13 Months and Still Not Sleeping. Just Give Up?

A friend of mine also went through the ame problem with her daughter. She was very strict with the co-sleeping and when her daughter hit about 1 year old, she was sleeping less and less. It took a lot, but I convinced her to put her daughter in the crib one night and to her surprise her daughter slept 11 hours. I am not a co-sleeper, but on occasion one of my kids ends up in bed sith us. I find that they sleep horrible when they are in our bed. I have learned that as infants a baby can sleep in almost any position anywhere, which is why it s so hard to keep an infant awake. Once they hit about 10 months and tey gain their freedom through mobility, they can sleep in whatever position they want and sometimes it acutally takes them a minute to get their groove in bed. Maybe the movement of yourself and you husband during the night is disrupting his sleep. when he was youngerit didn't bother him, but now as he gets older he has his position and spot he is most comfortable in and any other movements in bed might disrupt that.

I understand that you are strong with having your son bond with your husband and I know that you have to charish those times, but maybe you should try a bedime routine that allows bonding. Try sitting and reading a few books, maybe singing a few songs, have him fall asleep with you guys and then put him in his crib. I know it will be tough at first, but he might end up getting a better night sleep, shich will allow you and your husband a better night sleep. My two older children didn't fall asleep in their beds alone until they were about 3. We would read and hav quiet time and they would fall asleep with me or my husband and we would put them in their bed. My youngest is 13 months old and she falls asleep with me every night and the we put her in her crib. right now she is sleeping anywhere from 10-11 hours at night and she is taking a 2-3 hour nap during the day.

Please don't take this as my being against co-sleeping, but maybe it is time for him to sleep alone. I do understand that while brastfeeding co-sleeping in optimal. Unfortunately I was unable to breastfeed my children, but would have loved to. I did notice though that the nights my baby did sleep with me it was a very uneasy night for all. If you do not want to put him in his room, try leeping him in your room, but in a crib or pack n play. See how that works for a few nights. It might surprise you. Then you can judge for yourself if it is worth stopping the co-sleeping. if your son sleeps better alone, let him make the decision for you. I know that they are only little once, but i also know it is very hard to let them grow up. there are many times I still want to take my 7 nad 5 year old and just rock them to sleep. I really miss those times. I even miss the baby times with my 13 month old. She is very independant and wants to do her own thing. if he sleeps better alone, maybe have one night a week that mght be a co-sleeping night. Make it a night that there is not need to get up early in the morning and you can cherish those nights and mornings together. I grew up with just my mom, brother and myself and we used to have every friday night as the night in mommy's bed. We would wtch tv until we fell asleep and it was a real special treat. There were also the nights of the thunderstorms that we ran to my mom's bed to feel safe. Talking to my mom now, she really looked forward to those nights and when there was a thunderstorm she would lay in bed waiting and hoping we would come running into her bed, because it was a special time.

Maybe start a tradition of him sleeping in your bed one night a week and see how that goes. He is young to understand it now, but as he gets older he will look forward to that night and it will be a treat for him. Good Luck!!!

1 mom found this helpful

Give up - unless you're open to putting him in his own bed, but you sound pretty set on co-sleeping. My son's been in a crib since he was 5 months old and has slept all night since then. He's 23 months now. Occasionally he wakes up in the middle of the night, fusses for a minute, and then falls back to sleep. Your son doesn't know how to do that so he can't get settled into deep sleep; therefore, he keeps waking up. He'll be ok in his own bed...

I can't give you and answer, but I can truly identify!! My 9 month old is a 2-3 hour waker upper. He co-sleeps, nurses etc. What is the name of the book with the no-cry methods in it?? For some reason I think some babies just wake up a lot and we have to live with it. It is tough. I'm not sure how I would even handle sleeping more than four hours straight.:) Also, what kind or brand of goats milk do you give him? I may try that later on as well. So I guess by your request you are helping me.:) I also will not let him cry it out. I can't even fathom suffering through that. (Attachment Parent :))
-M.

Some children require very little sleep. if you get him back to 5-6 hours that could be the limit. i had one like that (now 50) and she requires very little sleep. She holds two professional jobs with high marks for her care and efficiency on the jobs.

