Sleeping FAQ: 12-18 months

My son, Oliver, is 17 months old and weighs 11 kilos. He truly is a contented baby and has slept through the night since he was five weeks old. Ten days ago he refused to settle for his daytime nap. He cuddles as usual and eventually falls off to sleep after about 10 minutes, but when we put him in his crib he wakes and cries. We lift him and cuddle and rock him. After three or four attempts he will stop cuddling and want to play. I am not aware of anything else changing in his routine that would have had a knock-on effect here. We have tried leaving him to settle himself but he gets very upset to the point of being inconsolable. Is he just early giving up his daytime nap or should we persist in trying?
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My one-year-old daughter has always been a Contented Little Baby, following the routine to the letter. We started having a nanny one day a week two months ago, and she's been going to nursery two days a week for a month. She adjusted immediately without much separation anxiety (at least not displayed) and has her usual lunchtime nap from about noon to 2pm with the nanny as well as in the nursery. However, on the days she is home with me, she will either have difficulties settling for the lunchtime nap or will wake during the nap and will not re-settle. Her crying might become hysterical; she reaches out for me and will only settle on my arm.
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My daughter who is just one had slept through the night until nearly nine months. Since then she has had various illnesses. During these she started to wake in the night and needed a milk feed to settle her. Now she is waking three times every night and will only settle once she has had milk despite eating well in the day. For the last two weeks her first waking of the night has been at exactly 9.50pm, at which time it can take an hour to settle her back to sleep.
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My 13 month daughter has always been a good sleeper and has to be woken from most naps. In the mornings for the last month or so, she has fought or had just a 10 minute morning nap, followed by a proper nap of 1 1/2hr at 1-1.30 pm. For the last week she has not napped in the morning at all. She has now begun to wake in the late evening and become very distressed. I was wondering whether there were any associations between dropping the morning nap and coming into light sleep at 11 pm.
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I am at my wits' end as my happy little 16-month-old wakes in the night for up to four hours shouting, screaming and crying. It has been going on for a couple of months now and occurs usually every other night.
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Following your routines, m m15 month son has slept through the night since he was about four months apart from when he has been ill. During one month he was unwell twice with a virus and when cutting his molars so I obviously had to attend to him in the night. However, for the last three weeks he has been in perfect health, but still continues to wake up every night crying and unable to settle himself back to sleep. I feel confident that the wakings are now due to habit not pain, but I don't know how to break the habit?
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My daughter has been sleeping very well since 8 months but now cries every time I put her into bed. Even if I sit somewhere in the room, not looking at her she goes off OK. I am trying not to get into this though. Our big problem though is that for the last 3 nights she has woken every hour and we are exhausted. She has a slight cold. Nothing terrible and is in good form in the day. I think her nose gets blocked and she gets distressed. She seems to cry out and then go off again eventually. Last night though I got up to her at 4 am and she settled by 5 am. I gave her some Benilyn and Calpol. Is this a bad sleep habit she is forming or is it her cold and will pass? Should I just have soothed her and left? I just really wanted her to go back to sleep so that I could too. She slept until 8.20am after going back at 5am. She sleeps for 2 hours in the day and usually sleeps around 12 hours at night.

My daughter takes around 13ozs of milk in the day as well as cheese and yoghurt. She eats well at all three meals. Her lunch is protein based and her supper is vegetarian.
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My daughter has suffered with severe diarrhea for 15 days. The doctor said that this was caused by a virus. She stopped wanting to eat and I was advised to give her as much fluid as possible. During the night I was giving her 2 bottles of either diluted apple juice or rice milk. We were advised to give her rice milk due to allergies. Her sleeping routine was really affected as my daughter was soiling her clothes and sheets due to the illness. For the last two weeks my daughter has been better. She has had no diarrhea and is eating three good meals a day. She takes 8ozs of rice milk in the morning and evening from a bottle.

But her sleep routine is awful. She wakes anywhere between 1and 5am, at no set time. She had slept through the night since 4 months until her illness. If she did wake she would resettle herself within 10minutes.

