1 year old awake every hour

[Drained Dad]

Evening everybody, I'm very new here and desperate for some advice please.
My 1 year old son Thomas is waking during the night and just recently it's becoming almost every hour on the hour. It's totally exhausting for both my partner and I. He doesn't sleep much during the day, maybe an hours nap during the morning and nothing in the afternoon. He goes to bed at 7pm after his bath every night.
I just don't know what to do. My poor partner is shattered and I feel like I'm losing my mind!

Please, any advice? I'll try anything!

Thank you and much love in advance

Adam

[cath~]

Hi Adam and welcome to BW

It sounds like he's probably quite overtired (OT), which might be causing/contributing to all the NWs.

Could you let us know his typical routine, i.e. WU, nap time (and length), BT (asleep).  Do you try for a nap in the afternoon at all?

Also, how does he nod off, i.e. independently or does he have some help (e.g. BF, rocking, carrying, patting...)?

Could there be any pain going on, e.g. teething?  And what were his nights like before the hourly NWs started?  Did he STTN ever?  How do you get him back to sleep when he wakes up at night?  Is he awake for long each time?

Sorry for all the qns.  Just trying to get the whole picture, then we can help you come up with a plan

[Drained Dad]

Hi cath, thank you for your reply.

Tommy doesn't really nap very much during the day. He'll have maybe a 20minute nap in the morning and half an hour around 2pm most days. He has a bath at 6.45pm and settles off to sleep unaided at 7pm with a bottle of milk. This is the happy time! He'll normally then sleep until 10.30pm by which point we think we've cracked it! Then the crying will start. My partner Katie will go in, pass him back his bottle and he'll settle again only to wake an hour later.
Up until around a month ago he was a fairly good sleeper. Waking around 1am and then again at 5.30. That we could live with. I think we were spoilt with our eldest two, both slept from 7am-7pm every night!

To be honest I'm getting worried about Katie, I feel abit useless not being able to help and I know it's really starting to get her down. Any advice you could give will be appreciated.

[cath~]

That does sound really tough.  You both must be shattered, especially with two others to look after as well.

Just a few more questions if you don't mind:
- does he settle independently for naps or does he use milk/a bottle to nod off?
- has he always been resettled with a bottle at night or have you ever managed to resettle him without one?
- what time does he wake in the morning?
- you say he "settles off to sleep unaided at 7pm with a bottle of milk" - do you mean he drinks the milk by himself in the cot as he nods off?  If so, it could be that the milk is a bit of a prop (so he needs it again each time he wakes up) and I'd suggest that he has his milk before getting into his cot and that he does the falling asleep bit without any milk.  Does that make sense?  Sorry if I've got the wrong end of the stick here.

I am also guessing that he might be quite OT with such short naps.  But he may also be in the 2-1 transition.  Have you tried offering him afternoon nap later?  Would he do a longer nap then?

[Lindsay27]

I am thinking the 2-1 transition too and I was actually wondering the opposite, if he would skip the short morning nap altogether and aim for 1 long nap (around 11:30/12noon is I think what we started with) and then hope for a  2-2.5hr nap and then move BT up a bit to 6:30/7.  I do agree I think he's OT due to the short naps.