Weird Sleep Habit | Imamother

girliesmommy

Thu, Oct 19 2006, 5:18 pm

My son is a year old and is driving me nuts with his sleep (or lack of) habit. No matter what time he goes to bed (7:00 or 11:00) he will sleep for about 40 minutes and then wake up wide awake.

I give him a bottle before he goes to sleep, so I don't want to give him another one when he wakes up. I don't like giving a bottle in the bed, so that is not an option.

I feel like I've tried everything, but I there must be a solution!
I've tried:
* Letting him cry - he'll just cry and cry for 1/2 hour straight!
* Going in and rubbing him without saying a word - he'll just wriggle around and cry, and won't settle
* Taking him out and quietly holding him, rocking him - he'll be quiet as long as I do that, and his eyes open and close, but as soon as I put him back in the crib he's screaming again.
* Putting on music in the room – makes no difference.

Somehow, my 3 year old DD manages to sleep through it all, but I have no evening for myself. What I’ve resorted to doing (which I know is wrong) is to take him out and let him play. He plays happily for about an hour, and then if I put him back to bed, he usually goes to sleep and sleeps through until I wake him at about 8am.

I’ve played around with his nap schedule too, to see if that would make a difference, but it hasn’t. As of now, he usually takes one nap for about 2-3 hours and is up by about 1pm. Letting him take another nap means that he’s not tired by bedtime.

Any suggestions?!?

shoy18

Thu, Oct 19 2006, 10:47 pm

my son went through stages, and one of those stages was exactly what you describe, I used to take him out and let him play and of course he was always extra cute for some reason. He did it for a week and I started to get nervous that maybe he would keep doing it, and one week he just stopped doing it.
Every once in a while he goes through the complete refusal to go to bed and I go nuts and then it passes and he sleeps beautifully dont know why

girliesmommy

Fri, Oct 20 2006, 3:10 pm

Mindy wrote:

put him to sleep a little later? like 9 pm?

Tried that... it worked for a week, and no more!

shoy18 wrote:

Yeah, I agree, he's always extra cute and playful at that time. I wish it was only for a week, but this has been going on for 4 months!!

MOM222 wrote:

What is in his bottle?

If its formula I would try giving it to him a good 30 -40 minutes before he goes to sleep. Let him play a bit and then put him to bed. Maybe the food is bothering him. (Sort of like a yonger baby when they need to burp)

Yes, it's formula. Sometimes he doesn't go to bed right after he has the bottle, but I'm going to try that again and pay attention if it makes a difference. Thanks!