Sleeping FAQ: 12-18 months

My daughter who is just 1 year old 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. I wonder if she has started to have night terrors as for the last two weeks she wakes every night at exactly 9.50pm. It can take an hour to settle her at this time.

She has just started to walk so, thinking this first waking was due to overtiredness, I have tried putting her to bed earlier but with no effect. She settles well at her daytime naps and at bedtime but when she wakes at 9.50pm she quickly becomes hysterical. She won’t let me hold her and it takes a long time before she will drink her milk, then settle back to sleep. The later night wakings are erratic with her being hysterical at times or just waking but not settling back to sleep alone. She stays with her grandmother one night a week and wakes when there.

During the day she is very clingy to me if I am in sight. Recently she has started to become hysterical at every nappy change but I just persist and hope this phase will soon be over.

I am due to return to work in a month and want to get the sleeping problem sorted as soon as possible.

Feeding details

5.00am: 6oz full fat milk on waking, will resettle
7.30am: 6 tbsp Ready Brek or 1 Weetabix
10.00am: water, ½ banana and rice cake
12.00pm: 6 tbsp chicken casserole, vegetables, yoghurt, water
3.00pm: apple and cheese or rice cake/rusk, 4oz milk from beaker
5.00pm: 6 tbsp of a tea recipe from CLBW, mini sandwiches, yoghurt, water
6.30pm: 8oz milk in bottle
10ozs milk taken during the night

Daily milk intake: 24ozs

My daughter naps at 9.30-10am, 1-2.30pm. She is asleep by 7pm.
Team Response

I was wondering whether there were any associations between dropping the morning nap and coming into light sleep at 11pm.

My 13m girl who, apart from a cry-down before she goes to sleep, has always been a good sleeper and has to be woken from most naps and in the mornings, has for the last month or so, fought or had just 10minute morning nap, followed by a proper nap of 1 1/2hr at 1/1.30pm. Within the last week she has not napped at all in the morning at all.

She's bright, alert and active during the day and is also a very good size for her age. Because she's dropped this nap I have been allowing her to sleep a little later to 7:30am so she wakes naturally, as opposed to waking her up at 7am, so that she can last a little longer in the morning. She makes it through to 1pm quite happily and actually goes down easier than she used to. She sleeps for 1 1/2hrs but had 2hrs the other day; although I'm not sure whether this is too much sleep. She won't sleep if I put her down at 12.30 or does just 45minutes. I also don't have the opportunity to put her down until 1pm.

However, within the last couple of days when myself or my husband quietly checked on her before we went to bed (10-11pm) she woke up as soon as we tiptoed into the room. She then started screaming. I laid her back down which she can do herself anyway, gave her blanky bear and left the room. The screaming then became hysterical to the point when she started sobbing uncontrollably so I went back into her to give her water, nurofen (just in case), wipe her nose, etc. She was shaking so much I picked her up to calm her down; put her back in her cot and then the screaming started again. This went on until about 1am. And the same thing happened again last night. Her 1st molars are now though so I don't think it is teething and she's well at the moment. She's also started taking longer to settle in the evenings going to sleep more around 7:30pm plus for the last month separation anxiety has become quite bad (I don\'t work). She's in a growbag too. What should I do? I'm generally quite firm for her and our own good but can't force her to nap if she doesn’t want to. Prolonged screaming at night turns her into a terrible shaking sobbing mess so that she can't resettle herself. Have you heard of this before or do you think it is just a phase in her development (my first never did this).

My daughter has breakfast at 8am eating 1 weetabix/porridge mixed with 3ozs milk and banana, toast and drinks 4ozs milk.
Mid-morning she takes little sandwiches/ cheese/ fruit/ yoghurts and water.
12 midday lunch is either chicken, vegetable pasta, risotto etc. She will eat anything, and takes quite a bit too.
3pm, 3-4ozs formula and snack of baby biscuit, cereal finger food, toast, banana etc.
5pm, dinner which is the same as the rest of the family such as shepherds pie, mild lamb tangine, couscous, cheesy vegetable pasta etc. Desserts of fruit, yoghurt etc.