I have been doing controlled crying for 2 weeks and see no improvement. I do not give her a bottle or change her as I know it is not needed. I leave her for 15 minutes before going into her screaming. I do not take her out of her cot and with lights off stroke her for a few minutes with no speaking. She stops crying immediately. I stay in the room for about a minute. When I leave she screams again. I leave a gap of 10minutes before re-entering and increase this by double. It took 2 hours last night of this to get her back to sleep. We are all exhausted and would love my daughter to return to her old sleep routine again. I did try cold turkey one night but I cannot take that again.

My daughter has cereal and toast 4 breakfast. Lunch is either chicken or fish with vegetables. Supper is usually pasta followed by yoghurt. She always finishes everything and has a banana mid afternoon and snacks in morning.
I am wondering though as when she got the diarrhoea bug we put her on rice milk instead of formula. Do you think that this is not filling her up at sleep time as she polishes of 8oz very quickly?

My daughter naps at 1-3pm. She is settled at 7.30pm.
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Since having a few illnesses(chest infection, gastric flu) my son has, in the last two months been waking at midnight and screaming for anything up to 4 hours sometimes coughing and on occasions this has made him sick. Although on some other nights he can sleep for 12 hours. There seems to be no pattern to this and the unpredictability is placing a strain on both me and my wife. Sometimes the easiest thing to do is to take him into bed with us as he settles and sleeps quickly. He seems contented in most other aspects and is eating well during the day and developing well with walking and talking and socialises well at nursery. We are, at the moment just starting controlled crying but this too seems very difficult for us all. I wonder if you could help with any other advice.

He eats 1 weetabix, fruit toast with butter for breakfast. Lunch is a protein and carbohydrate meal such as homemade spaghetti and meat sauce. He has a carbohydrate snack in the afternoon and a soup and sandwich for tea. He drinks fruit juice water and some milk during the day.

My son naps from 1-2pm. He settles at 7.30pm.
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My 15-month-old daughter is a twin; she was born 10 weeks early. Unlike her sister she has never been a good sleeper and uses a dummy for all sleeps in her cot. At 13 months she was still waking several times a night when a friend who had followed the CLB routine suggested we try controlled crying. It took 3 nights of leaving her to scream (we went in to the nursery and comforted her when she first woke but we did not return). On night 1 she cried for 3.5 hrs, night 2, 2 hrs and night 3, 20mins); she then slept through the night from 6.45pm to 7am for 2 months - fantastic. She has started to wake again, usually around 2am; we have been leaving her to cry for around 5 nights now with no success. She screams hysterically for anything up to 3 hrs. I am worried that, now she is 15months old, leaving her to scream like this may be creating some kind of negative sleep association. The twins do not sleep for long in the day and lately have been getting by on around 40mins sleep which they have in the morning (around 10 am having woken at 7am). I try to put them down around 1.30pm but they are bright as buttons and do not want to sleep. Could my daughter be overtired? How do I get the girls to sleep more in the day? She is very active, as she has just started walking. I am afraid that her night time wakings are started to affect her sister who has been a CLB for many months.

The girls have three meals a day which they eat well. They drink 7oz milk in a bottle before settling to sleep around 6.45pm.
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My 15-month-old son is a little angel but is waking once a night and has done for the last two weeks. It is usually around midnight and he's hysterical; when you go in he's stood up pointing to the door. The only way to stop him crying is take him into another bedroom and sit with him for tens minutes until he calms down and then he goes straight back to sleep.

He has slept from 7pm to 7am for months now - we did controlled crying successfully to get rid of his dummy - and he often stirs or wakes during the night and goes back to sleep, it's just once a night that he's really hysterical. We have considered just leaving him but I have really never heard him as upset as this and don't feel it's right just to leave him.
Although this might not be serious in comparison to other problems, it is really getting us down.
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We have just returned from Dubai which is 4 hours ahead of the UK time wise. Before this holiday my 13mth old daughter was sleeping from 7pm to 7 or 8am every morning without waking in the night. Since we have returned (3 days now), she has been struggling to stay awake until 7pm and has been waking at around 4am seeming to be hungry. I have been giving her milk and breakfast and then putting her back to bed again at about 6 for another hour and half or so. Then I have been back on her usual routine where she goes to bed for 2 hours at lunch time from 12.15 to 2.15. I am not sure I am doing the right thing as she doesn't seem to be waking any later each morning; it has been 4am for 3 days now. Obviously she has jet lag but what shall I do? I am exhausted and need help!

