him play when he falls alseep for a nap so I wonder if he is looking for it in the middle of the night? When he wakes up in the morning after 6am I take him to bed with me, he doesn't usually go back to sleep but if he does he has a handful of hair    He seems to play with it a lot during the day since we started the sleep training - have we killed his trust in us and is his whole world upside down and he needs the hair as a comfort item during the day now? Does any of that make sense? I kinda got rambling there.
Thanks so much for your help, I/we need all the support we can get right now!

[Layla]

He seems so tired in the morning and I think he would possibly nap but we were told he should be able to go the whole morning and that his body just needs to adjust.

I am not sure who told you that he should be able to go all morning (I hope it wasn't me ) without a nap but I can assure you that ALOT of babies at that age can't and if he is clearly tired in the morning, he is obviously not ready for 1 nap. Some toddlers are down to 1 nap as early as 12months but the majority don't fully transition until they are about 18months old!

So I would go back to offering 2 naps. However you might want to shorten the morning nap to say 45mins so that he is still tired enough for bedtime. So this is the routine I would try and follow:

6am (considering he wakes at around this time work with the early wakings for now)
breakfast
9.30-10:15am - morning nap (wake him up 45mins into the nap to preserve afternoon nap)
1.30-3pm - afternoon nap (this nap should be longer since he's only slept a short time in the am)
6.30-7pm - bedtime

If you put him down for the morning nap but he won't fall asleep within say 30mins then forget the nap and shoot for 1 nap... but you really need to offer it sooner than 12.30-1pm. I would put him down at around 11am or so... let him sleep for up to 2.5-3hrs and then do bedtime around 4.5-5hrs later. See at the moment say he sleeps just an hour from 12.30-1.30pm... he is then awake for 5.5hrs until bedtime, which is probably too long for him.

I can't stand listening to him cry until he falls asleep and then listening to him cry when he wakes up in the night and not being able to go in.

You don't have to stand at the door listening to him. I "think" I remember it was someone from your DH's work that suggested standing at the door and shushing??? This is really the last stages of the gradual withdrawal method you're talking about. You need to start off by being by his side/sleeping in the room if you want to do the gradual withdrawal and then slowly over a few weeks moving towards the door until you're at the door and then out of there.

He also starts playing with my hair when he gets tired, I am pretty sure it is a comfort item for him and I let him play when he falls alseep for a nap so I wonder if he is looking for it in the middle of the night? When he wakes up in the morning after 6am I take him to bed with me, he doesn't usually go back to sleep but if he does he has a handful of hair    He seems to play with it a lot during the day since we started the sleep training - have we killed his trust in us and is his whole world upside down and he needs the hair as a comfort item during the day now? Does any of that make sense? I kinda got rambling there.

Its very possible that he is using the hair as a method of self soothing. You haven't killed his trust and at the end of the day, when you sleep train, they need to find something that helps them relax and fall asleep. This might just be it! What about getting him a doll with hair so that he can play with her hair and use that as a soothing method? My dd uses her blanket... she used to use my breast and the dummy and now its the blanket. During the day she drags that blanket around from room to room. Once they find a comforter, they hold onto it for a looong time, lol.

My dd was also teething like crazy around that age. If you know he's in pain from teething, give him pain relief (even at night) to cover that side of things and then go back to sleep training.

Let me know what you think
Layla

[Layla]

Hey, just wondering how things are going??

[Bug-a-boo]

Sorry I haven't posted recently. We have had a crazy busy week. Things have been going better. I have tried offering the morning nap but so far no dice. I think that may be because we had a mom's group 2 mornings this week and a pediatrician appointment one morning, we not really much chance for a nap. We found the homeopathic "Camilia" and it has worked wonders for the teething. DS has gone 3 nights now where he has pretty much slept thru. I hope it isn't the camilia that is making him sleep though 
He has only been sleeping for 1.5 hours in the afternoon this week and I am wondering if that is enough? He still seem sleeping in the morning so maybe I will keep trying to offer the am nap? Thanks soo much for your support, I really needed someone to reassure us that we were on the right track. Oh! I did go back to talking to him when he goes to sleep and that seems to help the crying at bedtime, not totally gone but I think he is mainly crying as his "sleep-song" as my mother would say.

