Our lovely little lad is causing us some serious sleep deprivation and my wife and I can’t agree on the right course of action.

He’s been breast fed most of his life and since my wife returned to work her supplies are drying up and whole milk has been a successful replacement.

He’s in a reasonable routine for night time, but we now want him out of our bed and into his own cot, still in the same room for now though. I know many might say we’ve left it late to move him to his own cot, but hey ho – it’s where we’re at.

The first few nights of him sleeping in his own cot were pretty successful, only a couple of wake ups and no huge tears.

As things have moved on he’s been waking up at night and crying for milk – very loudly and persistently. So what should we do? I say leave him and reasure him by talking or gently shushing him, but he seems to be going on forever! Or should my wife pick him up and bring him to the bed and return him to the cot when settled? Or is there another way?

Any thoughts or advise appreciated!

There is no ‘way’, rather ‘ways’ depending on your pain threshold and the child, but I would be inclined toward controlled crying personally.

The thing is – every time he cries and you give him milk he gets what he wants. Advice we often heard was to give them water so they are not relying on the night feeds to fill them up.

However I do think that by having the child in your room still at 1 yr old was making a rod for your own back.

+1

I’d favour a loose plan around:

Loading up the late night feed so he’s full up last thing.
Some controlled crying (didn’t work for us)
No bringing him back to your bed – comfort him near his cot
Determine when he moves to his own room

Good luck – it does get better..!

You’ve had him in your bed? Rod, back!

You’ll have to be ruthless I think, controlled crying and no bringing him in to your bed (that’s what he wants after all). Bit of comfort, then left.

A wee streamie in his tiny bootees?

Or is there another way?

Own room

(I am not a parent so my advice is unqualified)

Rachel

got a big cupboard?

both of ours spent their first couple of years in our bed. I didn’t lose any sleep with #2 and only the odd half hour with #1.

Is that for the parents or the 1 year old Rachel?

I love these threads, they always serve as a timely reminder that I don’t want any more children

I feel for you billy, not going to offer any advice* as none of the tried and tested techniques worked for us with our second child, he decided when he was good and ready to sleep through the night

*if pushed, I would say straight in his own room, no half measures.

a) Make sure he’s well fed
b) Have a bottle made up before you go to bed
c) If he wakes up pass him the bottle, no talking try to limit the cuddles (i.e. attention)

d) be prepared for just when you’ve think he’s sorted he’ll get ill / start teething and you’ll be two steps back.

All the advice is very useful: it gives you a list of things to try while junior snaps out of it, of his own accord.

Joking aside, mini-Ransos gave us hell just after she turned one, nothing seemed to work, then she went back to being a great sleeper after a couple of months. Same thing happened when she turned two.

As things have moved on he’s been waking up at night and crying for milk – very loudly and persistently. So what should we do? I say leave him and reasure him by talking or gently shushing him, but he seems to be going on forever! Or should my wife pick him up and bring him to the bed and return him to the cot when settled?

The thing is, both could work. Or neither. Kids aren’t all the same and our 18 month old responds differently to how our 3 year old did.

But IME, agreeing and picking one, and running with it for a bit will give less mixed messages, confusion and stress than doing a bit of both.
Have some Consistency with whatever routine you pick, and see how it plays out for a couple of weeks.

also, moving him to his own room will still keep your options open as to how to re-settle, but also opens up the chance for it to be just one of you that gets a bad night. Making things a little easier.

Also, could try the “hungry baby” formula for the last feed at night to help with the “load him up” bit of a plan.

That hungry baby stuff can cause digestive issues in some kids so be aware of that.

I am not a parent but my mum used to use Rachel’s advise 😯

Keep doing what your doing, for another 3/6/9/12 months, that will sort it no doubt.

Like a lot of the comments above what works for one child may not for another. Our 1 year old has just started sleeping through thankfully. The two months before Christmas were really testing. She was breastfed and wouldn’t even entertain a bottle (still doesn’t) and would only like to be settled by my wife. By 1 they are able to physically sleep through waking for milk is a comfort thing or so we were told. My wife was set on not allowing her to cry it out but the night before her 1st birthday she was going for it big style ( we had checked her and knew she was fine) and we just left her. After 20 mins she fell asleep it’s hard but it worked and she’s slept 12hrs a night since then. Is your son able to get to sleep on his own in the eve cause this for us was essential to her being able to get back to sleep during the night. If possible get him out your room ASAP cause you guys might be noisy sleepers and keeping him up

On a more serious note….
We went through the same thing with our one, and used the same tactics as you but it took a good 6-9 months or so after he left our room before he was sleeping through consistently without regular comforting by us in the night. There was then another 6-9 months of him sleeping through the majority of the time but when he did wake in the night (say 1 night per week on average) he still needed the same comforting. In the last 6 months or so if he does wake he either comforts himself, or is fine with a quick chat and cuddle from me then comforts himself back to sleep. I’m not against bringing him into our bed if we really need to but it is only very occasionally, I think because there has been a clear routine all along he knows it’s a one off and he doesn’t necessarily expect it every time.

