Helping a sleep fighter get to sleep

[kumber]

Just looking for some tips to help our lb get to sleep a bit easier.

As I've mentioned before, he is a complete sleep fighter so we know it will always take some time to get him down but it's becoming a 2 hour daily fight to get him down for an afternoon nap and at nighttime.

Morning naps are finally taking under an hour but we don't do anything different with it and the afternoon nap/bedtime, so I'm not sure what's going on there but with another baby imminent, this situation can't continue.

So far we've tried cutting out a nap, cutting down on naps, earlier bedtimes, later bedtimes. We've tried leaving him to cry (absolute disaster), leaving him to self-settle (he stands up rattling the cot), going in and lying him down, re-iterating that it's sleep time (he just laughs and rolls himself onto his knees and stands up again).

The most frustrating thing is that he's shattered. We always wait for his tiredness cues before putting him down but he will fight and fight, to the point where he will work himself up into such a state he's having a complete meltdown. Yesterday he spent the day with my mom and refused to nap all day which meant he was awake solidly from 7:50am to 7:30pm. He was not a happy bunny when she dropped him back.

We have previously tried white noise which was useful before he could stand up in bed, but since he's been able to stand it's been less effective, however that doesn't mean it won't work again.

We have a pretty solid bedtime routine of bum, teeth, milk with In The Night Garden, bedtime story, cuddles, bed.

What else can we try to help him sleep easier? As I said, we're not expecting a miracle but if we can decrease each fight to under an hour, that would be amazing.

 

[kumber]

2.5 hours it's taken to get him to sleep. I've had to spend the last 20 minutes cuddling and rocking him to sleep. I am baffled.

 

[Rooster30]

My son was down to one nap a day at 10 months old. I guess you've tried just offering one nap in the middle of the day rather than morning/afternoon naps?

 

[kumber]

Yep! His morning nap seems to be crucial, he's awake at 6 every morning and by 9 he's ready for bed again. So we tried cutting out the afternoon nap but by 3 he's hit a wall of tiredness and we cried our way through the afternoon. We were able to have a few days of getting him to sleep before 2 and it was great, he was asleep in half an hour but then it suddenly stopped cus he refused to sleep despite being pooped.

 

[littlemonkey]

Yeh from a year my son was having one nap a day around 11am for about two hours. He would generally wake between 6am and 7am most mornings.

 

[lisastevo]

I was having this problem with my 8 month old. We just came to the conclusion that he needed a lot more sleep than other babies and for 2 days straight I felt like I was constantly putting him in his cot to nap exactly 1.5 hours after he woke up and quiet time in the cot turned into him falling asleep on his own when he was ready. We were leaving him too long thinking that there was no way he was tired but he was overtired and that's why we were having the dramatic settings. He has 3 naps a day. Wakes at 6am, has a bottle, goes straight back to sleep until 8ish, brekkie, nap time between 10/11, sleeps usually 1 sometimes 2 hours, lunch, nap time around 2.30ish for 1 sometimes 2 hours, dinner around 4pm then bedtime bottle can sometimes start as early as 5.15pm!! Just come to realise he needs lots of sleep. If I miss any window of opportunity though all hell breaks loose so I put him down earlier rather than later. Maybe your bubba just needs more naps closer together?

 

[kumber]

He has lunch at 11, any later and he just doesn’t cope so I've been trying to get him down after lunch - usually around 1ish after a play to give him time for his food to go down. It's touch and go as to whether he actually does

Is it worth cutting out the morning so he'll def sleep in the afternoon? Or cut out the afternoon and just deal wih the meltdowns? Although gut tells me he needs the naps I could be wrong.