My daughter eats three good meals a day at 5am, 11am and 5pm. She drinks 16ozs of milk; one 8oz bottle at 4am and one 8oz bottle 6pm.

She naps at 6-7.30am and 12.15-2.15pm. She is asleep by 6.40pm.
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My daughter is not a big sleeper in the day, but at night she usually slept from 7pm-7am. About 6-7 months ago she started to wake up from her daytime naps crying, then she started crying in the morning too. Up until then she would wake and happily talk and play in her cot until I went to her. Now she is crying before she is even properly awake. If I leave her she gets hysterical. Then about 5 months ago she started waking earlier, sometimes as early as 5-5.30am. We had already changed her to one nap a day, which she would have for two hours. I then shortened the naps which helped a bit. Now she wakes herself up after an about an hour. She still only sleeps until 6am and always wakes up crying. Are the two things connected? She eats well but not huge amounts and doesn’t seem to be woken by hunger. what has gone wrong?
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For the past month and a half I have become stuck in a cycle of early morning waking, which I suspect is down to too much day time sleep but I can't seem to resolve the issue. My daughter is now 14 months old and previous to the early morning wakening she was managing to get through quite a few mornings without a nap and sleeping well until 7am or longer. She then went through a spell of needing the morning nap again and then started waking at 6.30am and then it just got earlier and earlier. Now she wakes at 5.30/5.40 every morning and is ready to start her day. As a result I have to give her a short morning nap as she is shattered by 9am and if she gets less than 2 hours at lunchtime it seems to result in her being tired and miserable all afternoon, she has a meltdown at bath time and still wakes early due to falling into a deep sleep at 7pm. She always settles immediately to sleep at 7pm.
When she wakes at 5.30am I leave her as long as I can until she is shouting and screeching at about 6.30am and then I go in and give her milk. She then plays in her cot until 7am and we get up and start our day. I often take her out in her buggy to try and get her until 9.30am for a nap. I then started cutting back on that which is difficult as she can't wake up and is thoroughly miserable until lunchtime. I have been giving her 30 minutes at 9.15-9.45. She then goes down for her lunchtime nap from 12.30 - 2.30pm. I work in lots of quiet time and rest periods etc. Some days she has had 30 minutes in the morning and then only slept an hour and 20mins at lunchtime and again, still wakes at 5.40am.
I don't know how to resolve this one and have tried everything I can think of. She eats very well and her room is pitch black.
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Help! My little boy is 15 months old and has been a contented little baby since he was born, following the routines more or less. He usually wakes at 6am (which my husband likes as he gets to see him before he leaves for work), has a lunchtime nap at 1pm for 2 or 2 and a half hours then goes to bed happily at 7pm. However, he has always had a tendency to early morning waking and the past couple of weeks have seen him waking up nearer to 5am and wanting to get up. We do try to leave him in his cot until 6am and he chatters for most of it but then cries by around 5.45am. The problem is that when he wakes up this early he cannot make it to his lunchtime nap whereas when he wakes at 6 or 6.30 then he's happy to, although sometimes he'll have a 10 minute morning nap in the car or buggy if we're out. The other problem is, of course, that his mum is shattered!