Hi J.,

Teething can really do that to a baby! My son is almost 14 mos and at 11 mos he actually slept through the night in his crib (he wanted to be there, would be restless in our bed). Then he started cutting another tooth and he doesn't want to be parted from my side or even nap alone, much less sleep... in another room... for more than a couple hours! So we're back to cosleeping full time. And wearing him in a mei tai during the day.

I think you're doing great and his time will come, when he's ready. I fully believe that sleeping just comes naturally to some people, and others need help. Just the rhythm of your breathing can provide that help... I notice, in rocking my little one to sleep how if I consciously breathe slowly and more audibly as if I am sleeping, he falls asleep easier. They really look to us for cues! I'm reading this great book called "Heaven on Earth" which includes a lot of Steiner's philosophy on infants/children (founder of Waldorf school movement) and it talks about how babies and little kids don't really view themselves as "I", but as "we"- as in, an extension of their mommies, their environment, etc. This has helped me to be very willing to give him the extra attention he is needing now, and to think of him as my little extension. =)

For teething ideas, here's my best:

We have successfully tried an old Baltic tradition- my son is wearing an amber teething necklace and we notice it certainly takes the edge off of his discomfort. Amber is made of pine resin, which has anti-inflammatory oils which dissolve into the skin due to body heat. The necklaces sell for $15 and up and are knotted around each individual bead to prevent accidents.

The popular Hyland's teething tablets contain a combination of homeopathic remedies designed to cover the gamut of symptoms. You may be able to get an even better result from homeopathy by figuring out which "picture" of symptoms your daughter has. My husband studied classical homeoapthy, and we have been able to determine with both of our children which single remedy (rather than several lumped together) is best suited for each. Here's a simplistic tutorial for the common "ABC" baby remedies:

Aconite- an aconite baby is likely to have a wide-eyed (perhaps with pupils dilated), even anxious or surprised look and tends to toss and turn in sleep with shrieks and often bites fists.

Belladonna- a belladonna baby usually has cheeks RED, swollen, and HOT. They tend to seem angry (although may be normally quite good natured when not teething).

Chamomilla- a chamomile baby is just completely irritable & often has bouts of diarrhea when teething, as well as a red spot on one cheek (and sometimes the other cheek may be quite cold and pale). A chamomilla baby often does not like to chew on anything because pressure aggravates their sore gums. This type of baby often demands to be held and cries if held still or set down; is hard to comfort.

Most babies don't sleep all night long. They wake up and look around maybe play with their teddy or fingers and then go back to sleep. Your son wakes up and thinks.."oh boy,mommy and daddy are here. I can play with them." You need to stroke him and get him to go back to sleep. Keep your eyes closed as much as possible so he doesnt get the idea you will wake up.

We seem very similar. We too are unapologetic no CIT co-sleepers and my now 18 month old is still breastfed. I remember when my daughter was 13 months ans she seemed to wake up every 2 hours. She now wakes up once or twice unless she is teething or sick. Since there was no rhyme or reason to her sleep, I just let the issue go. It became soooo much easier after that and I enjoy sleeping with her more now that I've stopped rating our nights. Some are good some not as good. It does get better and easier.

You may enjoy the cosleeping but maybe he is ready for his own bed. My daughter started sleeping much better when she got her own crib and can move and turn without running into something or someone. A.

My green and holistic mommy friends swear by two things when it comes to baby and sleep. One is chiropractic care and the other is acupuncture. E-mail me if you'd like some names.

i'm all for co-sleeping for a certain amount of time, let's say up to 5 months or so. after that i just think it is selfish. you are waking your child during the night and he is doing the same to you. you are preventing him from getting a valuable, mind developing sleep. a little crying isn't going to hurt him, what you are doing now is hurting him more. saying you don't have a good sleeper is just ridiculous. do what's right for you child.

I don't want to tell you to give up co-sleeping, but I found that, in our situation, although I really wanted to continue to co-sleep, I found that my son just wasn't sleeping. He also was waking frequently. I moved him to his own bed as an experiment (also because I really didn't want to do it--loved that little body sleeping next to me!). But it worked, and I found other ways, and times, to snuggle. Not that this will be the key for you--I'm just saying, if you're desperate, you could try it as an experiment. Everybody's different--I just got to the point where I needed him to sleep more than I needed to have him next to me, as his lack of sleep was affecting all of us, and making him grumpy. Good luck whatever you do.

