14 Month Old - how to establish good sleep patterns

[Mommy Moo]

My DS in 14 months old and his sleep patterns are gone out the window.  He still gets up 1 to 4 times per night.  So here's his "schedule" if you can call it that:

Wake around 7:00AM
Breakfast/play
Bottle of soy milk 10:00 and sleep for 45min to 1 hour 15 min.
Lunch around 11:30/12:00
Outdoors/Play
Bottle of soy milk around 3:00 sleep for 45min to 1 hour 15 min.
Supper around 5:00PM
Outdoors/Activity/Shopping
By 7:00 PM he's usually back in the house and I feed him his bedtime lunch (usually cereal). 
But he doesn't go to sleep until around 9:30PM (great improvement..it used to be 11:30-12:00), and has a bottle at this time too.

He will awaken in the night and many times I will give him a watered down bottle ( :oops: ) to get him to go back to sleep.

So I guess my question is where do I start and how do I get him to go to sleep without his bottle?  Also, he is a real bad screamer and when he cries he will often vomit.  He has vomited in his carseat on a 20 minute trip because he hates it so much.  I would also like to eliminate his bottles but am at a loss of how to get him to sleep without it.  I am concerned about PU/PD because he will vomit.

Any advice is really appreciated.

[tylersmommy]

Have you read Tracy's toddler book? She describes a similar issue with a 14 mo old who is nursed to sleep and during the night (it's on p 254). That's a great place to start for eliminating the bottle and teaching him independent sleep. Odds are, when he isn't relying on the bottle to sleep and knows how to do it himself, his night wakings will be less frequent.

Something else jumps out at me here...why is he having trouble going to sleep at night? Is he fighting sleep? If that's the case, his naps may need to be adjusted. One of the clues that LOs are ready to transition to 1 nap is difficulty going to sleep at night. If that's what's happening, you may want to sort that out first before dropping the bottle...although he may be so tired that he may not fight you on eliminating the bottle...It also sounds as if he's been left to cry at some point? If so, it may take a bit longer to re-establish trust and get on track, but it certainly can be done! Keep us posted!

[Aarismom]

I agree with tylersmommy

At 14 months, you may want to try and eliminate the morning nap and go for a longer nap in the early afternoon, around 1 or so. That might help him make it to 7 or 8 or whenever your target bedtime is. You can do it slowly by shortening the nap to only 1 hr or 45 mins for a few days, then keeping him up until noon or 1.

As for getting him off the bottle, giving him less and less in the bottle over time (gradual extinction) might be a good course. Tracy has some good ideas, I think this is one of them. Although fixing naptimes might fix it for you, unless it's become habit.

Hope this helps a little

*HUGS*
Sonya =P