settling techniques for 12 month old

Hi, I’m wondering if anyone has some good ideas recommendations for settling my almost 12 month very mobile baby.

To give a brief history we had many issue initially with his sleep due to reflux, after we got that under control and using a hammock DS became fantastic at self settling we just used a musical toy and dummy as a cue to sleep and that worked great.
when he started crawling and decided that he only wanted to sleep on his stomach so the hammock was out and we had to move him to a cot, since then his sleeping deteriorated to him only falling asleep while I was holding him (and that would sometimes take over an hour) then we may have had one cycle with him in his cot and he co slept the rest of the night.

Recently that stopped working so now we’ve taken down the cot and now he sleeps on a mattress in his room with me in a bed in the same room. This has made a huge improvement he’s easier to resettle and can sometimes stay in his bed until 5am which is great really great!!! We want to gradually move towards him self settling but I’m having real issues getting him to sleep in the first place. Rocking him to sleep doesn’t work and neither does feeding him unless he’s really overtired. ATM I am lying next to him but he basically just tries repeatedly to get up and walk away as well as pinching scratching biting head butting me it ends up being quite stressful as its almost a wrestling match to get him to lie down.

I feel like I’m missing something with the initial settling we have a routine starts with dummy storytime, cuddles I feed him and then we lie down it’s the same everynight, same time but if anything the initial settling is getting worse.

Does anyone have any ideas? co sleeping isn’t an option either because none of us get any sleep.

TIA

I had problems between about 10 and almost 12 months with sleeptime at night for my DD. We cuddle to sleep and it usually takes about 5-10minutes of cuddles until she is sleepy and she goes into her cot drowsy. But it was taking marathon sessions of having to cuddle her over and over again with her popping her eyes open wide awake each time I tried to put her down in the cot, and then crying unless she was picked up and cuddled again.

It turns out that she just wasn't tired enough to go to sleep at that time any more! She was going through a transition from 2 naps to one nap a day from about 9 months onwards, and when she finally got used to one nap a day she then wanted to adjust to having a later bedtime and eventually an earlier nap time. So when her daytime routine and nap adjusted, she was very happy to go back to bed easily as she was tired enough - in fact, she often wants to go to sleep earlier than her "usual" bedtime.

I know you have had other issues with the reflux and how he has been settled in the first place, but how much is your son sleeping in the day? How long can he stay awake for before he seems tired? Often around 9-12 months babies are ready for less sleep in the day and it takes time adjusting to when they are actually ready to sleep. Could this be happening?

I find that my DD needs to be awake for at least 5 hours - more like 6 - after her daytime nap before she is actually ready to sleep again properly, and especially without problems having her settle. This means that I either let her sleep in the day as long as she likes and start her bedtime routine at the appropriate amount of time after she has woken up, or I need to wake her up if I want to be in bed again at a certain time at night. We tend to go with the flow mostly, but that is because she has adjusted to sleeping at a certain time in the day now, and has roughly the same amount of sleep, so it means her bedtime is a settled time as a result.

If you feel that your son is not tired/ready for bed, then you could adjust his daytime accordingly, if you want him to have a certain bedtime. I don't think there is anything wrong with babies having a set time for bed, but it does mean from my experience that you need to be in tune with their awake time versus nap time needs during the day leading up to that specific bedtime, especially at any awkward time when they are dropping naps or being able to stay awake for longer stretches. That especially seems to happen in the time leading up to 12 months old!

Just quickly to finish - another thing I found was that if there was too much light or noise (stimulation) it didn't matter how tired my DD was, but she wouldn't want to settle down if she felt she was missing out at this age. So we keep her room really dark (blackout fabric over her window) and quiet in the house when I'm settling her to bed.

HTH, and good luck.