I have a friend who went through this until her son was 2. She had to stop nursing to get him to sleep through the night, but after 3-4 weeks, he was sleeping very well and doing really great - whole family was happier. She also co-sleeps and and doesn't plan to give that up. She fought weaning, but finally got desperate for her son to sleep. If no one is sleeping, you're not a well-rested family, and that must be really hard, day to day.

BTW, we co-slept until our kids stopped sleeping well with us, and I moved them to their crib, and immediately they both started sleeping 6-8 hours stretches (and my first would do 10-12 hours stretches - he was 4 months when he wanted out of our bed). I get up and breastfeed my youngest on demand (6 months), 1-3 times per night. I get better sleep because she's getting better sleep, and therefore I'm a much better mom.

I know you're not looking for advice really but your son is waking because he's very overtired, and he's trying to tell you he needs his sleep.

hey mama, please ignore the people who obviously didnt read your very well written post which stressed specifically your reasons for cosleeping and not crying it out.
i think its wonderful for you to have researched and decided on attachment parenting. it seems many people who tend to give advice against things such as cosleeping have not researched fully the benefits, or the negative effects of crying it out. and for the woman to say that your husbands time with the baby sleeping isnt bonding, i would completely disagree. if you have not coslept, you have no idea how wonderful it is to be laying next to your peaceful, sleeping baby, then the baby waking up, seeing you first thing, and smiling, EVERY MORNING. i have all the memories that every parent has of their child, and a bunch more than i only have because of cosleeping.
my first daughter is now 3 1/2 and a completely independent, loving, gentle child who adores mommy, daddy, and her baby sister. one thing i can guarantee is that she is a very empathetic child and i thank cosleeping for that. she is very aware of emotions and feelings whereas other children are in the same room and seem oblivious. she walks up to children and asks their name and starts playing. just as the studies all say, she is more independent. she was always a light sleeper, in the hospital the entire staff commented how they never saw a baby as alert as her and who was awake as much. she even today can be fine on a few hours sleep, so i do think all children are different. as you said, if a baby is happy and not cranky, they are getting enough sleep. sounds like your son is on the lower end and just doesnt NEED the sleep as much as the average baby. with our daughter as a baby, we slept with sound machines, and the pacifier which she really needed. she slept great with us and contrary to what some of the people suggested, cosleeping babies sleep BETTER laying next to their mothers, and usually wake must less if at all. anyway, at 3 she moved into her new bed, had a baby sister, and got rid of her binky within a month. she does wake once each night with dreams(usually of something exaggerated from the day's events) and complains about going to bed in general but otherwise is great.
the new baby is 6 months old now and in the bassinett woke constantly the first month, but we moved her in a cosleeper between us, and she was sleeping so much i had to wake her to eat. now she wakes up at 2-3 to eat, but since i feed her before she is crying as she would in her crib, she goes right back to sleep. but every few weeks she goes thru a week or 2 of waking screaming every 30 mins for 2 hours. i believe its teeth or gas, but who knows.
for your circumstances, i would wonder if you have tried other soothing ideas at night. if my daughter wakes earlier than 2, i pick her up and rock her in my arms with the fan on instead of nursing her. try a pacifier, a white noise machine, maybe even switch the goats milk and just nurse before bed. basically try to switch it up a bit and see if you get any changes. since sleep cycles are 45 mins, when his molars came in, when he was in light sleep, he felt the pain and woke. at 2 hours, its hard to know whether he is in pain or whether the teething just mixed him all up. my first daughter wasnt bothered at all by teeth, the new baby for a few days, then i know others who were very affected. again, all kids are different. i would just try to change up things, and try to not nurse until i tried other things of soothing.
im very happy to here how commited you are to raising your child in a gentle environment. i always find it so funny as people assume natural parenting ideas are because its easier, when actually it is more difficult. but one of the main difficulties is because of other people just not getting it. our children are this young for such a short time in the span of a lifetime. good luck!!!

btw, you may get replies from people who live more like yourself on sites like mothering.com or even diaperswappers.com
i also have another board you might be interested in, but i dont want to post it publicly, message me if you want it. take care