My daughter naps at 1-2.30pm. She settles at 7/7.30pm.
Team Response

I am at my wits end and feeling very depressed as my happy little 16month old wakes in the night for sometimes 4 hours shouting, screaming and crying. It has been going on for a couple of months now and occurs usually every other night. Sometimes he doesn’t wake during the night but will wake around 6.30am - which is fine. I can then do the same thing each day and the next night he will wake around 12.30am and not go back off to sleep. He gets in a right state with coughing, screaming etc. I have tried both not going in his room and going in and doesn’t seem to make any difference. He is healthy at the moment although suffers from many coughs and colds and has been in hospital as gets asthma with colds - but the waking is when he is healthy and not from being ill. I am not happy to just leave him to cry as he doesn’t stop plus he is in such a state he will not just go back to sleep. I don’t pick him up unless I have to give him water as he then gets thirsty or if I have to give him some Medised. I also sometimes check he isn’t wet when he is in his cot as sometimes he has been and will change him. I am not happy to just leave him for hours without going in as in the past this hasn’t worked and I also not happy to leave him as sometimes he can get in a state and coughs and be sick I also believe he will not go back off once he has got like this. I am at my wits end as feel I do everything right yet failing. I think it may be to do with the day sleep e.g. not enough/too much/wrong time so working on this as will push sleep to 1pm to 3pm. Also not sure if I should swap tea and lunch around as all he will eat for tea is a sandwich and some chicken/meat so wondered if I should give his sandwich at lunch and his meat and vegetables at 5pm so he has a better tea to go to bed on? Your help and speedy response would be appreciated as I am feeling so low and down and I cant cope with this sleep deprivation and I am near to tears most of the time and getting cold sores, ulcers and have to work and have exams etc.

My son eats three meals a day: He is not that keen on breakfast but is offered cereal with milk, fruit and raisins and sometimes offered toast. Lunch is a protein meal of chicken, lamb or beef with vegetables including broccoli, peas or baby corn. Yoghurt is then offered. Cheese and a rice cake are given as a snack. Tea; my son is fussy at the moment and so dishes I offer such as pasta, rice or soups are rejected. He usually has a mini Dairylea sandwich, homemade burger or chicken pieces. This is followed by a milky pudding or similar and a rice cake is wanted. My son drinks milk from a cup. He takes 5-6ozs in the morning and 7ozs in the evening at 6.30pm. He drinks water at 9.30am, 3pm and 5pm. He has well diluted juice with his lunch.

My son naps at 12.45-2.30pm.
Team Response

Following your routines, my son has slept through the night since around 4 months apart from any illnesses. However since the New Year he has not slept through the night. He has been poorly with viral infections that he seems to endlessly pick up from nursery and one of his molars is coming through which caused him some pain. He has also become quite clingy which he has never been before and he also started walking at Xmas.

However, now he seems better during the day, not so clingy and his teeth don’t seem to cause him much pain during the day but he is still waking up at night. This can be anytime at all, there is no pattern. I tend to leave him to cry to see if he can settle himself which he used to do quite well but the last couple of weeks he either wakes up screaming or cries on and off for ages until I go in to him

He screams even louder when he knows I am up ! He is normally standing up in his cot ( in his sleeping bag ) and if I try to lie him down he just screams and stands straight back up again and gets very distressed. Trying to stroke his face and comfort him doesn’t work, so I try picking him up and putting him down a few times basically until I have had enough and then just leave him to settle which he normally does fairly quickly. I don’t think he would lie down and settle if I stayed in the room with him. I don’t know if he is waking because he is still in pain from his teeth or something else, so I have been giving him Nurofen but I am not sure if I should be, or has he just got into a habit of waking up for comfort ? Nothing has changed as far as his routine is concerned. He sleeps less at nursery than at home ( they don’t give him a morning sleep whereas I do ) I put him to bed before 7pm if he needs it but he wakes during the night regardless of how much or little sleep he has had during the day.

When at home my son naps at 9.30-10.15am and 1-2.30pm.

He eats three meals a day and sometimes has a snack as well.
Team Response

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.
Team Response

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.
Team Response

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
Team Response

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.
Team Response

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.
Team Response

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.
Team Response

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?
Team Response

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.
Team Response

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.
Team Response

My daughter is 18 months old, and an only child, at birth she weighed 9lb 9ozs and now weighs 26.4lbs. She eats 3 good meals a day:
Breakfast - Rice Krispies (4 tablespoons) and milk, 3-4 pieces of dried fruit and 1 slice of toast
Morning snack - toast or biscuit and fruit
Lunch - 5-6 tablespoons of homemade food, any meat fish and vegetables, plus a pudding of yoghurt/fruit
Snack - biscuit
Tea - as for lunch

Mary still has 3 x 6oz milk feeds every day, and is allergic to dairy, wheat, gluten, eggs and nuts. I work full-time, she goes to a childminder, the same one since she was 12 weeks old. Mary has 1-2 hours of sleep at 12.30pm; she goes to bed at 7pm following a milk feed and a bath by myself or my partner; she settles herself without any difficulty, wherever we are.
My problem is that for the last 2-3 weeks Mary has been waking up to 3 times a night and always waking at 5-5.30 am, whereas she would sleep all night until approximately 7am. Occasionally she wants a drink, sometimes just a cuddle, in fact I'm not sure what she wants at times.
Team Response

