Help!!

My baby is an awful sleeper. She wakes up 3, sometimes 4-5 times every night. She’s 12 months old. She also sleeps in our bed and refuses the cot. We currently live with my mom because we want to save for a mortgage and in this economy with childcare costs, bills and rent, it would be virtually impossible for us to save up. We plan to have a mortgage in the next couple of years. I mention this because my mom has a spare bedroom that we want to turn into our baby’s bedroom. She still currently sleeps in the same room as us and my mom originally used the spare room as a “junk” room, so any random stuff, filing cabinets etc were put in there. But we’re clearing all that stuff out so my baby can have a room because we think maybe she sleeps so badly because she can sense our presence? We will be turning the room into her bedroom over the next few weeks. Anyway. I was thinking of doing the Ferber method when we sort that room out because my friend did it and said it worked within 4 days with her baby, who she also only coslept with. She now sleeps independently and sleeps through. BUT. My baby wakes up and wants a bottle. So I’m just thinking, will the Ferber method even work for us? Aren’t you supposed to just go in, pat them, reassure them etc? Surely a bottle wouldn’t work or she’d just wake up again if then put her down after a feed? Because practically every time she wakes up, she wants milk. And she can’t hold her own bottle yet so it’s not like we can just give it to her to feed herself back to sleep. I just need some guidance on the Ferber method and I need to know how I can reassure an EXTREMELY clingy baby so that she sleeps independently. We’re both working parents so we find it a bit difficult in the mornings because we’re absolutely knackered. A bit long winded, sorry! Any help would be appreciated

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Is the milk for nutrition or comfort? At 12 months the amount of milk they need drops dramatically, she probably uses it as a comfort tool. If she doesn’t already, try introducing her to using a paci for sleep, it will provide the same sucking sensation. It will take some time for her to catch on to it and she will cry and fight in the meantime but it will be easier because if she wakes in the night she can find the paci herself and use it to go back to sleep.

I'd personally look at the routine before trying any sleep training especially something like ferber which involves a lot of baby crying cos they want their needs met, there are methods such as soothing/comfort ladder where you slowly level down what support they need with a bottle being the last resort. How many naps does baby have? When do they wake and go to bed?

@Nyssa thank you! Unfortunately she used to have one but she went off them, for some reason she just decided she didn’t like them anymore :(. I may try again though just in case! It’s definitely a comfort thing. She eats three meals a day and has 7oz of formula during the day so she’s eating enough, think it’s just that she likes it too soothe her to sleep

@Natalie oh great thanks, never heard of the comfort ladder methods so I might look into those instead. At the moment she actually only has one nap a day and it’s usually a 2 hour nap that ends at 3pm every day. At 7:30, we take her upstairs for a bath and then get her to sleep. She then starts her day at about 8:30-9 in the morning

I used that method to stop feeding to/back to sleep at about 10 months. My daughter dropped to one nap at 12.5 months but it is quite early to drop to one. At this age I'd be aiming for her to be asleep at half 7 if the nap ends at 3 not starting the routine at that time (4.5 hour gap is high for this age - usually 3-4 hours) I would guess overtired by bedtime causing more wake ups.

We used a similar method (from the happy sleeper book) but didn’t want to night wean. The book said we could still feed at night, but make sure that the baby is awake and put back down in their cot awake after having milk (basically make sure they’re not using the milk as a comfort to go back to sleep). We decided that my husband would do the night feeding because she would be less likely to fall to sleep whilst having a bottle from him. But to be honest, she only woke up for milk the first two nights and hasn’t woken up in the night for milk since. We did this at 8 months from co-sleeping into her own bedroom in a cot. But as other people have said, having a good bedtime routine and making sure she’s not overtired is the first step. 12 months is really early to only have one nap, the book we read suggested 2 naps until around 15 months

@Natalie okay thank you so much! I’ll try getting her to have two naps during the day instead of one!

@Amber thank you so much! That sounds like a really helpful book, I might buy it

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