First if sleeping with your son is the only quality time your husband gets to spend with your son, that is not quality time. Why, because your sleeping. Quality not quantity. Quality time is spent playing and interacting with your child. Second, I know you don't want to let him cry it out, but how is he going to learn to sooth himself if you always do it for him. There will come a time in his life when you won't be there to "make it all better" and he won't be equiped for that. Honestly, I'm not saying let him cry for 30 mins. Not even 15 mins. With both my kids I had to make them sleep through the night. With my son I moved the amount of time that he had to sleep back by 15 mins every night until we were all the way through. So the first night he woke at 12:15. That means the next night he had to get to 12:30. Well he woke at 11:30. And I let him cry. 6 mins was all it took and he went back to sleep. A whole whopping 6 mins. And he never woke again. But if he had I would have continued. And if he went from 12:30 to 1:30 the next night he would have had to wait until 1:45. My daughter this didn't work. I tried but to no success, but with her, I cut back every night on the amount of oz she was getting in her bottle. At this point I had stopped breastfeeding, because of lack of milk, so one night she got 6 ozs offered. If she only drank 4 the next night she got 3. At this point your son is quite capable of sleeping through the night. But you have become his habit. And unless you give him the "push" he isn't going to do this on his own. Babies take the path of least resistence and your just along for the ride. Unless you give him a little boost to give it up, he isn't going to. Obviously if the techniques in the books aren't working for him, then it's time to try something else. This may be the techniques that you want to employ for your son, but they don't fit his personality type. It's time to try something new.

Oh I really wish I knew the answer for you, I have a wonderful daughter who will be 2 on the 10th of Sept and the only time she has slept through the night is the day before she gets sick :(

We have a routine, at 8:30ish we get DD (she is 4) to bed, snack, teeth brushed, story to both of them. Then we take the 2year out and the 4 year old reads for 10min and then lights out. 2year old is then nurse to sleep, which can take anywhere from 15 minutes to hours :(. When she is asleep we put her into her bed, which she shares a bedroom with the 4 yard old.

Sometime during the night she either calls out for me or comes to me in the night and then spend the rest of the time in our bed.

I've tried to comfort her in her bed but she wants the contact with me and wont settle unless I take her back to bed with us.

So my only advise is to do the best you can, get as much sleep when you can :)

Hi J.,
boy, you sound just like us! My son is 15 mos old and still a terrible sleeper. I really think that teething is the cause of our sleepless nights (usually). He was just starting to get better, and now all four one-year molars are coming through (veeerrrry slowly!). Last night I think I slept for about 2 hours - and now I'm struggling to stay awake at work. I read "The No Cry Sleep Solution" and found that to be a little helpful... but I'm realizing that he just needs us to respond to his needs at night, and eventually he will improve. For a while my husband was sleeping in the guest room and the baby was sleeping in our bed with me. He now sleeps in his crib, so I feel like we made some progress. But for the past week we've been bringing him into our bed out of desperation. One of the reasons that we got him to stay in his crib was because he just didn't seem to be happy in our bed. He was very restless and whiney. I'm not saying that you shouldn't cosleep (I loved it), but is it possible that he would like to be in his own space? Just a thought.... that seemed to be a temporary breakthrough for us.
I feel your pain - best of luck to you!
PS - Do you have any tips for me on getting our house "green"? I'm just starting, but I don't know where to begin!

No advice just experience......We coslept with both boys till they were 6 months old. That 's usually the age when babies should start sleeping in longer stratches,but ours were still up every 2 hours , we were like "what in the world"???? So we decided to put our oldest in his crib , but in our room just to see. The first night he only woke up 2 times.......from then it went down to 1 time. When he was almost 2 he climbed out of the crib and we brought him in our bed again. Now at 3 1/2 he starts in his bed, but wakes up in the middle of the night and comes to ours....no crying or anything,so it does not bother us. We did the same thing with our youngest(kindda funny but they are identical in the sleeing habits), so he is 19 months old and in his crib in his room.There are times when I try to cosleep with him(on the mattress in his room, not in the crib...LOL), but every single time I do he is up 3-5 times a night. I am sure he wakes up when he is in the crib, but he just puts himself back to sleep. When we cosleep and he wakes up , he thinks it's time to have fun and play, asks for a cup and on and on it goes. As much as I love cosleeping I know that neither of us get a good sleep that way. I am sure when he will be out of the crib, we will bring him in our bed, but by then he will (hopefully) understand that night is for sleeping.Again, no advice..sorry