 

[kumber]

I was having this problem with my 8 month old. We just came to the conclusion that he needed a lot more sleep than other babies and for 2 days straight I felt like I was constantly putting him in his cot to nap exactly 1.5 hours after he woke up and quiet time in the cot turned into him falling asleep on his own when he was ready. We were leaving him too long thinking that there was no way he was tired but he was overtired and that's why we were having the dramatic settings. He has 3 naps a day. Wakes at 6am, has a bottle, goes straight back to sleep until 8ish, brekkie, nap time between 10/11, sleeps usually 1 sometimes 2 hours, lunch, nap time around 2.30ish for 1 sometimes 2 hours, dinner around 4pm then bedtime bottle can sometimes start as early as 5.15pm!! Just come to realise he needs lots of sleep. If I miss any window of opportunity though all hell breaks loose so I put him down earlier rather than later. Maybe your bubba just needs more naps closer together?

So he could be overtired? Yeah, that's certainly a possibility and not something we have thought of before.

 

[lisastevo]

I was having this problem with my 8 month old. We just came to the conclusion that he needed a lot more sleep than other babies and for 2 days straight I felt like I was constantly putting him in his cot to nap exactly 1.5 hours after he woke up and quiet time in the cot turned into him falling asleep on his own when he was ready. We were leaving him too long thinking that there was no way he was tired but he was overtired and that's why we were having the dramatic settings. He has 3 naps a day. Wakes at 6am, has a bottle, goes straight back to sleep until 8ish, brekkie, nap time between 10/11, sleeps usually 1 sometimes 2 hours, lunch, nap time around 2.30ish for 1 sometimes 2 hours, dinner around 4pm then bedtime bottle can sometimes start as early as 5.15pm!! Just come to realise he needs lots of sleep. If I miss any window of opportunity though all hell breaks loose so I put him down earlier rather than later. Maybe your bubba just needs more naps closer together?

So he could be overtired? Yeah, that's certainly a possibility and not something we have thought of before.

Sounds like it to me Hun. Just set aside a couple of days and it's honestly feels like you are constantly putting them to sleep and me and my OH were like "there is no way he can still be tired but he was" Also when he wakes during a nap, normally after 45 minutes, he can act really happy and awake but infact he actually isn't and just didn't transition between sleep phases, so we now leave him if and when he wakes and 9 times out of 10 he will self settle to sleep for another 45 minutes or if he gets agitated we intervene and try to settle him again which usually works. We were getting him up straight away before because he seemed all chirpy and within 20minutes he was rubbing his eyes and pulling his ears with tiredness and it was too late to settle him again and the knock on effects started. Just give it ago and see, over tiredness is the worst possible grouchy baby!!

 

[kumber]

The tiredness after 20 minutes is def familiar and thinking on it, he did always sleep a lot more than most babies. I'll try putting him down more, it's the only thing we haven't tried!

 

[lisastevo]

No harm in giving it a go. Every baby is different and this is just my experience but hope it helps. Let me know how it goes

 

[Kiagirl]

This happened with our LO, she was napping for about an hour at 9am and not going down until about 9pm after trying for about 3 hours. After 2 weeks I had enough so used to pop her in our bed with a drink and we would have a cuddle. Sure enough after 20 mins fast asleep. We did this for about a month, then tried her in her cot. No chance, just standing up and rattling so I took the side off. I was putting her in her bed and laying on the floor with her. I had a double quilt and pillows in case she rolled out. It took 2 nights, but no crying. She is now 2 and sleeps 6.30-6.30 in her cotbed with the side off. I just don't think she liked been penned in. She tried to get out bed a couple of times but I just popped her back in and she stopped x

 

[kumber]

We did this when he first stood up and he was in our room, but now he's in his own room and I'm heavily pregnant (almost ready to pop!), lying on the floor with him just isn't a possibility or I'd do it in a flash cus it worked brilliantly before.

He took about an hour and a half tonight but he spent most of his time lying down talking to himself as opposed to standing up shouting and screaming, so it was significantly less stressful tonight, phew!

 

[kumber]

Just a quick update - putting him down before he asks seems to be working in the sense that we're not having screaming fits. I'll still go in to him standing up, laughing, rattling the bars and generally being a bit of a silly billy but at least we're not having screaming fits. It's still taking an hour or two to get him down but I can deal with that cus there's no meltdowns. Hopefully the time it takes to get him down will reduce until he's self-settling relatively quickly. Fingers crossed! Thanks for all your suggestions girls