[Layla]

I am so glad you posted back .

You know when we were going through the 2-1 nap transition (towards the end when they were mostly on 1 nap), they would still display "tired signs" around 9-10am (which is when they would have had their morning nap). What I used to do is quieten things down and do a low key activity like read some books or put a baby einstein video on... and then we'd move onto snack/early lunch and they down for a nap around 11-11.30am. Every other day they still needed a "catch up" 2 nap day so keep offering the morning nap if you feel that he will take it.

Alot of toddlers are actually stuck on a 45min-1hr nap when they go down to 1 nap... so the fact that he's sleeping 1.5hrs is great. The av for toddlers is around 13hrs so if its 1.5hrs during the day and 11-12hrs at night, it might be about right for him. It took a few months for the nap to extend from 45mins to 1.5-2hrs for us.

I am not too sure about "camilia" but if its helping him sleep through then probably the pain from teething was disturbing his sleep.

Good luck and keep me posted

[Bug-a-boo]

Last night we were at friends and DS feel asleep on the way home so we just popped him into the crib when we got home. 2 hours later he was up screaming so I ended up going in, despite what we had been told. He calmed down for me pretty quick and slept until morning. I was pleased about that but I hope he isn't expecting me to come in tonight now! We put him to bed tonight in the normal way and he cried for a few minutes and then played in his crib and then feel asleep. We were both pretty encouraged that he could play by himself in his crib and not be totally upset before going to sleep. So hopefully things continue that way.
I think I will keep offering the am nap and see how things progress, it's totally true that good sleep during the day means better sleep at night. I find he is waking up pretty early in the morning for the day, around 6am. Any suggestions on how to get him to sleep longer? We tried putting him to bed later but it doesn't seem to help. I would resign myself to the fact that he is an early-riser but he seems tired still. Do you think it could be because he is still adjusting and transitioning to 1 nap?
Thanks again for your help. It's great to have someone to bounce things off of!

[Layla]

Wow... thats very encouraging!!! So with the early wakings... probably does have something to do with the 2-1 nap transition. Could also be due to too much daytime sleep, too late bedtime, teething... but in general its very common for them to go through early wakings when they are in the middle of the transition.

Could you tell me what kind of routine you are following (when is the 1st nap, etc...).

[Bug-a-boo]

Wow, I am glad that you think the EW's are fixable!

I started going for a jog in the morning and DS has started sleeping during that time. I just let him as I really couldn't stop him from falling asleep and figured the am nap was needed. However, he has been sleeping for about 1 hr (approx) in the morning and will only sleep for 1/2hr for me in the afternoon, or that is how the past 2 days have gone. Which didn't seem to be a big deal but last night he was up constantly.  He would cry out for a minute and then be sleeping again. He seemed to do this every hour until I went in at 4am to give him something for teething pain but he was alseep so I left it. He has been drooling like mad and his nose is running, running, running. Do you think he is up because of the teething/cold or nap time switch? Before we had been doing:
6-7am wake up
7:30-8:00am breakfast
11:30 lunch
12:30 - nap (anywhere from 1.5 to 2 hours) (at this point he feel asleep in seconds, I had to work on keeping him up all morning and he was ready to sleep!)
5:30 - supper
7-7:30pm - bath and in bed

the last two days looked more like this
6-6:30am wake up
7:30  breakfast
9:00-9:30 - go for a jog - DS falls alseep sometime on jog
12:00 lunch
1:30-2:00 nap for 1/2 hour (have to rock and rock to get him to sleep at this point)
5:30 - supper
7:00 bedtime

Do you think this is too much of a switch or are we dealing with other issues? I kind of feel like he isn't getting enough daytime sleep on the second schedule. Maybe that is because he only has 1/2 hour sleep between 11am until 7pm.  I am so lost, it seems to improve and then we hit a major road block. How long does it typically take for molars to come in? On a positive note, he doesn't seem to need me to come in to go back to sleep. He usually sits up and cries a bit and then lays down and goes back to sleep.