Hi J.,
Teething is hard no matter where baby sleeps. I do support co-sleeping and am very much opposed to cry-it-out techniques. But it is a choice that you make. Do you give him anything at nighttime for the teething, either medicine or any homeopathic remedies? That could limit the waking. When he normally wakes up every few hours, is he actively looking to breastfeed? Would he cry if he didn't have access to the breast? While I don't believe in crying it out, we also do have to wean our kids away from infant behaviors. I actually moved my son out of our room, out of our cosleeping arrangement when he was still an infant because he woke up all the time. Or made noise as if he was going to. And I was awake all through the night, and a wreck at work and probably not fit to be behind the wheel every day. I discovered when he was not in the room, that he was able to self soothe and that sometimes when he woke, he might fuss a little bit - and I was fine with that! But if he cried, I got him and didn't deny the breast. I would have loved to keep him in our bed fulltime, but I was seriously afraid my husband or I would get into an accident driving to or from work. If you're not in that situation and can keep him in your bed, I think it's wonderful and yes, you will be tired but it won't be forever. Sometimes I thought my son would never, ever sleep through the night. It took about a year and a half for him to do that consistently. Good luck!

Hi J.,
My son didn't sleep through the night until he was 15 months old and now sleeps 6pm-6am straight. I'm not sure how this would work with co-sleeping, but have you tried to put him to bed earlier? That was the trick with my son. We were putting him down at 7pm and I read that putting him down earlier may help him sleep through the night. The next night we put him down at 6pm, and he has slept through the night ever since. A good nap schedule during the day also helps him sleep better at night.

I REALLY know how you feel. As an infant, my son barely slept. I would see other moms with their sleeping infants and wonder what I was doing wrong. My pediatrician told me that while other children were sleeping my son was learning about his world :) I always took solace in that idea and I hope you will too! Good luck!

I'm with you - my son is almost 11 months, and also wakes often. Except he was sleeping in his own crib and I brought him into ours recently, out of exasperation. I have his crib side-carred to ours now, and that helps - he can roll to his own space (or I can slide him over) so we don't wake each other, but when he does wake I can soothe him back to sleep. No advice, but it's nice to hear I'm not the only one with a kid who seems to thrive on 2-3 hour bursts of sleep.

If co-sleeping is the way you are going to go I guess you just have to deal with the waking. He has no reason to sleep well if you are always there to give in to whatever desire he has at the moment. I am not saying it's the wrong choice just that you have to deal with what it means for your family.

You could have written this about my daughter. Sending you a BIG HUG because it sure can get tiring!

We night-weaned at around a year because I was pregnant and exhausted, and Daddy took over the entire nighttime shift (I did "bedtime" but he did "nighttime", including all awakenings). We ended up putting a full-size mattress on the floor in HER room (she hated her crib so much, she vaulted on outta there at around 14 months old!!!). She started out in there by herself, but at her first awakening, Daddy went in to soothe. He often falls asleep in there with her. This has worked out beautifully for us, because now I can co-sleep safely and comfortably with our 6 month old, and Daddy can meet our 2 year old's nighttime needs. Sure, she still wakes up multiple times a night (and don't get me started on naps...oy), but she has become more calm about it because she knows we'll meet her needs.

I do have one idea for you that might help: I wrote a "Bedtime Book" for my daughter using Shutterfly or York Photo, one of those photo sharing websites. I uploaded all these pictures of my daughter doing her bedtime routine--brushing teeth, putting on jammies, reading in bed with Daddy, etc, and wrote a story about her going to bed. I ended it with her sleeping by herself but knowing that Mommy or Daddy will always come to her if she needs us. Daddy reads this book to her every night and she loves it, and she has become much more calm through the nights. She's still not STTN, but my husband has been able to leave her for progressively longer periods of time, and she's starting to put herself back to sleep every once in awhile.

Hang in there! You're doing a GREAT job as a mom, and the reward for all that attentiveness will be a loving, secure, and compassionate child.