Help! 12mo only settling in our arms

So far with Fred we have been using a gentle parenting style to get her to sleep. She either BFs to sleep with me or DH sings her to sleep. However she is sometimes taking ages to go to sleep and then waking frequently during the night. She also only sleeps 30-45 mins during the day and wakes up cranky :(

So far we have:
played quiet restful music in the room
use either a sleeping bag or thick jumpsuit so she can't kick off her blankets
have a very regular routine of dinner, bath, quiet time then bed

what else can we do? I really don't want to do the control crying thing. She seems to be really clingy with me and has been for ages, so anytime I go away from her (even the other side of the room) she gets upset. Even with DH holding her she gets upset. Is there something we can do to help her with the separation anxiety?

Any suggestions would be really appreciated

Can't really help you Cat - Blake is similar - BF or a slight bounce/rock thing to sleep at night for the first sleep, after that (3hrly STILL; 4hrs is a bonus) wakes and will really only settle with a BF. So I get where you're coming from. Been meaning to finish sorting out the possibilities from the No-cry Sleep solution by Elizabeth Pantley for night time sleeps (had started to sort it out to do this, was intending to do something during the school holidays but Blake's been sick so haven't wanted to upset him too much). He also used to do the 30-45 min sleep x1 day and that was it. I really didn't like those nights = more wakeups. Eventually he's grown out of the only 30-45 min sleep once a day and is now averaging a 1 - 1 1/2 hour sleep during the day. Now just have to work on the night time sleeps :wall:

I ended up taking a drive (10 -20min) and Blake would end up sleeping for over an hour in the car when I got home in the driveway (with me there too). Swimming lessons helped a bit too (did this Saturday mornings) as it tired him out, we had some beautifully long sleeps in the car after that. I think that's helped him settle into the longer day sleeps a bit which has meant slightly longer night sleeps before waking up (we were averaging 2hrly there for a while - not fun while back at school full time especially as Tim can't BF for me at night and I really only have enough bottles of EBM for the next day)

Not sure about ideas with the separation anxiety thing - Blake's always been quite social - handed around to everyone from early on and childcare from about 4mths so haven't really had to deal with that one. But he does love his BF when I get home after school - can't do anything till that's been had :lol:

Thank Liz :hug: same for us during the night, if she sleeps 5 hours I am so excited! I was hoping someone has a magic wand but that is probably asking too much!

5 hours seems like a dream - I remember when Blake used to do 5 hr, 4hr and 3hr sleeps in one night - that was before the last week of the school year last year - we had 1.5-2hrs of sleep at a time that week and haven't recovered and got back into those nice long (for us) sleeps. Although Blake will surprise us and do a really long one (9hrs one night) and then not repeat it again for quite awhile (4 hours or more is a long sleep for us and it's like WOAH he's slept for ages now... :lol: )

really does sound like our two discuss their plans and implement them at the same time! She has been down for two hours now and I will probably crash soon and cross my fingers that she sleeps well tonight :)

Blake's only been down for about 1/2 hour now. ... am thinking about finishing surfing (okay a little more only :lol: ) BB and then heading off to bed and hoping he sleeps til at least 12 and not around 11 tonight. :crossfingers: that they both sleep well tonight

:crossfingers: for the both of us

ETA - I spoke too soon, she just woke and had a great big feed so to bed for me - GL :)

When I wanted to move away from feeding and rocking to sleep, the first intermediate step was laying down together. At first with DS on top of me, then next to me, but cuddling, and just next to me and so on.
Does she sleep with you or seperately?

Hi Guys

Amelia is the same. Will only be rocked to sleep or cracks it although she has let me put her in the cot but I have to have my hand on her or holding her hand. She has no idea how to self settle which is why I think she doesn't sleep through the night. I'm on auto-pilot when she wakes in the night so I have no idea how often she wakes or even if I feed her. I honestly can't remember most nights but I do remember waking. I too was hoping for a magic wand once she turned 1 or some kind of miracle that she would understand about sleeping through.

Monique went through her separation anxiety phase earlier than Amelia did. We are just playing lots of peek-a-boo and hiding things and finding them again so she kind of understands that even though she can't see me (or the object), I'm still around. She has a cold and teething at the moment so it is worse than usual.

They have to sleep for us one day and I'm so looking forward to that happening.

I don't have any advice sorry. I have tried a couple of things but nothing is going to help her self settle. She too is clingy with me at the moment. I will check back to see what advice you get.

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When I wanted to move away from feeding and rocking to sleep, the first intermediate step was laying down together. At first with DS on top of me, then next to me, but cuddling, and just next to me and so on.
Does she sleep with you or seperately?

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Sorry for slightly crashing your thread Cat

for me - at night it's a mix - starts night in cot, I feed him in him in a single bed we've got in DS's room until he's asleep (or I wake up after he's asleep after I've fallen asleep) and then he's back in his cot until the next feed. He comes into our bed after 6am. Blake doesn't like it if I don't feed him and if DH gets up, Blake usually still won't go to sleep without me having to feed him in the end (unless he's awake with wind like he has been the past couple of nights - then it's infants friend & tummy rub and sit up for awhile - usually with DH until Blake falls asleep). If I try laying down with DS = time to climb over mummy and wiggle around so he can't/won't go to sleep (playtime) unless he's really really tired. Blake rarely takes a dummy and refuses to have a bottle of water overnight instead of a BF :rolleyes: so that's not working to re-settle for sleep. Gets worked up if offered water and dummy rather than BF so quicker atm to feed to sleep = more sleep for me usually

Yeah, if nothing else works then go with what's easiest. I can't remember when exactly the lying down worked for us - there definitely were times when DS would just climb all over me. I think maybe I held him and sang, then lay down once he was drowsy. Then after a while would go straight to lying down. And so on. God it's all a blur.
I slept on a mattres on the floor with him most of the time 8-18 months (we had the odd good week when he didn't need me). So gave up on the cot, yeah. And when I night weaned at 14 months he just started asking for food because he was hungry :rolleyes:. Sometimes you just can't win.

DS didn't learn to self settle at all till nearly 2 and still needs help most nights (but somtimes sleeps through now at least).

Liz - feel free to crash the thread, it should help all of us :lol:

marcellus - Fred is still in the cot but I was thinking about moving her into a bed soon. I know when I lie down with her she does sleep well in my arms. So most nights she will stay in her cot all night, unless she has croup and she ends up sleeping in bed with me to help her settle through all the coughing. She even fed lying down next to me last night and we haven't done that for about 6 months. I have been sleeping on the floor next to her cot as she sleeps well with my hand to pinch or with it on her belly.

Tinsel - I might play peek-a-boo with her a bit more and see if that helps. That was a really good idea :)

Lumpy didn't learn to self settle until she was about 3 :rolleyes: but I was hoping Fred would learn a bit earlier.