In desperate need of help to get 6mo to go to sleep for the night

[Miss E]

My DS has always been very good at self settling. However, over the last month or so it has become increasingly difficult to get him to go to sleep at night. His day sleeps are great, he will self settle 9 times out of 10 without even a grizzle. But come bedtime it is on for young and old. We have a really solid bedtime routine (bath, book, cuddle/song and then into bed when he is snuggly), but it seems to me that he knows it is the end of the day and simply doesn't want it to be.

So I need your help in finding a way to get him to go to sleep. Usually we'll pop him in bed and he'll chatter away to himself for anywhere between 5 and 20 mins (exactly as he does during the day before he goes to sleep), then he'll start crying. So we get him out of the cot and give him a cuddle (only way he will stop crying, patting etc doesn't work anymore) and settle him back down till he is snuggling again. But then the minute we put him back in the cot he is screaming. So most nights we have ended up rocking him to sleep (sometimes after an hour or more of up and down). When he is really over tired and exhausted I can feed him to sleep, but generally speaking it just doesn't work for us (we've always done feed, play, sleep, so a feed seems to energise him).

Is the only answer to just accept that he needs to be rocked to sleep at night and just start doing it every night, or do you wonderful ladies have any other ideas that could work? TIA

[*Infinity*]

We've had a similar experience this week with DS, and he's at a similar age I think to your DS Miss E. I think our problem surfaced after we broke his bed time routine a few nights in a row (being out for xmas things etc) that stuffed him up and he got all confused. We had 3 or 4 nights of really bad bed time carry on - basically he just wanted to stay up and party LOL!

Having said that though, it did occur to me reading your post that maybe your DS *knows* his bed time routine so well that he's predicting it, and consciously objecting to going to bed. At this age they are so much more aware of what is happening around them, I think they cotton on to what we're up to and are starting to get cheekier! So, maybe you can try and trick him a bit.....i.e. don't follow the normal routine and see what happens? We've tried it and it seemed to work last night thankfully. We basically lengthened out the time he was awake, switched his bath to much later, rather than earlier and it seemed to work. I read to him a bit more (I read him 6 books) and we did it sitting on his play mat to sort of trick him into thinking it was playtime when it was sorta helping him wind down IYKWIM?

The nights that were really difficult I just went with it rather than getting too stressed about it. If he was going to fight me so hard, I wasn't going to persist. We just got him up and played with him some more until he was tired enough. Eventually he had to konk out! I genuinely think that they simply develop more capacity for awake time so its adjusting to that as well.

Mostly for our day sleeps DS will self-settle really well, but 9 times out of 10 at night, its still feed until drowsy then cuddle & pat to sleep in my arms and then into the cot. That works for us so I'm happy doing it.

Good luck, HTH

[BekZ]

We've had these challenges too. Although it is every sleep for my little miss.

What I would do in your case. Keep your routine and keep persisting, eventually he'll get it. Additionally I would put him down in the usual manner, then if he doesn't settle I would comfort him. For us holding DD until she is 3/4 gone helps. Then I put her down on her side and pat her bottom until she falls to sleep. If she wakes again I'll repeat the process or offer boob. hth

[Miss E]

Thanks ladies! I think we might try mixing up the routine tomorrow night and see if that helps things along. DH rocked him to sleep tonight, it was so nice to be able to eat dinner before 9pm!

[MantaRay]

I was also going to suggest mixing up the routine - or try putting down a bit later. Doing the bath last thing before bed can help. GL.

[Fleur]

hmm, no advice sorry
I was going to start a similar thread tonight
For us it has been the last week or two, daytime sleeps are better but still not great.

Good luck here's hoping for a magic bullet huh

[Ryatha]

we have been having the same problem here as well Self settling til the silly season and now needs cuddles and feeds to go to sleep.

But we have made her bedtime later and changed the routine a bit. I also cuddle/feed her until she is nearly asleep then pop her in bed. if she wakes up again, I burp her and repeat the routine.

