Help! 11 month old not sleeping!

[Adowski]

I am new to this forum and new to BW. I having been implementing techniques but I can't seem to fix the problem. My son sleeps well during the day, and really isn't a fussy baby but when it comes to bed time he is all over the place. Some nights he will sleep for 4-6, then up every two hours after that, or there are nights that he never sleeps more than 2 hours. He is BF, along with solid foods now. He drinks water though out the day, but no juice or formula. When my son wake up at night he wants to drink milk and then will go back to sleep. If he is rocked or walked, he will go to sleep in your arms but will wake up as soon as you lay him down. I have tried letting him cry in small increments, but this has not seem to help. Below is what happened last night and a usuall day schedule.

700-730- wake up/nurse
800- breakfast (usually fruit and oatmeal)
930-1000- nurses down to morning nap-usually sleeps 1.5-2hrs
1230-lunch-usually fruit and veggies, with puff snacks. My son is refusing all meat at this point
1-2:30 playtime
2:30-300nursed down to nap-usually1-1.5 hrs
530-dinner-same as lunch, will often nurse after dinner
730-8:00- start bedtime routine, this starts with a bedtime snack of apple/sweet pot oatmeal. Then bathtime, story time, nursing and then off to sleep. My son usually finishes nursin and then pushes away to lay down in his crib. He goes to sleep easily.
1245- my son woke up- started out lite crying but then got worse, I went in around 1, nursed him and he went right back to sleep.
345- same as lasting waking, I tried to rock him back to sleep, he would fall back asleep in my arms but not in the crib. He went in and out of sleep for an hour. I finally nursed him and he went back to sleep.
615- again up, I will admit at this time I brought my son in with me, as my husband was up for the day. He nursed and then went back to sleep till 730. Then up for the day.

I'm expecting everyone to say I'm nursing too much at night, but nothing else is seeming to work. This is how he has been, this is not a new thing. But he has had good nights, occasional with no rhythm or reason he will sleep 6 or more hours. But this is a weird 1 night thing, no way the normal.

Thank you for your help!!!

[brummum]

Hi there and welcome to baby whisperer! The first thing to say is that this forum is based on the advice and philosophy of Tracey Hogg, the baby whisperer. Tracey felt there were gentler ways to teach independent sleep to little ones than Controlled crying or cry it out methods so there is no support or promotion of these approaches here. That's not meant asa criticism, we all do the best we can with the info we have available to us just that if you were looking for any advice in this respect you won't find it here. If you want to read more about why I have posted a couple of links below. There are, however, of lovely mommas here to give support and encouragement and their own experiences so I hope you will feel at home!

Research on why 'cry it out' and 'controlled crying' is NOT recommended!
Cry it out (CIO): 10 reasons why it is not for us

So am i right in that he nurses to sleep for naps but will go down awake in his cot at bedtime and put himself to sleep? have you always feed back to sleep for all night wakings previously? Has he been able self settle at any point previously? I don't think anyone would say there is anything wrong with nursing at night if you think he is taking a full feed and is genuinely hungry. I think quite a few mommas here are still giving a night feed at 11 months. However, if he is using solely to get back to sleep then you would most likely find that weaning it and teaching him to self settle without it will help his nights considerably and help him do longer stretches. If you want to do this then we can definately help, it would probably involve some form of gradual withdrawal. Are you familiar with this at all?

[Adowski]

I totally agree with not using the cry it out method, I have unwillingly tried it a couple times in very short time frames as the people around me have told me there is no other options. But it does not work for me at all!!

Most of the time I nurse him before naps and bed, he is still awake...sleepy but awake, he will actually push off and roll towards his crib. He then gets comfortable and goes to sleep. In the middle of the night he does not seem to self sooth much at all. I have had to nurse him pretty much every time to get him back to sleep. He usually nurses about 10-15min, which is normal for him during the day as well, but I have trouble believing he is hungry enough at night to need to nurse every 2 hours, i don't really know. Teaching him to self settle, seems to be my biggest issue. Any tips on gradual withdrawal would be greatly appreciated! I understand that he might still need a night feeding, but 3-5 a night is getting hard for me.

Thank you so much for your help!!!