I have to wake him after his lunchtime nap as he'd sleep all afternoon if we let him. In fact my husband let him have 3 hours yesterday and this morning he woke at 4.30am! I would love him to wake up later in the morning - 6.30 or 7am would be bliss!! Should I cut down his lunchtime sleep to one and a half hours or move his bedtime to later? On the odd occasion he has gone to bed later he doesn't seem to wake up later, although if he goes to bed earlier he does wake earlier! He's desperate for his milk at 6am (although he doesn't always drink more than half a beaker) but is happy to wait for breakfast at 8 or 8.30am. I don't know how much he weighs - around 2st I think but there's no worries about his weight. Generally he's a very very happy little boy who has just started walking and loves to run around but I don't want to just assume he will grow out of it as I know plenty of four-year-olds who still wake around this time.
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We are desperate after nearly 4 weeks of our 17-month-old boy waking between 4.30am and 5.30am!! Several nights a week he also wakes every few hours slightly unsettled or crying, often settling himself back quickly or allowing us to settle him quickly by saying ‘shhh,’ ‘night night’ or rubbing his head briefly. He has been on Gina’s routines since around the age of 4 months. Our early weeks and months were very difficult with him as he suffered from gastroesophageal reflux. Because of the reflux going undiagnosed for a while, his weight dipped in the beginning. However, he has responded well to two reflux medications. He is still on reflux medication but we have begun to decrease his dosage. His weight is now actually high, at around the 75th centile. We weaned him using Annabel Karmel’s book and Gina’s routine and recipes. He loves food and eats a wide range of fresh food every day, generally having one hot veggie meal and one hot meat meal plus cereal and fruit in the mornings. From the time we started the routine he adapted well to it. He always had a bit of trouble having the full two hours at lunch. However, that was always our goal and we have stuck to the principle of a long afternoon nap. Since he started the routine he has had long patches of waking up a bit early (6ish). However, this was often due to our noisy neighbour who rose early for work. He has had many weeks, however, of fitting into the schedule perfectly, waking at 7-7.30am. Everyone is always commenting on what a happy contented child he is.

At around 14 months he began to refuse his morning nap, and since then he has been having around 2 hours sleep at 12.30-1pm as his only sleep of the day. This is a good sound sleep and he hardly ever wakes up. When things are going normally he has breakfast with around 6oz of milk at around 7am. He then has lunch at around 11-11.30am and dinner at 5pm. I give him a bit of fruit and water at 9.30ish and after his two hour sleep. He began walking at about 14 months. Since then I have taken him out twice a day for at least a walk, but most often a play at the playground. Since starting the schedule he has only ever woken in the night when he has had a cold. Other than that he woke up a few times the first few weeks after the nanny started. He has been spending two days a week with a very good nanny since he was 13 months. She is on board with whatever we are trying and keeps to his schedule. Any time he has woken up he has been relatively easy to settle without us even picking him up, other than the odd occasion with a very clogged nose or some other physical discomfort. Since walking I have had to be strict about putting him down sometime between 6.30pm and 7pm, whereas before he stayed up to see his dad until about 7.30pm.

The real trouble started recently, however, just before we moved house. On the day of the move he awoke at 5am. We assumed he realised things were changing and thought nothing of the waking on that day. The day of the move, he had a very tiring day at the zoo with the nanny with only 45 minutes pushchair sleep at around 2pm with a few minutes on the way home at around 4.30pm. He slept the next day until 7.15am! Since then, however, he has never slept past 5.40am. The day after the move we slotted back into the schedule I outlined above. However, this has been very rough on him as he gets exhausted by lunchtime because of the early morning waking. I have tried to go back to a small nap at 9.30am but he is not tired enough yet. He seems to need a nap at around 11am, when it is time to eat! After the move we tried to keep everything as similar to our old place as possible. He has almost the same decoration in his room. His bedtime routine has stayed the same - bath at around 5.45-6pm, dressing with a little quiet singing then several soft books with around 6-7oz of milk. In the past two months he has become very attached to a soft toy that he clings on to in bed. The only other change is that he has said his first real words in the past month outside of da-da and ma-ma, so now has expanded to other things such as bye-bye and his awareness of what we are saying and doing has grown a great deal as well. He sleeps in a sleeping bag and we have wondered lately if he is now uncomfortable in it. We also tried reducing his 2 hour daytime sleep to both 1.5 hours and 1 hour and neither of those changes has made a difference. It just means he is tired in the afternoons! He also has 19 teeth and is now getting the 20th, but has typically not been kept awake by teeth. Help!
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Hello. I have a 1 year old who for ages was a 30/45 minute napper. Mostly now in the last month we've overcome this and probably 4-5 days a week he has at least 1 nap that is an hour long. He's not strictly CLB, but he's happy and smiley most of the time!!

