How do we get our DS to sleep?

[~*Niadla*~]

Hi there,
Our DS who is nearly 14 months, continually wakes each and every night.

Ds was a shocking sleeper as a newborn, and co slept for the first 4 months of his life. When he reached 4 months of age, he began rolling onto his belly and falling asleep, so we transitioned him into his cot. Things we going well, and DS was breastfed until nearly 11 months of age, having at least one night feed until he was 9 months. Those were slowly weaned off.
Since then, his sleeping was quite good. He would go to bed at the same time every night, and sleep 12 hours straight. This lasted about a month and true to form, he changed. We were coping and he was starting to sleep well again until he became sick about 3 weeks ago. Most nights, he was coming into our bed, either from about 9pm, or later in the night when he woke and refused to resettle.
He usually goes to bed, without a fuss and straight to sleep. Since being sick, he refuses to go to bed at 7.30. I though it was maybe because he wasn't as tired, so let him stay up longer. Big mistake. Things have gotten worse.
This last week, he screams his lungs out when we put him to bed. He also will not settle for his dad. Only for me. When he settles, it's only by him coming into our bed.
His cot is still in our bedroom, as we live in a large homestead that does not have appropriate heating. We have some heating in our room, so during the cooler months, he was left in with us. My plan is to move him in Mid October to his own room.
He uses a dummy. He tends to throw it away in the middle of the night and has to go searching for it. A lot of the time either DF or I have to get up and replace it.

I can't stand controlled crying. For one, it makes me too anxious and stressed, and two, DS does not react well to it. He just cries more and more and works himself up to nearly the point of being sick.
So this is not an option for us.
We are continually making sure he is warm enough, or not too warm.
He is fed well. He is played with. He has a teddy in his bed that is with him every night. His sleeping environment does not change ( cot in same position, same teddy and he also sleeps at the same end).

I don't know what next to try.
It really frustrates me and DF when he flat out refuses to sleep and stands in his cot crying. We spend over an hour trying to get him to sleep in his cot, continually going in and out.
What do we do?
I have recently become pregnant with #2 and really want this sorted by the time he/she arrives. It's just putting such a strain on us.
If anyone has some helpful hints or tips I'd appreciate it.

Thanks in advance.

[~*Niadla*~]

Just bumping in the hope of some ideas.....

[Arimeh]

Our DS is a bad sleeper too - and at 20 months is a bad sleeper. I can counht the number of nights slept through his life on one hand.

If it makes you feel better, he went through a stage like that too.

He's been through all sorts of stages, wanting us to pat him to sleep, not wanting us to touch him, letting us walk out of the room and going to sleep on his own (I loved this one!!) - currently we have to sit beside his cot to get him to sleep - don't have to touch him or anything though.

Hopefully yours is just going through a stage too. When DS was going through the same thing - I just picked him out of the cot - take him out to the loungeroom for 15 mins - then try to get him to sleep for 15 - so that was my rule - 15 in, 15 out.

Good luck!! (no real advice for sleeping through cos mine doesn't... its either one of the two waking up every hour!! lol)

[inlove]

I wish i had some magic solution!!!!!
My DD is nearly fourteen months and has coslept since about four months as she just could not sleep on her own. She has gone through periods where we think she is getting closer to sleeping on her own but within one to two weeks she is back to the start again. She is the worst with me she has to actually sleep on me in bed. I am now eighteen weeks pregnant with number two so this is very quickly becoming a problem. She is better with DH as she sleeps next to him in bed. We have started trying to do day sleeps in her big girl bed in her own room but when she got sick two weeks ago this stopped, she just refused and now needs us to be with her for day sleeps too.
I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!!! Seriously!!!!
I too can't do controlled crying, she is the same just gets worse and worse and it distresses both of us.
I have no idea what we are going to do i am clinging to the hope that her sleeping will improve as she gets older or that the new baby is a really good sleeper and can go into a cot.
So i wish i had a solution to give you but all i can say is hang in there and i hope that we both get some sleep eventually!!

[Lady Zaidie]

DS isn't a great sleeper too. Some things we do:

Bedtime routine:
Dinner, In the Night Garden, bath, story, bed. This starts at 6pm and he's in bed for 7.30, asleep before 8. Only worry is when we have to go somewhere with no digital TV (free digital TV, I don't expect people to shell out money for DS!) but at least we can download from the BBC and let DS watch In the Night Garden that way.

One parent does bath and bed - the other says goodnight after In the Night Garden. If he sees us both in his bath he wants us both to get him to sleep. Sure, he cries a bit for DH but he's with his Daddy and he's not distressed crying, just tired and eczema pain crying (the moisturiser stings!).

WRT the teddy, DS picked his comfort toy aged 1 year. Sure, it was a toy that had been in his cot before, but he wasn't fussed about Herr Hare before then. Now he wakes in a blind panic if he can't find the bunny. He has 3 different cries: the first is "I'm awake and nearly asleep... I'm off again" (sometimes we have to stand at his doorway for him to drift off), the second is "I'm awake and need a bit of help to go back to sleep because I'm the wrong temperature/getting teeth/eczema stings" and that's about 5 minutes, the third is "WHERE IS MY BUNNY? THE WORLD IS ENDING! FIND THE BUNNY!" (There's also the "I'm up for the day and bored of playing alone" cry but that's different from a night cry.)

As for "not settle" for Dad - make sure Dad is doing all the right things! DH and I now have different ways of settling DS but at first it was "he won't do it for me" ie "I can't be bothered to learn how to do it and don't like getting up at night or giving up my free time." A bit of crying with his dad won't kill him - Daddy loves his son and can care for him, your DS will soon realise that. Maybe more things together in the day would help that attachment form.

[Kate07]

Just a quickie- can you attach his dummy to his clothes so he can find it again? or put more than one dummy in the cot so if he throws one and then wants it again there is another to suck. Will only work as long as he doesn't throw them all, but maybe worth a try?

[Curly]

Just coming at it from another angle...how many naps a day does he have? If it's two, maybe it's time to cut one out? I know the obvious thing is to blame his cold for throwing him out of whack but it may have just coincided with him needing a different sleep pattern.

My DS...also not a good sleeper, couldn't settle on his own (still doesn't and he's 2 next week) and we never could do CC either.

It would have been around 14 months that he was still happily having 2 naps a day but suddenly just would not go to sleep at night and we couldn't get him to go down till 9pm or so...but it was hard work because even though we knew he was tired, he was all hyped up. We cut out a nap and got the evenings back.