Sounds like what the pp have suggested are really good ideas, I might use them as well.

Goodluck!

[beckoes]

DD settled on her own some times when she was a few months old, then went to having to be rocked to sleep, sometimes i would be in there till 9.30!!! this basically went on till she was about 12 months (from about 7 months) when we dropped the second day sleep and now she is fast asleep by 7.30pm at the latest. We do feed to sleep, but sometimes she will be happy to go in her cot after the feed and will go to sleep if i just have my hand on her tummy.
I think its a good idea to change this around a little, they grow so fast and what worked for them when they were 4 months suddenly doesnt work at 6 months. Thats what i found anyway. Good luck!

[sloane]

hmm, no advice sorry
I was going to start a similar thread tonight
For us it has been the last week or two, daytime sleeps are better but still not great.

:yeahthat:

for us, we've started our bedtime routine just a little bit earlier (after lots of disruption over xmas) & have now added some solids before bath time - so now it's quiet-ish play, solids, bath & then feed to sleep. DS is still waking lots but at least we have been able to eat dinner in peace with him in bed for the last two nights!

oh - we've also had better day sleeps in the last two days as well & i think he's almost ready to go to 2 sleeps rather than 3. how many day sleeps is ash having? if it's 3, maybe he's ready to drop one?

small consolation, but at least it seems that lots of our baby buddies are having the same issue!

[Miss E]

Thanks everyone! It's nice to know I'm not the only one who is going through this at the moment. I tend to agree that it is probably a developmental thing and think we'll try mixing things up a bit tonight to see if we can trick him.

He still has a lot of sleeps during the day, either 3 or 4 depending on when the day starts and how long his naps are. I would love to get him to 2 naps, but I just think he's not ready. He really can't go much longer than 2 hours before the tired signs come on strong and he needs to go back to bed. He's a really active baby who doesn't stop moving when he's awake (and he is desperate to start crawling) so I think he burns up his energy pretty quickly.

[Miss E]

I wanted to say a big thankyou to you all... We had our first bedtime without crying in weeks tonight!

We took a bit of everyone's advice and mixed up the routine and then cuddled him till he was starting to close his eyes. I put him down and thought he'd gone to sleep, but a few minutes later he started chatting away... Oh no I thought... but then after ten or so minutes it stayed quiet. Went and checked on him and he was sound asleep Thanks ladies, I seriously can't remember the last time this he self settled for the night!

we can make this happen again tomorrow night...

[Miss E]

Bugger... I knew it was too good to be true, he just woke up crying after only 40 mins

Guess the change in routine made him think it was a nap instead of bedtime

[Fleur]

argh
you had me thinking you had found the solution! Never mind it's all progress I reckon
Fingers crossed he settles soon...

[*Infinity*]

Oh dear its so frustrating isn't it. I bet you'd just settled in to relax too

You know it could be something completely unrelated to whether he has a routine or not. I'm pretty sure our unsettledness at bed times recently was due to a number of things - primarily teething and just all the big stuff happening for their little bodies developmentally. It doesn't help that they are things that are mostly out of our control and we just have to roll with. Try not to analyse it too much, you just end up doing your head in even more in my experience.

Good luck

[Amaunet]

No real advice - just joining in with a "us too" - I def think its an age/developmental thing - cos DS has gone from a great to a crap sleeper lately

[Miss E]

Poor little mite is teething, I thought he might be yesterday, but last night he just couldn't stay asleep and was waking himself up pulling at his ear. This morning one of his top teeth has dropped down (but yet to cut) so at least the sleepless night achieved something. Maybe the mixed up routine did work after all...

[*Infinity*]

Poor little chicken. If its any consellation (sp?) we had three nights where teeth were clearly the issue, but it seems to have subsided and we've got our happy little guy back and he's sleeping again too. No doubt it will all change when the teeth finally cut though.