He was 8lb 10 when born and is now 26lb something! and is my first. He has 2 milk feeds a day - morning and night of 6 oz each and 3 good sized meals a day. He wakes at 5.30/6am and at 7am has milk (6 oz) - regardless of when he wakes, I always make him wait. At 8am he has breakfast – Weetabix etc. At 9/9.30 he naps for up to 1 1/4 hours, then at 10.30am he has a snack of fruit or breadstick etc. Lunch is at midday (fish pie / spaghetti bolognese / chicken casserole / mild curry) followed at 1.30pm by a nap of about 45 minutes on average. At 3.30pm he has a snack (fruit/rice cake etc) and tea at 5.15pm (jacket potato / pasta / risotto etc). Bathtime is at 6pm followed by a 6oz bottle of milk and then bed at 7pm. He doesn't often wake at night - if he does it's usually teething, a cold etc and we give him Medised and put him back in the cot after a cuddle and he goes to sleep after 15 / 20 minutes. For all his naps and bedtime he settles himself within 15 minutes of chattering, sometimes whingeing.

In the last 10 days or so he has been waking at 5.30am, occasionally 6am, which is much too early!! A couple of days ago, he slept for 1 hour in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, but he woke at night (I think his Grandma was coughing) and was awake for an hour - and he still woke at 6.30am. Yesterday he had 1 hour in the morning and 40 minutes in the afternoon and was awake this morning at 5.30am again. I'm sure he didn't do this when he was having 30 min naps and all the advice I've had is to limit his morning nap, but I don't understand why he'll sleep for 3 hours one day. 1.5 the next and still wake at the same time?

When he does wake, he starts crying (not screaming) and carries on even when I go in there, until I turn the light on and get him up. He does yawn occasionally during the morning before his nap, but he is happy playing on his own while I lay on the sofa! Is it time to limit the naps? If it is, can you please explain how it works?
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My daughter has started to wake around 5am. I have had a previous problem with her waking early and her reluctance to be left alone at night. Through studying the books and help from other mothers on the site, I cut back on her morning nap, so she was having only 15-20 minutes, and I made sure she was always down by 1pm. After about 4 weeks she began waking nearer 7am, even though her lunchtime nap was usually no more than an hour. I also cut out the afternoon milk, which resulted in her eating better at 5pm. During the last week the lunchtime nap has got better and she will sleep for 1hour 30minutes. She has, however, started to wake earlier and earlier in the morning. Today it was 5am. She doesn't stand up in her cot, she just cries. It starts with a little crying, but then it gets progressively worse. We always leave her as long as possible before going into her room. This morning I tried to give her some milk at 6am, but she wouldn’t take it. I then got her up at 7am and began the routine, but she still would not take more than 3oz of milk. I am getting down and tired as I tried so hard to change her daytime sleep, and although the lunchtime nap was not great, she was at least sleeping until 7am. I don’t think my daughter is genuinely ready to wake at 5am, and certainly I can’t take much more of the early starts.

She takes 4-6oz of formula at 7am and another 4-6oz at 6.30pm. She has three main meals a day and is offered water at lunch and tea. She naps at 9.30-9.45am and 1-2.15pm, and is settled at 7pm
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My 1 year old daughter has become a nightmare to settle at bedtime. She used to go down without any fuss at all and slept well for the last couple of months. Over the last 2 weeks she has been getting harder and harder to settle and evenings are now a horrendous battle that I dread. She is very tired as she walks quite a lot during the day (although we do have lots of quiet time to try and avoid exhaustion). She eats very well (all homemade) and sleeps well in the day, but at night it can take a long hard battle to get her to sleep and it is driving me crazy as I don't know why it is happening and therefore what to do to fix it.

I put my daughter down at about 7pm and she may chat for a minute or two and then starts grizzling. She is in a comfortable (not too long) sleeping bag and starts sitting up and then sometimes bangs her head on the bars on the way down making matters worse. Even if there are no bangs her crying escalates to hysterical within 10 minutes or so. She has a little toy that she cannot sleep without but she pushes it out of the cot bed on to the floor and says 'uh oh' so I have to go in and give it to her or she cannot sleep. Even if she keeps the toy in the cot she still gets very het up and will not go to sleep.

