need help with spirited 11mo

[A.F.]

Hi all,

First of all, thanks so much for helping out! i am a big fan of Tracy, and recommend every new mom to read her books and learn to be a better parent. i've used the forums help in the past, and i am very appreciative to whoever is part of our journey.

So, here is the story:

My son is 11 months old. We practice E.A.S.Y. more or less from the womb, but it's always been a struggle due to him having a very hard time with sleep. Some factors that make it worse are energetic and alert baby, light sleeper, hard time to wind down, and constant ear infections.

the bright side is, that little cutie pie has a very pleasant personality and so during the day he is fine, and that baby is on scheduale.

overall, sleep HAS gotten better, but it includes a very long routine. it is very changing, and he often wakes up at night. I love the bonding time, but once he is put in his cot, i would even more love if he went to sleep. he has just finally learned to sooth himself a bit but does so on his bottle (!). I got him a cute snugly little blanky which he loves, but it doesn't fully replace his bottle. If i leave the room he stands up and screams.
what our bedtime routine looks like now is:

dinner, (bath), PJs, stpry time in room with 2 year old big bro, bottle in my arms with some bed time songs (room is dark and quite). put him gently in his bed.

best case scenario (this is a new improvement from the past few week. took a lot of work to stop doing "bad case scenario" but it is still so not ideal):

baby sucks on blanky while laying down. he moves and rolls around, but doesn't get up. he falls asleep within 10-15 minutes. i am in the room singing quite songs, so he knows i am there, but do not make eye contact.

other scenarios: baby site up and plays with himself (standing up and down, etc). i am in room singing etc. if i pick him up, he falls asleep in my arms immediately! he is really ready to sleep just can't unwind... can't put him down unless he is either awake but calm, or totally sleeping. if he just fell asleep he will wake up very upset. can take a long time for him to reach a deep sleep (5-10 minutes)

or: baby cries in his bed... i continue singing quitly so he knows i am there, but will only pick him up if he is hysterical... happens very often...

or: any variation of the above

i have tried leaving the room, but it usually takes longer to fall asleep, and he gets suspicious, and doesn't sleep as well.

i really want to get to a more stable routine, how can i help him sleep better? if he wakes up in the middle of the night it can take 30-40 minutes of bottle feeding, singing, soothing, rocking, crying...

when ever i try to move on to the next step in abandoning bad habits, there is a regression.


i am due to give birth in may, and can't imagine doing this with a NB in the background... please help in preparing LO to the arrival of NB.

any other tips and suggestions...

[A.F.]

btw this is my baby just a few months ago.... 7 months HUGE regression, for third time

[A.F.]

good morning 

spent about 40 minutes getting LO to bed. he woke up at 6, but my husband tried to put him back to sleep for 30 minutes and gave up, so was awake for the day. any advice?

[Buntybear]

Hi there - could you post your day time routine too please?

Thanks x

[A.F.]

6:00 - 7:15: wake up, depends on how well slept at night
10:30 - 12:00 nap
5:00pm dinner
6pm start bedtime routine (PJs, cleanup, story, etc)
6:40 cuddle up with bottle and a song
move in to crib
asleep by 7:15pm

on weekends, nap scheduale is a bit different, does not seem to effect night routine:
instead of 1 long nap like at day care, 2 short naps at 9:30am and 2:00pm

[KBolton]

Hi There,

I think think the problem may be consistency of how you approach his sleep. If he learns that, if I cry I can get a lovely cuddle to sleep and yummy bottle, then he'll cry. How long do you leave it when he starts crying in his crib? I went to a sleep consultant for help and she recommended that you start with 20 minutes. You put the baby down, use some white noise and soothe with hands and voice only but do not pick up until 20 minutes is up. I have never reached 20mins, but the next step was 45 mins if this wasn't working. This advice was given when my LO was 3 months, but I imagine it can apply for an older baby. Providing you know your LO, is fed, clean and feeling well, I would keep going for a time period you are happy with. The more you pick up, the more you reinforce crying = cuddles.

My LO is also very spirited and would scream to get me to pick her up. She now goes to sleep without the drama, but it took a lot of consistency from me. As soon as I picked her up, she would sleep on my shoulder, so I knew it was a problem with her self soothing and not anything else. I never leave the room, so she knows I am there. I do sneakily hide headphones and listen to a podcast for the times she's overtired and it takes her a while to drop off.

I hope this helps. Best of luck! I know the crying is horrible to hear, I do wish they would merrily take themselves off to sleep without the tears.

K

[KBolton]

Another thought,if your not comfortable having you LO cry in his crib with you near by, you could try PU/PD. That may be difficult if your heavily pregnant, but you could try and recruit some family helpers.

[jessmum46]

Hi there, I see you've already had some advice from previous poster (thank you!) but just wondered how you were getting on?

I think perhaps there may be a couple of things here that might need tweaking to make this easier on all of you:

he has just finally learned to sooth himself a bit but does so on his bottle

First would be if you've noticed a tendency for LO to get to that calm/sleepy state with his bottle, I would change up the bedtime routine to remove the bottle from the equation.  Obviously he can still have a bedtime bottle!  But perhaps do it in the bright noisier story room instead of in the dark bedroom. 

Second thing I notice is his routine.  It's not unusual for a spirited baby to drop to one nap earlier than most, but his routine is a bit 'wonky' in that the nap is early, and quite short for one nap, so there is a huge stretch before bed which means he is almost certainly OT going to bed.  A more typical 1 nap routine would be a nap around midday, at least 2h, and perhaps a touch earlier bedtime.  Do you have any say in what happens at daycare?  I know it can be hard.....if not would you consider getting him to bed earlier on those days?

If you do have some flexibility I wonder if you may need to consider trying to get a 2 nap routine going again just for a little while longer?  It's a rough time for sleep with the 2-1 transition but often holding onto 2 naps until LO is a bit older makes it somewhat easier.  If he's spirited and was refusing afternoon naps, I'd go for something very like your weekend routine, getting him down at 9.30am and waking him after 20-30 mins, then down again at 1/2ish for hopefully a longer nap.  Would that be possible?

In terms of settling him there is no magic trick other than consistency, consistency, consistency!  It sounds like he *can* do it at times (sucking on blanky and going off to sleep) so I would suggest on the times he is just playing and messing about you ignore him totally - stay in the room (for now) but don't intervene at all.  Only go to him if he is crying but instead of picking up I would suggest you just use 'put down' - quoting from the PUPD FAQs:

8 MONTHS TO A YEAR - At this age you really don’t do any pick up as babies 8 months and up tend to soothe faster in the crib. 

•   You wait for them to stand up or pull up and then you place them back down so they are looking away from you and not at your face.
•   If you feel they are truly frantic and need more you can pick them up for a moment but you put them straight back down. 
•   At this age it’s important to use your voice even more.  Your baby will start to recognize what you are saying, eg. “I’m not  leaving you, you’re not alone, it’s nap time” etc. 
•   At this age you may need to pair pu/pd with gradual leaving of the room.  First you stay in the room until asleep, then move a few feet from the crib, in a few days you move to the door, then out the door. 

when ever i try to move on to the next step in abandoning bad habits, there is a regression.

Just wanted to reassure you this normal   The key is holding firm through the regression - LO will try to test to see if you are serious about the new 'rules' - the more consistent you can be the sooner the message gets across x