Sleep Training

Leo woke up one night last week and no amount of cuddles or milk would settle him. So having work the next day and worrying about being up all night with him, I succumbed and allowed him to snuggle up in our bed.

First fail.

The next night Leo just would not go down in his cot, no matter what I did he just screamed. This for Leo is completely out of character as he usually goes down at 7pm with a bottle of milk and off to sleep he goes. He had even been sleeping through the night and I thought our sleep problems were well and truly behind us.

He stood there in his cot holding his blankie and milk bottle tightly, and it suddenly dawned on me where he wanted to go. Our bed. So I took him through just to see what he would do and sure enough he began sucking on his blankie and drifting off to sleep.

Second Fail.

He didn’t care if I was by his side or not, so I left him to it and went down stairs (by this time it was already 9pm and my evening was gone) but when I came up to bed I moved him back to his cot. I suddenly thought that he may be wanting a bed and the cot was the issue, in hind sight I can see that this was not the right time for such a big change but we gave it a try.

I got him a duvet and a new pillow with Mickey Mouse dotted all over it, and I had Luke take down the cot side and in it’s place put a bumper bar to keep him from rolling out. At bed time Leo refused to go in it and seemed really un-settled again. So I lay down with him on his big boy bed and we cuddled. I put on his Winnie the Pooh Light Show so that he could see it dancing around on the ceiling. But still nothing worked.

In fact he got so clingy that I couldn’t even leave the room and I was waving goodbye to yet another evening of things I needed to get done.

So I took him into our room – Third Fail.

I had already decided that the cot bar was going back up as he quite obviously was not ready for that change just yet and I was even ready to pull out the big guns of controlled crying.

I lay with my little man tickling his hand and holding him, and then I started to move away as I heard him starting to drift off to sleep. It was like he could detect when I got out of the door, with his alarm sounding making me come back in.

When I eventually got downstairs I was adamant that I was going to get him back into his own bed and to going off to sleep without me. It is amazing how 2 nights can make such a difference to a routine and what the child expects from you.

I moved Leo into his big boy bed around 11pm again just as I was going to bed, and he spent a matter of hours in there before he was awake and back in bed with Daddy and I.

After finishing work the next day I got the Allen Keys and asked Luke to put the cot back together for me. Of course he decided not to help, told me that I should battle it out with him as he would have to do it eventually. My argument on this front is that he has demonstrated that he is not ready, and for me to get him back in his cot I was going to have to make sure he couldn’t get out, so that he would eventually go back off to sleep.

So without Luke’s help I attempted to put the side back on only to get so far before he comes in and tells me that I have blunted all of the screw heads. But eventually Luke had Leo’s cot back together and ready for Leo that evening.

That night Leo screamed for 1 hour and 45 minutes. He stood up screaming at me for what felt like forever. I wondered if he would give in and go to sleep as we hadn’t had to practice controlled crying for a very long time.  Eventually he sat down in his cot, and then lay down before he fell asleep and slept all night long.

The next night Leo cried for around an hour before falling asleep, I was anxious it would be longer as Luke and I had plans to go out. He was meant to be going to Granny’s house overnight but I decided that it would be best if she came to us so as not to disrupt his routine further. I knew if I didn’t have him fast asleep by the time Granny arrived she wouldn’t be able to leave him crying and would give into him. Luckily just before Granny arrived Leo was fast asleep and dreaming and didn’t even know we left. He slept all night long and was bright eyed and bushy tailed by morning.

Saturday night Leo cried for around 20 minutes before drifting off and sleeping ALL night.

Sunday night took less than 5 minutes before he was sleeping like a baby, all through the night!

Monday night he went down just like he usually would, he let me tuck him in and even hover by the cot like I always do. Before I walked out of the room telling him I loved him. There were no tears, no screaming and he went straight off to sleep. Sleeping all night long.

With each passing night there really was a difference in how long Leo was crying for until he was just back to normal. I have spoken on my views about controlledcrying before and how I felt about doing it. But now at 19 months old I have no problem in sleep training him. I feel he needs to know that bedtime is bedtime and he goes down to sleep in his cot (or bed…at some point in the future).

Sleep

Sometimes sleep doesn’t come easy, I have found this ring truer than ever since having Leo.

There have been nights where sleep doesn’t come at all, be it through illness or just for the hell of it. There are others where sleep washes over me like a relief, finally being able to shut my eyes after a busy day that was run on a disturbed night’s sleep, only to be jolted awake again moments later by the cries ringing through on the baby monitor.

I think my body is used to disturbed sleep now; it expects to be up at least once in the night (on a good night) and usually wakes me up even if Leo hasn’t awoken. Up until our recent house move I couldn’t even remember when the last time was I actually had a full night’s unbroken sleep.

Sometimes though Leo will sleep through out of complete chance, and I think ‘wow I could get used to this’… But then the next night we are back to the basics again, with at least one wake to contend with. 

The weeks running up to our house move have witnessed Leo waking multiple times in the night, and was exactly what I have grown to expect. He was waking up to bottom milk bottles, being a real little milk guzzler. He always has his usual 9oz bottle of milk before going to bed, but he was then waking up multiple times throughout the night for MORE milk.

He always seems really thirsty when he awakes and the milk usually does the job. I have been conscious that the milk is more of a comfort to him these days, and he likes the reassurance of his bottle of milk. But all of those past wakes got me wondering, should I keep letting him have all this milk on tap during the night? He isn’t a newborn any more…So he doesn’t actually need to have bottle after bottle any more.

I have my lazy reasons for continuing to bow down to his twilight feasts, I put my hands up to the fact that I very quickly grab the bottle and let him drink his milk, I know it does not combat the issue entirely and we repeat the process when ever he feels like it, but at that moment in time it is the quickest way back to bed.

I know if I replace the milk with water he will not drink it. I know that if anything other than milk was in that bottle he would be up and screaming the house down. Leo not sleeping results in me not sleeping, and rolling into work the next day looking like a zombie off the walking dead.

I actually began writing this post while Leo was inflicting 2/3 night feeds on me a night. Feeds that I knew he did not need but went along with anyway and here is what I was thinking:

‘Maybe the time has come to give reduce his milk? Maybe it's time to give it a go. It is not really a bridge that I want to cross yet, but the thought of a solid nights sleep calls to me…

I am not debating the fact that Leo is not thirsty; because I am sure he does require a drink. But maybe if I do brace the elements of Leo’s wrath, he may learn to accept that there is one bottle of milk before bed, and if he wants anything else it will have to be water.

Does replacing milk with water really work and teach babies not to wake up at night for a feed?

How did you get your child to go through the night and wean them off multiple bottles of milk throughout the night? Did they accept this change without any drama?

The thing that puts me off even attempting this is making the change and then having even worse nights sleep as a repercussion… Is this the only way?’

I still cannot answer any of these questions as the change that has suddenly sent Leo through the night is our house move. Obviously I am not saying you should move house to get your baby to sleep through but it’s more what’s changed since we moved.

The main drastic change that I feel has made all of the difference is that the house is quieter with no distractions to wake Leo up. He goes down at his usual time after his dinner and bedtime bath, has a bottle of milk and a cuddle and he has then been going through until the next morning, in fact I have been having to wake him up so that I can go to work.

How is your little one sleeping at the moment?