She developed a cold a couple of days ago which is making matters worse, and she may be teething. I have followed the advice on this board in detail (reassuring her from outside the door, going in and patting her, having a piece of my clothing in her bed, quiet time during the day and before bed along with a rock solid routine). I have also followed the advice about tilting the cot and putting a wet towel on the radiator.

Not only is she difficult to settle at night but she wakes frequently during the evening, sometimes settling herself back and sometimes not. She is also waking very early and consequently starting the day exhausted. Again I have tried the techniques mentioned (having an oz or two of milk at tea time if she will take it), trying to settle her in the early morning but all to no avail.

I cannot bear controlled crying and she is too young for the gradual withdrawal method. What on earth is wrong and what can I do to stop this getting any worse?

My daughter takes 4ozs milk at 7am followed by breakfast of cereal and yogurt and then a further 4ozs.

11.50am Soup and toast followed by fruit
1.30pm, 2ozs, before nap, 3pm, 2ozs, 5pm, cheese triangle, Chicken casserole with avocado finger food and small amount of fruit pudding. 2ozs of milk at times, 6.45pm 5-7ozs depending what was taken at teatime.

My daughter naps at 9-9.40am and 1.30-3pm.
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My son has always been good sleeper, never even whimpering when he was put down in his cot. Generally when he wakes, we can hear him playing in his cot (he does not wake up crying) or rustling about until he resettled. He sucks his thumb so has always been able to self soothe. We've had occasional periods of early waking in the last few months, but it always sorted itself out in a week or less. He eats well, and drinks milk in the morning and evening. Our problem is that in the last week, he is refusing to go to sleep. Nothing has changed in our routine but suddenly he seems horrified and terrified of going to bed. He screams blue murder and hangs onto the side of the cot for dear life. He will not lay (or even sit) down. He clutches on to me when I come up to the side of the cot and will only stop screaming if I pick him up. I tried not picking him up and I tried leaving him to cry. Neither worked and he just got more hysterical so eventually I picked him up. He then falls asleep on me, but wakes as soon as I put him back in his cot, and so on. The first couple of nights it was only evenings, but now I have the same problem at lunch time. The last two nights he has got himself upset immediately and thrown up all his dinner and milk. Our only success in getting him to sleep has been lying on the bed and moving him once he's asleep. Unsurprisingly, he cries as soon as he wakes.

I am concerned about this because it is causing us all a great amount of distress and I can't seem to find a way to make it better. My husband and I are totally baffled by this sudden change and concerned at how upset and seemingly terrified Louis is. And obviously we are exhausted and I am filled with dread every morning for the day that comes.
He naps at 12.30-2.30pm in the day and is put to bed at 7pm.
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I have many problems with my 17-month-old daughter’s sleep. She is hard to settle. I have to stay with her and hold her hand till she drops off or get into bed with her which usually takes 30-60 minutes. She jumped out of the cot the other day so now is in a bed which I can’t keep her in. This means I can’t go back to controlled crying - she will just get out if I don’t leave her asleep. When she drops off it is usually for about 3 hours and she will waken around 10.30-11pm and again I have to soothe her to sleep. Then she is likely to wake again at 2 or 3am. I would like to know the ideal daily routine for 17 months i.e. sleeping and eating schedule to see where I am going wrong.

My daughter doesn’t want to sleep in the mornings now and will only sleep around 45mins-1hour in the afternoon but never seems to get very tired. Please help as I am exhausted getting up every night! The easy option is to take her into bed with us as she sleeps quite well then but we really want to stop this now. If I leave her to cry she will cry and cough until she is sick.