It took a while but in the long run I’m pretty happy with how he sleeps. Anyone we know who has found some “miracle solution” be it books or “special” formula has had inconsistent sleeping patterns- We know folk who found the “solution” to their wee one sleeping through at 2 months, but at 2.5 years he’s causing them hassle. At least ours has been consistent, even if it has been a slog at times!

Who’s in charge??? Did you ever put baby in your bed when you weren’t actually in it? Or is baby’s bed time the same as yours?

Can’t believe that babies are allowed in their parents bed, thought being in the same bedroom was bad enough.

#Smug Mum speaketh

tenacious_doug speaks a lot of sense.

A lot of the baby trainer books are full of shit.

Assuming you want to co-sleep but not bed-share, then you may have some luck moving him out of your bed by getting him to go down for his naps on his own during the day time. Try a cot insert like a Sleepyhead. That may help.

I don’t think there are any magic methods, and good luck.

Also, out of curiosity, what do you consider a “reasonable routine”?

Routine is the key, same time and same routine every night. Milk, series, songs and then bed. Baptism of fire bit persevere until he gets it. If he cries leave him for a bit then if he continues Gp in reassure him then leave again. They soon get the hang of it.

I love these threads, they always serve as a timely reminder that I don’t want ANY more children EVER

FTFMe

give it a dummy and calpol
you’re welcome

on 3rd child.
None of them have slept through for 1st 18 months regularly.
No.3 had me up for 2 hour last night as wakes and wont go back to sleep. Controlled crying is out the window as wakes the other 2 up now.
Babies are babies and each are different.
It will all pass eventually but when you are in it its hell.
I’ve resigned myself that broken sleep for 8 years is not such a bad thing.

We used to keep a duvet in their room and spent many a night dozing on their floor while they settled again. For about 3 years………

Alphabet – Member

I am not a parent but my mum used to use Rachel’s advise

Don’t worry, my grandmother gave my cousins raw sausages to suck instead of dummies.

Load him up with porridge before bedtime to reduce chance of him waking up hungry.

Worked wonders with our little one. Might have helped that I was making it with night time formula.

When the time comes: rather than him leave the room, consider gradually leaving the room yourselves. Go back to sleeping in your own room a few days / weeks later, once they have the hang of sleeping on their own.

You obviously need a spare room to make this work – but it worked a treat with both our kids.

Do what you think is right for you,your wife and your child. Everyone else is wrong/lucky/unlucky/has resources and support you may not and has no right to criticise.

Can’t believe that babies are allowed in their parents bed, thought being in the same bedroom was bad enough.

Ours were in our bed for several years and appear to be completely normal and well balanced. As many have said, do what works for your family

Our second cried a lot initially once in a cot. Our solution was not to pick her up but to hold her hand till she fell asleep again, usually around 5 mins later. That was my job and I liked it

What do you think the problem is? Is he waking up because you’ve moved him into another room, or because he’s hungry? If the latter then you’ve cracked it as far as moving him into his own room is concerned, but you don’t have any choice but to feed him if he’s hungry. You could try those formula’s for hungry babies or mixing some milk/formula with baby rice or a crushed up Rusk for his last feed before bed?

I’d get him into his own room asap and force him to sleep through without milk. By 11weeks we had our boy sleeping 6-8hrs and from around 6months it was 12hrs every night. He was in a cot in our room until 3 weeks old then got put in his own room.

I think he’ll adapt to a new routine quicker than you expect, though you’ll no doubt have a few noisy nights. At one, he doesn’t NEED any milk at night remember.

my parents used to shut me away in the bathroom until i cried myself out…i’m kind of tearing up just thinking about it…. 🙂

IMHO whatever you do will make very little difference , someone will always have a better plan, and someone will always tell you how their approach achieved sensational results when they did it [ they are awesome and so is their child but you are a bit of a failure]

Nothing worked for my eldest and the youngest was fine.

Do whatever you agree as parents there is no right or wrong approach and IME it very much depends on the child more than it depends on you- IMHO responding to their cries will only encourage it , ignoring them tends to work best and responding sometimes but not others will be the worst. None of these will be cures for a baby behaving like a baby.

YMMV.

Ours went into his own room at 9 months. Win, win; he got a good night sleep because milk bar/cuddles were not on offer, we got good sleep and were consequently not continuously fractious with one another and taking it out on him. He did cry for half an hour the first couple of nights we did it but was ignored. He’s been a brilliant sleeper ever since (usually till 2pm at the weekend since he’s a teenager now).
I think that even a tiny child will have an agenda (constant night time attention)even if not consciously. This is very often bad for everyone if one gives in to it.
Obviously not the case for every child though!