1-0 no idea need help

[creations]

Try not to worry about what he's done before.
I've always put mine to bed at the regular time regardless of a micronap (here he tends to nod off in the car if anywhere but whilst he has been ill recently he fell asleep once on the sofa watching TV, slept an hour and still went to bed at normal time and did a full night).  You can't force him to sleep, but you can help him learn to self settle which I think would radically improve the situation.

[Straffles]

Yes he self settled but not til 7.20.

That's almost an hour after normal bt.

How can I not worry

[anna*]

Independent sleep and consistent use of Groclock can help you not to worry. Between the two you can out him in his bedroom at bedtime and then take care if your own needs until morning. Like creations said, we can't force them to sleep but we can give them the best opportunities for sleep, and give then the tools that if they aren't sleeping, at least they are not disturbing you. He's not a tiny baby any more, OT isn't the disaster in toddlers/preschoolers that it is in babies, we don't have to manage it so carefully, just give then good 'sleep hygiene' and let go of trying to have so much control - which is impossible anyway.

[jessmum46]

Hi again hun, we know you are finding this really tough at the moment so firstly lots of (((hugs))).  This thread has been going on a while so I wanted to summarise where things stand.  We have tried alternate nap days and NNDs and that didn't seem to suit.  In our latest posts we have discussed going completely to NNDs and just allowing a quick 15-20 minute catnap if Benji is very tired with set BT of 6.30pm.  Plus reinforcing wakeup with the gro clock.   We believe this is now the way to go and would encourage you to stick with it.  I don't think that our routine advice will now change based on day to day variations and I would urge you to start trusting your Mummy instinct as much as possible.

However, our experience on this forum tells us that where sleep issues with toddlers are ongoing for many months, as with Benji and his NWs, the answer never lies purely in routine.  You have mentioned that Benji can self-settle, but to truly be an independent sleeper he should be going to sleep in his bed alone every single night (with the exception of rare events such as illness) with no assistance, and should be able to return to sleep with minimal or no intervention when he wakes at night.  So far you have not fully answered our questions about night wakings and how you respond, and I do suspect that more of the problem lies there than you are currently willing to face.

We will always be here to offer a hand to hold and a hug, that won't change, but until you feel able to consider the full picture, not just the routine, I am not sure we will have any further advice for you.

Hugs xxx

[Straffles]

Yes I'm happy to tackle the independent sleep issue once he's through the transition.

He has never woken 12 times in one night before! Not until he did 6 nnds in a row and was ckearly ot as a result of this transition. I thought this was to be expected.

I need your support

Not settling to sleep tonight til 7.20 you think this is because he took so long to self settle? He seemed ut to me.

[anna*]

As I said before, it's all normal. All kinds of sleep craziness during toddler years and during transitions. Yes it is to be expected. My kids would often take longer to settle at night after even a micro-nap during the day - that's why I had to come down firm and say no naps at all (Audrey in particular was much worse than this, a 20 minute nap in the day and she would be chatting and singing in her cot until 8.30-9pm. My mum and her babysitter loved to give her a nap but it wasn't worth it for the bedtime shenanigans it caused).

I don't think you have to wait until after the transition until tackling independent sleep. These things aren't independent of each other. After 6nnds in a row, and behaviour remaining good, I'd say you're pretty much done with the transition anyway. You're not going to be going back to a nap, so, transition done.

[Straffles]

Hey Anna.

Benji crashed out literally this afternoon, tantruming. I couldn't stop it.

Now I fear this it at bt from the micro nap means a 9.5hr night and how can I give an nnd from a pre5 wu?

X

[anna*]

You are using the Groclock, right? So he's not going to be 'up and about' until after 6.30? As long as he's resting, that's fine. There's no problem with tantrumming, it's what toddlers do. You don't have to stop it.
To paraphrase Yoda, there is now 'how', only 'do'.

[Straffles]

I meant I couldn't stop him falling asleep. He has never just dropped off. Only twice on his life - after about ten mins if tantruming/screaming. One was today.

If he wakes early ut and cannot get back to sleep he will not rest long enough to take us to 6.30 or sun up. It's just too long for him to wait

[anna*]

The Groclock won't work unless you enforce waiting for sun up before the day begins. It just will not. Either adjust the time on the clock to something you can enforce every single day without fail, or don't bother with it at all. If he wakes at 4.30am, he's not UT though is he? He's OT, and he's not going to fall back to sleep if he thinks he can engage you in hanging out with him instead of resting until he's bored enough to fall back to sleep.

[Aishi]

^^^ this

Independent sleep will cut down on the ot nws...my dd has ot nws six months after 1-0 but diff is she can ss during those. If benji could truly ss then he would be able to settle at nws whether ut or not but the ot means it's harder for him to ss even tho he can sometimes or most times do it when he's not ot yk?

[Straffles]

Yes Aishi that helps

It's 11.20 just had third nw and ss with a hand on back and kind words so far.

So why is he waking every hr from ot?

I mean really I haven't seen any other descriptions if waking every hr during the night on the 1-0 and certainly not more than one night in a row.

I see what you say about ind sleep but really are those who ss really waking that much and anyway this really us too much isn't it.

There are millions if kids who are co sleepers or whatever and I don't see them all waking every hour unless sonething us very wrong

Pain beds made no diff btw

[anna*]

Kids who self settle, their parents will have no idea how many times they wake at night. I have no idea how many times my kids wake at night, occasionally I hear them but most often I don't. If he's needing your presence, he's not self settling, and that may well be why he is waking so frequently. We can't rule it out.

[Aishi]

Actually straffles my ds (4.5 yo) was a co sleeper had every prop under the sun and he would wake after every sleep cycle (hr) so when he was 2 and I had enough I decided to teach him is which is the only thing that stopped the nws. Don't get me wrong it wasn't that simple it was bloody hard work but I knew it had to be done cos co sleeping wasn't working either...

On the other hand my dd has been is since tiny and during 1-0 she was having nws every hour too (it's the end of the sleep cycle and if lo isn't independant sleeper then they can't transition btwn cycles without help which is prob why benji is waking- he's so ot and can't transition cycles himself so wakes cod you're not there to put your hand on him through the cycle. If that is the prop then it's not fair to expect him to ss when he's ot and he doesn't know how to ss yk?) btw definition of ss is when you can put lo down wide awake and leave him to fall asleep himself. Anyway, Most times my ss can ss but sometimes I had to help but that was an ot issue not self settling one. I was able to fix it by doing short 10 h days and super ebt (4.45 bt) which was feasible cos she is hsn and tacks on night sleep.

Guess what I'm trying to say is that you've tweaked his routine to death and nothing has helped. What harm is teaching is going to do? He's already way beyond ot....

[anna*]

remember there's a 3 year sleep regression too.