My daughter eats three meals a day. What she eats and how much varies from day to day. She takes 250mls of toddler milk in a sippy cup at 7.30am. She is offered cereal, toast and fruit at breakfast but doesn’t eat well. She is offered bread, croissant or banana during the morning and has fluids available throughout the day. Her lunch at midday is either pasta, meat with vegetables or a sandwich with fruit, yoghurt or rice pudding to follow. At 3pm she will drink 125mls of toddler milk and is offered fruit, biscuit, avocado or fromage frais. For her tea at 5pm she will be offered meat, fish and potatoes or pasta and vegetables with a milky fruit pudding or yoghurt. She drinks 250mls of milk before bedtime. My daughter naps between 1-1.45pm.
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My son has always slept well and pretty much slept and ate when your routine stated. He is now 17 months old. I have gone back to work and see him in the morning and evening. He will not settle to sleep until 9pm. It’s exhausting and very upsetting for me as I feel very guilty for leaving him to go back to work. His daytime sleep is for 1 hour 15 minutes either in his cot or in his buggy depending on his daily activities. This is at 1-2.15pm.

I bath him at 6.15pm which is followed by his bottle of milk and lots of wind down time with books etc. However, when I try to put him to bed he screams and cries and shakes the cot. I have tried leaving him to cry going in every 15 minutes to reassure him but he still will not settle. After many attempts he will eventually go off to sleep at 9pm.

Please help. I need my evenings back with my husband.
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I have just read your book given to me by a friend. I feel we have made some major mistakes with Jake's routine. Jake is now a year old and still does not sleep through the night. That is an understatement - he wakes up to ten times a night. He was weaned at 6 months and went on to soya formula milk which was recommended by his paediatrician. He was introduced slowly onto solids and it went very well. At this stage (6 months) he was waking two to three times a night to feed. He then got sick shortly afterwards and was hospitalised for a night owing to his dehydration. Since then he has slept terribly, waking every half an hour to hour in the night.

We used a dummy since birth and he goes to sleep with it in his mouth. He will often wake crying and all he wants is the dummy back in his mouth. When he wakes in the night all he needs is either a drink of formula or some very diluted fruit juice, or the dummy back in his mouth. So far he completely refuses to drink water!

His daily routine is as follows:

He wakes at around 6:30-7:00am and has breakfast at around 8:00am. This consists of cereal and some fruit. He has his first nap around 9:00am for about an hour. He is then very active until around 12:00pm. At 12:00pm he has his lunch. This consists of protein and some starch. He has his second sleep around 2:00pm and this usually lasts around 45 minutes. He is active again in the afternoon. At around 5:30pm he has his dinner. He is then bathed at about 6:30pm. From around 7:00pm we try to get him to go to sleep. He will never fall asleep on his own, or in his cot. How he usually falls asleep is with me on the couch, or lying with him on my bed. Once asleep he is carried to bed. He never drinks that much before bed but does drink his juice all day.

We have let him cry a few times but he works himself into such a state that he has vomited in the recent past. A few nights ago we left him crying for over an hour at about 1:00am. We felt so bad however that we eventually picked him up.

Both my husband and I work and we are desperate to get some sleep. During the morning (when I am working) he is with his nanny. They often come to work with me.

We would love some advice on controlled crying and what it is exactly, and some ideas on what to do to get our son to sleep at night. We would also love some advice on how to get rid of the dummy he is so attached to.
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My son, Rahul, is 16 months with no siblings. He was 3.5kgs at birth and is 13.5kgs now. His routine is approximately 7am-8pm. He was breast fed until 5mths. I stopped because he was drinking 10 ounces at each feed and totally exhausting me. He has been on formula milk since then (Similac Advance). He has 6oz (180ml) milk on waking and breakfast at 9/9.30am. Lunch is at 11.30/45am followed by a bath and a nap between 1pm and 2.15/3pm. He will have 4oz (120ml) milk and some fruit by 4pm. If he is still hungry then he has a biscuit. Dinner is at 6.30pm. Bathtime is 7.45pm followed by bedtime.

Rahul is cuddled to sleep. He takes comfort pulling on my ear and is so strong now that it really hurts. I have to tell him to stop and try and hold his hands down. I had a private nurse in the nights until he was 1 so she put him to bed. I had a day nurse for a short time. But he is mainly in my care now and at times a nanny watches him if I go out - which I do not do that often except to go to the gym. He has never used a dummy. I bathe him mostly, for a short time he was bathed in the day by the nanny. He is not unsettled at bedtime but will fight his sleep if he is over-excited or over-tired. It normally takes him 3-5 minutes to settle in the afternoon and 10 in the night.