Thanks for the reply Acacia :)

DS has one nap our day is kinda like this

5am-7am he has a feed and usually goes back to sleep
7:30-8:30 wakes and has breakfast
1130 lunch
12-1 goes down for a nap usually between 1 and 21/2 hours
3pm snack
4pm afternoon feed which we are going to drop soon
6pm dinner
7:30 start bed routine

This is a routine he's really set from himself and stays pretty steady

atm hes waking between 2 and 10 times but 80% of the time i can resettle him fairly easily, he doesn't seem grumpy during the day so i think he's getting enough sleep and he is displaying all the tired signs at bedtime i.e yawning rubbing eyes he falls over more when he is walking. The difficulty getting him to sleep has been a slow deterioration from about 6.5 months so i dont think its a stage

i'm sort of at a loss oh and we have also tried patting but he wont stay still long enough, darkened room (which makes a bit of difference but not much) and he does have a bedtime bear but doesn't really seem to care that much about it.

We cuddle for his afternoon nap and he's perfectly happy to do that but if i try it at night time he wriggles and bites and scratches etc

Mir, it doesn't sound like a phase as you say - I wish I had some answers for you! :hug:

A couple of things I'm thinking of - perhaps he is overtired and is finding it hard to settle and unwind? This can in turn lead to waking (as it did with my daughter, especially after one sleep cycle) as when LOs are overtired and they finally go to sleep they tend to conk out into a really deep sleep too quickly, which then means their sleep is out of whack and they often wake from poor quality sleep.

I know if I leave things too long or have too long a bedtime routine with DD she has a tendency to hype herself up as she gets more and more tired so she can keep going. At that point it is a lot harder to settle her down for sleep. Could you try starting his bedtime routine say 15, 20, or even 30 minutes earlier? How long is your bedtime routine going for? I have read that it's important that it's not too long or too short - shorter than 15-20minutes and it's not enough time to have your baby feel like they have unwound, and longer than say 45minutes is too long as they are getting overtired at that point.

It might not be the answer, but sometimes an adjustment like this can make a difference to the quality of sleep they're getting, which can help break the cycle of waking.

Another thing I'm thinking of is that he's reliant on you to be there to go to sleep, if you are staying there until he is fast asleep. If he wakes and you're not there, he's wondering where you've gone. You could try gently and progressively trying to get up and leave him to fall asleep on his own by leaving him a little earlier each time he is falling asleep, till perhaps you are getting off the mattress when he is drowsy. That way he is aware that he's falling asleep on his own, and may be more likely to feel safe and secure about waking slightly in the night enough to go back to sleep on his own instead of waking fully wondering where mummy is. This works for us.

Finally, it could be to do with separation anxiety, especially about not wanting to settle to sleep at night to begin with - he doesn't want you to leave him so bounces about and stays awake to ensure that you stay with him. I know it's been going on a long time, but separation anxiety can be a long term thing, and it often comes to a peak over (sometimes) many months before taking time to settle back down again. I don't know that I have any answers for this one as we've been through it at night too as part of our sleeping problems, but I just tried to ride it out as I didn't know what to do. My DD's separation anxiety is a lot better, including during the day now, but we've been dealing with that since she was about 5 months old, and she's 13 months now. I still cannot leave her with anyone (nor do I want to) but that's a whole other story :) Perhaps you could think about reading a couple of books on gentle parenting techniques for sleep - Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution or Pinky McKay's Sleeping Like a Baby. I haven't read either of these, but I have heard lots of good things about them for helping with sleep issues.

I really hope it improves for you and your DS and that you can find some answers that work for you :hug:

Last week I hired out Elizabeth Pantley's 'No Cry Sleep Solution For Toddlers and Preschoolers' from the library for my 15mth old. I would hugely recommend this book. Just by making a few environmental changes such as playing in Olive's room away from tv etc, placing a chair next to her cot which is where I now read her 2 books while she drinks her milk and sitting next to the cot and singing a couple of lullabies she is now totally self settling with absolutely no tears. I'm still in shock. The first night it took me sitting beside her for 35mins then it gradually got less and now she does this independently after only a week. I still read her the stories then have a 'lights out', kiss goodnight, give her her teddy and cover her over. There are lots of suggestions in the book though for all types of situations and it explains alot about sleep that I didn't know before. Olive is still waking 1-2 times but it was 3-5 before and she is resettling much easier.

Sorry no real help but I can't recommend that book highly enough.
Good luck!!!

Thanks for the replies. I went and got the no cry books and they had some good suggestions to tweak the bedtime routine so hopefully it might make a difference. I will update if i have any sucess :)

Thanks Again