Been doing pu/pd for 2 months - I'm doing something wrong- please help

[Kassandra]

My son is a bf eleven month old. He used to sleep in bed with us and nurse laying down, just so his father and I could get some sleep before work. When he was in his 9th month we couldn't sleep with him in bed anymore due to his tossing and turning. So we walked him, rocked him, nursed him to sleep- and tiptoed out of the room... it was horrible.

Two months later- I can lay my son down in his crib and he will settle himself to sleep usually within ten minutes (but we still have our nights). The thing I've been having trouble with is he doesn't know how to settle himself back to sleep once he wakes in the night. Which is very frequent. I'll give you last nights run down - know that the daytime routine is still the same.

6:30 wake and nurse
7:00 cereal and fruit
9:00 nap for an hour
10:30 nurse
11:00 lunch
1:00 nap for an hour and a half
2:30 nurse
3:00 snack
5:30 dinner (whatever we are eating)
6:30 cereal and nurse
then we start our bedtime routine
bath, baby massage, book, bed
usually he falls asleep by 7:20

normally he wakes up every hour on the hour one of us goes upstairs and gives him his pacifier back to sleep. At 10:00 I nurse him one last time before I head to bed. This is what happened last night-
10:00 nursed (5 min), 11:00 pacifier, 12:00-3:15 screamed his head off every 4 minutes. I stayed in the rocking chair in his room the whole time. Every time he sat up, I layed him back down, he would fall asleep for a few minutes and wake up hysterical, it took at least 20 minutes to calm him down everytime, and still he would only sleep for 4 mins. At 3:30 he woke again, I had had enough- I nursed him (10 min) and put him back to bed. 3:45 he woke again- My husband works at 4:30 he begged for the last half hour to sleep so I brought my son to bed with me. 5:30 woke again, nursed him back to sleep 6:30 he woke up and we got up.

Help me PLEASE! Before I started this routine I was against CIO and now that I have been holding my son and listening to him scream for so long, I think I'm used to hearing him cry and maybe I should just let him scream himself back to sleep. Horrible thoughts go through my head at 3:00 in the morning. I'm exhausted. Husband doesn't help with nighttime- he wants baby to cry it out so if I'm to make pu/pd work I need to do it. (I'm not mad at husband for this, I recently quit work to stay home with our son, so we are agreed that he should get to sleep at night)

[Layla]

Hey there & welcome to the boards !

I think your lo might be a little overtired from the long stretch in the evening (before bed) & often overtiredness causes night wakings & makes it that much more harder to settle them when they wake at night.

At 11 months, he should be able to handle longer A times in the morning & afternoon.

I would recommend something like this:
6:30 - wake & nurse
breakfast
9:30-10:30 - morning nap
nurse
lunch
2-3.30 - afternoon nap
snack
dinner
supper & nurse
bedtime routine
7/7.30 - bedtime

So try adding about 15mins to his A times every few days until you get to this routine. In the meantime, you might want to try an earlier bedtime so that he is not exhausted by then & an earlier bedtime can help erase some overtiredness.

Keep me posted'
Layls

[Kassandra]

I've been trying for the past couple of days and now he has switched his naps to only 40 or 50 minutes. And because I continue to do PD with him to try and extend his naps he is beside himself when it comes to bedtime now. I used to be able to lay him in his crib and he woud settle himself, now he won't settle even if I sit in the rocking chair in his room with him. He just screams his head off... Two months is just too long for us to have been doing this. I'm so frustrated.

[Layla]

Can you tell me what time you have attempted the naps? Can you give me an indication of the last few days been like (if you can recall)

Layla

[pau]

Kassandra,

I know how frustrated you're feeling. My LO is 9 mo and she used to sleep with us, until she started to wake up every hour, and no walking, rocking, bouncing would keep her asleep longer. So I started PU/PD. After a month and a half (of being sleep-deprived, bad humor, back pains, desperate), I did get progress: she would sleep alone in her crib, but would still wake up at nights not knowing how to re-settle. Then I hurt my back and couldn't get out of bed, so my DH slept in our LO's room (because he sleeps so deep, he wouldn't hear her cry over the monitor!). That was just what she needed. Of course she cried at first, since she was used to mommy getting her to sleep. But after a few days, things got better, and slowly he left her room. I must say that I also bought a white noise machine, which helps her to sleep.

Hope things get better, and hang in there!!! Remember there's no greater blessing than having a child.

Pau.

[Paddys mum]

Not sure if this will help, but as well as the overtiredness, you might want to consider the night feed. I was doing PU/PD with my 9 mth old for what seemed like forever and were in the same situation - great during the day but still waking at night unable to resettle. He was having one feed at night as well as the four during the day. I suddenly realised that it might be that night feed that was stopping him from realising how to self-settle during the night. I had originally been keeping him sleepy for that feed, but that meant that once a day he was essentially feeding to sleep. And that threw all the other good work during the other 23 hours of the day out the window! I tried making sure he was wide awake for that feed and wide awake when he went down, and that helped a bit, but he was still waking during the night. So I've now cut that feed out altogether. It's been 3 days since he's had a feed at night and he's getting better. I won't lie and tell you it was magic - but we've gone from 3 wakings a night and waking for 1-2hours at a time, to only one waking a night and going back to sleep after half an hour. Like I said, not magic, but hopefully it will keep improving.

Good luck!