Rahul was a great baby, and I started to follow the contented baby routine at 2 months. He had given up his night feed by 4 and a half months. He was not slowly taken off the breast but went cold turkey - I was depressed and exhausted and just could not do it. So he rejected the first bottle but hasn’t looked back after the second. I started solids simultaneously, and had no problem.

He sleeps well and I have noticed that when he is teething he wakes in the night and sometimes he can be patted back to sleep, but mostly needs to be picked up and cuddled. He has his 8 front teeth, and his 4 molars and upper canines are coming through right now. So we have had a few weeks of night waking and early morning waking. He never asks for a feed though.

As my husband does not help me, sometimes I am so tired that I pick him up and go to sleep on the mattress on his floor with him. He happily sleeps till 8am on those days. I am scared it has become a habit.

My concerns are that he should sleep right through if possible, and that I should not be holding him until he sleeps. I think he should be able to put himself to bed. What should I do?
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My son is 14 months and has slept fine 7pm - 6:30/7pm since 3 months old. He particularly always settled quickly at 7pm. For the last week he has started taking 30-45mins to settle at 7pm.

We have a wind down routine that we follow every night with bath at 6pm, milk at 6:20pm then story at about 6:40pm and he is settled down about 6:55pm.

Now he seems full of energy, laughing and squealing, and when we put him down he is playing with the bars of the cot, jumping up and babbling.

He doesn’t cry or seem to get upset but it seems to take so long to settle him and we can't work out why.

Do babies this age need to go to bed later? Do we need to change his routine?

My son naps at 9.30-9.50am and 12.45-2.45pm

He has three good meals a day and takes between 13-18ozs milk a day.
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My son of 13 months is not tired by 9:30am, and will not settle down for his morning nap, so I have stopped it. Now he is very tired by 11:30am, so I have brought back his lunch from noon to around 11:15am; this way he is in bed by noon. I expect him to sleep for 2 hours, but he doesn't always do this; sometimes he sleeps for 2 1/2 hours and other times just 1 hour. When he only sleeps for 1 hour, he is tired by 3:30pm. I let him sleep for 1/2 hour but then it takes him longer to sleep at night. He is usually settled by 8pm and awake by 6am.
Is it wise to stop the morning nap?

He still wakes up several times a night and I have to rock him back to sleep. To make my life easier, I have resorted to putting him to sleep next to me when he wakes up at night. He still wakes up but settles himself to sleep.
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My son sleeps perfectly at night. He used to sleep well in the day, going down easily. However, over the last 3-4 weeks he has begun to refuse to go down for his morning and lunchtime naps without screaming.

There has been no change to his routine prior to this, although it is changing slightly now in an effort to get him to sleep (e.g. walks in the buggy and the timing is out). This is because my husband works nights and has to sleep in the day. I am happy to carry out controlled crying in order to get him back into his routine, but feel I can't because of my husbands need to sleep.

At present my son sleeps from 9.30-10am and 12.30-1pm so is only getting an hour in the day. He settles at 6.45pm and wakes at 6.30am. Once asleep in the morning he has to be woken but at lunchtime he wakes after 30 minutes. How can I get him back on track?
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My one-year-old child has been a great sleeper so far, sleeping for 13 hours each night and about 3 hours during the day. The problem is that he gets extremely frustrated when he wakes up as he is in his gro-bag and is unable to stand up in his cot. I would like to be able to leave him in his cot to play, but his frustration causes him to cry as soon as he awakes. He sleeps in a 1.0-tog towelling gro-bag.
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I have a fourteen-month-old boy and I am expecting a new baby at the end of January. I would like to move my little boy into a cot bed and give the new baby his cot, which is getting too small for him. I just wondered what might be the best way to get my son used to a new bed. He hates change, and whenever we have been on holiday, I have needed to lie down with him on a bed, and then move him once he is asleep; he is very attached to one of my nightdresses. I don't, however, want to do that again, as it took some time after our last holiday before I got him back to sleeping on his own, which he always did very happily before.
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