[annap]

Hi,
Just saw this "chain talk" adn wanted to share my expreiacne that now in retrospect I think I can assure you the following:
We also "trained" our DS to self sleep and until he stoped crying completely after we had laeft his room, took about a month. but each time the cry was shorter and shorter. waht we did is puthim in his bed, said goon night. mom is here for you and get out of hte room. if he cries, I would go back in after 5 minutes, rub his back gently and say again, mom is here... this happened 3- 4 times and gradually was down to 0!! so hang in there. (PS- I tried before the PU/PD ans shh/pat but it DID NOT work AT ALL)
Acording to what you are saying about teething- the drooling and running nose- definatly teeth! about 6 months ago when my DS was 14 months old, he started to wake up each morning 3-4 AM crying loud and the only thing htat could comfort him was a bottle of milk... it drove me nuts because I did not see any teeth comming out and I was afraid he will get used to waking at 3-4 am and wanting his bottle! but after 3-4 weeks it stopped and  a month after almost all his molars came out.....
So, always trust your instincts, hang in there and do not give up! 
Anna

[Layla]

With the schedule... if you allow a morning nap, try to wake him up 45mins into the nap so that is tired enough for a pm nap. That way hopefully you won't have to "force" it (rock him for example) and he should be tired enough for a pm nap and a longer one.

So something like this:

6-7am - wake
9.30-10:15 - morning nap
1.30-3pm - afternoon nap
7pm - bedtime

Try this schedule for about 3 days or so and see if it works for you or not. If you see that he is still fighting the afternoon nap, then wake him 30mins into the morning nap and put him down for the afternoon nap no later than 1pm. He should hopefully sleep from 1-2.30/3pm and you can put him down around 7pm for bed.

IF you see that even a 30min morning nap still causes him to fight the afternoon nap/or the afternoon nap is not long enough, then it might be better to go back to 1 nap... but you will have to bump up the nap time to around 11.30am. So on 1 nap, something like this:

6-7am - wake
11.30/12pm - afternoon nap (around 1.5-2.5hrs in av)
6.30-7pm - bedtime

He might still need a 2 nap day to catch up as it does take a few weeks (maybe even longer) for them to get used to the 1-nap schedule. If you see that he is tired, let him sleep in the morning but wake him up to protect the afternoon nap

It does sound like he's teething majrly as well... so I would offer the meds.. especially if they help him settle sooner.

[Bug-a-boo]

thanks to you both for the advice. He seems to be getting a little better with the teething, although I noticed another bottom gum looking quite swollen.

I am still trying the morning nap and some days he takes it and others he won't. We did have a crazy busy weekend with Mother's day and trying to get to everyone's family events. Fun but busy. So maybe I should keep trying for a few days. He doesn't nap on his own though. I always have to lay down with him. Which was fine when he wasn't sleeping so good at night, because I was exhausted as well, but now I would like to get some stuff done when he sleeps, any suggestions on how I get him to sleep more than 30-45minutes by himself (should I start a different post for that one?) If he wakes up after that long but is still obviously tired is he OT or UT? I am struggling with knowing because some days he takes a nap in the am and others he doesn't and so I never know for sure what time to put him down in the afternoon.

Hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!!!!

[Layla]

With naps... the fact that he skips the morning nap is normal during the 2-1 nap transition and in that case, put him down for the afternoon nap around 11-11.30am (if he wakes up around 6-6.30am or so). If he wakes up around 7-7.30am, then put him down around 11.30-12pm....

If he does take a morning nap and its a short one (like 30mins), then put him down for the afternoon nap no later than 3hrs later. If the morning nap is about 45mins long then he can probably do around 3.5hrs before the pm nap.

I would look at training him for naps as well... if you want to have him fall asleep on his own. Use the same method you've used at night. So either wi/wo or pd method.