Help! 11month old won't sleep!!

[mummy2_1]

At all...

She's been refusing naps and struggling with tiredness for months. Shes a monster to tackle to get to sleep during the day, and usually falls to sleep through sheer exhaustion. She still naps two times a day. But only has 30-40 mins. She's in bed by 6. Up several times in the night and then up at half 5 :'( I'm shattered


My oh won't let me try cry it out. Attempted it once on my now nearly 4 yr old for one night and made me give in. Plus I felt horrible doing it that one time. But I was so cross that I was that tired and battling it alone
So here we are again. My son has since and still does Co sleep. He will stay in his own bed once asleep but wakes in the night and needs one of us with him to fall bk to sleep. I don't want to go the same way with my daughter. I want her to learn to soothe herself and be able to fall bk to sleep if she wakes up.

She has recently started pulling herself up, so tonight is the first night with the cot bed on the lowest pins. She keeps pulling herself up and showing no signs of sleep. I'm sat in the room bcos I know il just be up and down if u go downstairs. She has lullaby music rli quietly playing. If I leave the room or go to the door she starts screaming. I keep laying her bk down but she keeps getting bk up. She won't be rocked to sleep. Im pulling my hair out! I just want sleep. I can't have her Co sleeping til my sons age. I just can't. Pls anyone with advise much appreciated

 

[Willow01]

Big hugs hun I do sympathise with you. My baby is 10 months just now and doing the pulling thing with the cot too! my little one has never fallen asleep well in her cot, what I have ended up doing is at bedtime (6.30 for us) me and the baby lie on our bed and she drinks her bottle and falls asleep lying next to me and my 3 year old is on the bed too watching cartoons whilst this is happening. Once she has fallen asleep I put the barriers up on my bed, take my toddler through to his bed, read a quick story and say goodnight. The baby is still asleep in my bed. Once I am finished saying goodnight to my toddler my baby has fallen into a deep sleep and I move her into her cot. She sleeps through until 5.30 so I am pretty lucky. Do you think she might be over stimulated in the day and she won't nap because of it? I often find that if my little one has bad naps then she doesn't settle well at nightx

 

[noon_child]

She has recently started pulling herself up, so tonight is the first night with the cot bed on the lowest pins. She keeps pulling herself up and showing no signs of sleep. I'm sat in the room bcos I know il just be up and down if u go downstairs. She has lullaby music rli quietly playing. If I leave the room or go to the door she starts screaming. I keep laying her bk down but she keeps getting bk up. She won't be rocked to sleep. Im pulling my hair out! I just want sleep. I can't have her Co sleeping til my sons age. I just can't. Pls anyone with advise much appreciated

My LO was like this too. During the pulling herself up stage I calmly told her that I would stay in her room if she was ready to lie still and try to go to sleep but that if she got up I was going to leave the room. She got very "angry upset" at this at first but I followed through (only left for about 30 seconds) then came back in asking if she was ready to lie down. It wasn't controlled crying because I didn't leave her for increasing intervals, I just let it be known that I wasn't hanging around to watch her NOT sleep (sometimes I said "If you're not ready to sleep I'm going to the toilet and then I'll come back and see if you are ready then, so she had a timeframe for my absence, or I "tidied" in the landing so she could see and hear me through the open door) If she lay down herself, or let me lay her down, I stuck to my promise and stayed in the room till she was asleep. Sometimes I was sat in the room for up to two hours (she was so overtired she couldt switch off) but as she got used to it and got better sleep bedtime got quicker and quicker.

Other things I tried, when she wasn't ready for me to just sit in the room and needed my physical contact, were drawing a circle on her hand with my finger over and over, stroking her head over and over and singing along to the lullaby. I had already made sleep associations out of these things though by doing them during her bedtime breastfeed, so they may not work for everyone.

Bed time got so much better when day naps improved, that was for sure. Have you tried anticipating her wakes from naps so that you are there when she first stirs to shhhh, pat, sing her back in to the next (deeper) sleep cycle? 30-40minute nap at that age is a classic inability to transition from light to deep sleep. I spent about two weeks camped out in my Los room from about 25mins in to her nap and as soon as she started to move even a bit I sprang up (silently of course!) to quietly and gently TRY - oh god please let this work - to get her to fall back in to a deep sleep. Then of course I had to avoid the squeaky floor and door on the way back out of the room! Sometimes I gave up and just lay down on the floor where I was!

 

[jessmke]

Have you tried putting your LO in a sleep sac? My LO can pull herself up when in one but it is much more difficult so usually doesn't bother.

 

[mummy2_1]

Alot of useful help thanks everyone. I might try the sleep bag and make it more difficult to lull herself up. It's very very warm on a night here at the minute so will have t wait until it gets cooler on a night. She doesn't have any blankets on a night at the minute. Our hv suggested putting her on cows milk to see if that helped. First night was last night and she was much more settled but that could just b a coincidence. time will tell. She has spent an hour so far this morning in her cot yawning her head off shattered but won't give in. She's not crying just wines every few minutes but she's rubbing her eyes and yawning like crazy. There's nothing in her cot to stimulate her. No blankets or toys. Just a muslin as this is her comforter. She's dry, had a bottle. So not comfortable or hungry it's quiet and quiet dark. So I don't think there's anything to stimulate her to keep her awake. She's very active during the day so would have thought this is making her even more tired so she should go to sleep easy but no such look during the day.



I live having the bond with my son from Co sleeping. And it's really comforting for me to snuggle him to sleep, he cried out for me last night and I selfishly stayed with him until my little girl woke up this morning. I just don't want him to be unable to soothe himself bk to sleep or my little girl be unable to learn how to soothe herself bk to sleep bcos I couldn't teach them how to sleep properly. I don't know how to combat my sons sleeping habits now. I won't fall asleep without someone there. He's nearly 4 he goes to sleep quite quickly after a story and a cuddle so he doesn't affect our evenings of time together. She's just starting to fall asleep.