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!
Team Response

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?
Team Response

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
Team Response

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 1 year old daughter has always been a CLB, following the routine to the letter. We started having a nanny 1 day a week 2 months ago and the nursery for 2 days a week one month ago (we have to do this until we get the full 3 days in the nursery in a couple of months time). 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. As this is not a case of wrong sleeping associations since she has never had problems before, I was reluctant to try controlled crying, which has worked in the past when her sleep pattern was confused due to previous illness, holidays etc. Also, Gina says to respond to the child's needs when experiencing separation anxiety as it will then be quicker to pass than if ignored or "adjusted” with sleep training. My doctor has also explained that even if separation anxiety is not apparent in the nursery or with the other carers, it is usual for the child to display clinginess when back with the mother. After having responded to her needs for about 2 weeks last month, lying down with her every lunchtime nap I grew afraid of now installing wrong sleep associations in the first place. So I stopped about 2 weeks ago and did sleep training for 3 days and it seemed fine. But as she has displayed the same behaviour at today's lunchtime nap again, I am now really confused as to whether my daughter’s sleeping problems are due to over-tiredness (she had a stressful week and has just recently dropped her morning nap) or separation anxiety or the fact that the times of her daytime sleep vary now a little from day to day and are not on the exact minute as it was previously the case, when I was the sole carer. And what harm could it do to her if I applied sleep training again? However, if it is separation anxiety in fact, how long am I to let her sleep on my arm for 2 hours? And how do I avoid her getting used to it and how do I realize when she is crying just to "have her way" and be on my arm, without real separation anxiety? I know that she needs her full 2 hrs. of daytime sleep, as she is obviously too tired and in a bad mood on the days we did not manage - a totally new experience to me and to her, as she has always been in the routine and perfectly happy. Please help us get our CLB back and help her get the sleep she needs, without losing trust in me because I will not pick her up and respond to her wishes or needs.

My daughter has cereal and fruit at breakfast, after 200mls formula. On the days she eats her lunch at nursery she will have carbohydrates such as potato or rice, vegetables and some kind of a sauce, often combined with chicken or fish. This can be pureed or mashed for her. When her nanny cares for her she will have plain vegetables with potato or rice. About every other day she will have meat added to this, and it is mashed. On the days I care for her she will have the same or convenience food by HIPP. My daughter will take about 200-250gr of lunch followed by 100-200gr of fruit puree or pieces.

She takes cereal, fruit and bread at teatime, followed by about 200mls of formula at 6.50pm.

My daughter wakes at 7am and naps from 12-2pm. She settles at 7pm.
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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 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 5 weeks old. He has an excellent appetite and eats a wide range of food. We follow a mostly organic diet and use a number of the recipes from your weaning book - thank you Gina for all the great advice in your books. I am a working mum and Oliver spends the day with our nanny, Jill, and they have a excellent relationship. Jill follows the same routine as I do, we have a menu and a schedule.
Oliver sleeps from 7.15pm to around 7.45-8am, sometimes I have to wake him. If he wakes by himself he will happily chat in his crib for 10 to 15 minutes before I go into his room. He goes into his crib awake and settles himself to sleep every night.
His daytime sleep routine has always been a bit more of a challenge. As a baby on 3 naps he would sleep for an hour maximum and take a total of 2.5 hours in the day. We (myself or Jill) generally rock him to sleep in the rocking chair and then put him in his crib. He has never volunteered sleep during the day in spite of quiet time and wind-down periods, hence the rocking to sleep. He now takes one daytime nap at 1pm for 60-80 minutes maximum. He doesn't get overtired, is rarely cranky. He used to go down around 12.30pm but we moved it on to 1pm when he began taking a long time to settle.
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 over again. After 3 or 4 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 in his crib using the controlled crying method but he gets very upset to the point of being inconsolable.
It has always amazed me how differently he responds to sleep in the day versus night. I have tried in the past to eliminate the support to sleep during the day but have never been successful. We have tried making his nap later, even as late as after his afternoon snack but we get the same result. If he is in his stroller later in the afternoon (4pm-ish) he will take a catnap. It doesn't seem to be affecting his mood or energy level but I worry that he isn’t getting enough sleep in total and it is so important to their development. I think he may have trimmed about 10-15 minutes of his night sleep as well.
Is he just early in giving up his daytime nap or should we persist in trying? I would love to hear your recommendations on how we get the nap back. It was only an hour but it was a welcome break for Jill.
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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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