Sleep has always been an issue for Craig. We didn’t implement a proper sleep routine until about 2/3months which helped to establish more of a structure.
Bedtime was a real struggle before we started the routine. We went through a phase where he cried from 7pm to 9/10pm before finally going to sleep. The routine helped to stop this crying, he had been overtired and we didn’t realise.
However, he still fought going to sleep. It used to take ages to get him to nap during the day, I would have to walk him in the pram for a long time before he eventually fell asleep.
He also needed a lot of help to go to sleep, carrying him in the sling, rocking him, sshing him, co-sleeping.
He has never self-settled, we tried a lot of things but he just cannot go to sleep by himself.
Currently we have to rock him a little bit before bed then lay him in his cot and lie beside him holding his hand before he can go to sleep. If we get up and leave he screams crying. It takes him nearly an hour to fall asleep.
He had reflux from about 2 to 6 months and he was on ranitidine. This didn’t help the sleep issues.
Breastfeeding didn’t work out for us so from 2/3 months he was bottle fed.
We spent a lot of time co-sleeping with Craig as he wouldn’t settle well in the cot.
Wake up is between 7am – 8am
Breakfast 8am – bowl of rice crispies or cornflakes, small piece of toast and some fruit
Snack at around 10:30 – can be a banana and a yoghurt or sometimes if we are out he might have some banana and a small madeline.
I aim for lunch at 11:30 but think I may even go for 11am soon. He is a fussy eater so lunch can be pasta bolognese, stir fry grated veggies with chicken and noodles or a ham sandwich with some cheese, sweet corn and some cucumber. He will have fruit and maybe a small yoghurt with it too.
After lunch he is ready for sleep around 12:30 sometimes we are out and it might not be 1 or 1:30 until he sleeps. It is relatively easy to put him to sleep at this time but he still needs to be rocked a little bit before I put him in the cot and hold his hand. He usually falls asleep quite quickly, takes about 5-10mins.
He can sleep for 1-2 hrs at this time. He has started to sleep for 2hrs straight but up until now he has always woken after 1hr crying. I had to go in and settle him back to sleep sometimes ending up co-sleeping with him for another hour.
He stopped this waking after 1 hr but seems to have started it again for some reason.
He always wakes up from his nap crying until I go into him.
After his nap, around 3:30 I will give him a snack, anything from grapes and blueberries with some crackers, banana slices with almond butter and a half slice of toast, or fruit and a yoghurt depending on his appetite.
Dinner is normally at 5/5:30 6pm if I’m running late. Again he is a fussy eater so it will be bolognese with hidden grated veggies and pasta, some sweet corn, peas or chicken, peas and some potatoes (sometime he won’t eat potatoes, depends on his mood). He will have fruit also, a pear or some berries or mango. He loves fruit.
After dinner we play for a little bit then when his father gets home we do his bath.
I have to admit I think this is where we fall down as we let the bedtime routine go on. As we have really struggled to get him to go to sleep at bedtime for a long time we sort of dread it and leave him up too long.
Bath can be at 6:30 or 7pm. Then we will get him dressed which has to be in front of the tv as he will not let us put his nappy on. We have to calm him with cartoons, which we know is bad but otherwise it impossible to dress him for bed.
Then it’s time for his bottle, we still give him 8 oz of cow’s milk at bedtime. This will be given to him in the sitting room or bedroom.
Then we brush his teeth and bring him into the bedroom which currently is a massive struggle. He really does not want to go to bed. He will try and jump out of our arms, cry and battle with us.
We put him in the cot, put some lullaby music on and read him a story.
We give him a dummy but he has started to reject that but that is the only tool we have at the moment that helps us to get him to sleep.
We then turn off the lights and will need to rock him a bit before putting him in his cot, lie beside him and hold his hand.
He is currently taking 1 hour to fall asleep. The routine is currently this for some reason, I stay with him for half an hour and try and get him to fall asleep, he won’t so I get up and leave, he starts bawling crying, we let him cry for about 5mins and then his father goes into him and gets him to go to sleep. It’s like he needs to have that cry to go to sleep. It’s very distressing for all of us and we are all wrecked for it.
The time he falls asleep really varies, it can be any time between 8pm and 10pm. It doesn’t matter if he had a short nap during the day he just does not want to go to sleep at bedtime.
He had a dummy but is starting to reject that. It is the only tool we have to get him to sleep so we don’t really want to give it up even though we know we should.
He has a bottle of milk before bed.
He does co-sleep with us almost every night from about 3am. I try and put him back in the cot after he falls asleep if I have the energy.
He doesn’t like any type of comforter like soft toys or blankets, I have tried!
He wakes up once every single night. It can be any time between 1am to 4am, usually it is at 3am.
We have had one or maybe two sleep through the nights since birth.
The last two months have been pretty bad, he used to be easy enough to settle back to sleep but now he could stay awake for an hour or need a bottle of milk to go back to sleep.
He needs a lot of settling and soothing to sleep, when he wakes at 3am we have to bring him into our bed for him to fall asleep. We sometimes have to turn the lullaby back on if he won’t settle.
An issue we have is that his cot is in our room. We can’t put him in our second bedroom as it’s quite a cold room so we have kept him with us. I’m sure he probably wakes due to us as he is a light sleeper.
Another thing that is worth mentioning, he started nursery in September but we had to stop it. His behaviour changed a lot and he started having night terrors and day terrors. He became very anxious and used to tantrum/refuse to eat his breakfast every morning before going. He bawled at drop off and when I collected him he seemed really stressed and anxious.
The nursery is a great nursery so he definitely wasn’t treated badly he just really did not like going.
His separation anxiety got very bad during this time and is still bad especially with me.
That’s all I can think of right now, I think I have covered everything but if you need any other info let me know.
All in all we are seriously struggling with all of this, we dread bedtime, it is not a nice calm event, we feel like we are going into battle with him!
I really hope you can help us to take a step back and try to calm down bedtime. I know we need to do something about this now before he gets too old and it gets even harder for us.
Many thanks
