I really hope someone can help with this.. I really made a rod for my own back when Milo was little by letting him fall asleep on the boob before putting him to bed. Now, he has never fallen asleep by himself, it's either been on the boob, or if i'm at work and my oh is on duty, he can fall asleep on my oh's chest (but not if i'm around )

His bedtime routine is bath/shower, changed into pj's, cuddles and story book, bf, bed. That's the plan. The reality is, bath/shower, pj's, chase him around reading the storybook at him, bf, Milo gets energised by bf, leaps off lap and runs round room, more bf'ing doesn't work, attemping to rock him to sleep doesn't work.. relaxing music doesn't work.. I personally don't want to make him cry it out as we live in a tiny flat and my neighbour gets up for work at 5am. Last night I tried the routine as normal, then put him down in bed awake, and he freaked out. He cried/screamed for 2 hours non stop, I stayed beside the bed the whole time, reassuring and patting him (there is no way i can leave him alone because 1) he tries to climb out and he will fall and 2) he eats the wood off the bed - actually bites chunks off and tries to swallow them when he's angry ) Eventually he was sick twice from crying too much, I felt so so terrible. I changed the sheets and he fell asleep on oh while i was doing that - but as soon as we put him in again the screaming started again. He eventually fell asleep on me but woke up about every half hour and finally settled at 2am I really don't want to do that ever ever again.

We have the same problem with naps. Yesterday he had a really busy day, but only had a 15 minute nap, and thats pretty usual for him. I can bf him to sleep, and put him down asleep, but he wakes up after 15/20 mins without fail, and is off running around again

Basically I'm exhausted and stressed and i need sleep! I want to have some time to prepare meals when he 's sleeping as he is into everything, and I can't take my eyes off him for a second, Yesterday he worked out how to push the (heavy) sliding door off the rails to get it open. I don't mean push it along the rails as normal, i mean he leant on it till it broke and fell into the bedroom, and he just casually crawled in behind it At the moment he naps about 20 minutes a day, and goes to sleep between 8pm and 10pm (despite me actually starting bedtime at 6:30pm ) I think so many of his problems may be because he's either over tired, or not wearing himself out enough in the daytime (too hot to go outside)

I really am at the end of my tether, i'm not getting any time to do housework, let alone plan my lessons for work.. I'm crying all the time because i'm exhausted, and it shouldn't be this hard!! Any help very gratefully appreciated!

Have you tried doing his bedtime a little bit later than 6.30?? We had the same problem with Harry and then we started his routine 7.45pm and hes in bed by 8.30pm and sleeps straight through til 7am. xxx

Im not sure what to suggest really mate. We have a warning system along with bedtime, c has her play time then her bath then she has a bottle and Iggle Piggle. If she wants to play during iggle piggle she can but she gets a warning its time for sleepies soon 5 mins before the end then 2 mins then 1 min so she gets time to wind down whatever shes doing and im not just taking her toys away, I do the same with num-nums (dinnertime - her word not mine i might add) and it works well for her as she gets mad if i just disturb her when playing. We also have favourite music we play when shes overwrought which is a disney compilation including baby mine which ive sung her since birth. Sorry cant be any more help than that.

Thanks Semo It's tough isn't it. I've been moving his bedtime earlier as he hardly naps and he might be too overtired to settle at night, but then if it's too early he doesn't like that either! i'm so confuzzled, haha.

Mario, that warning system sounds good. Tonight i tried making the time before bed super relaxing, started off at 6:30, got him in his pjs and went into the bedroom, chased him round the room trying to give him a massage Then he chose a couple of storybooks so we read those, the bf and hugs, and he fell asleep so quickly! he was in bed at 7:45

I don't know whether he was just exhausted from last night, or if doing the wind down in the bedroom not the living room helped (usually do it in the living room as it's more spacious) He still needed to be rocked to sleep, but i much prefer that to being bf'd to sleep, so yay for that! Now I need to get myself into bed!

Spunds like doing it in his room helped i'd stick to that. Good luck for anothe rnight tommorrow and get an early night quick!!!

I know my lo isn't as old as all of yours but i've always had a bedtime routine from 2 weeks old, this is bath at 6pm with oilatum cream massage after, back downstairs for quiet play for half an hour (we put the most of his toys away and get out books etc) at 7pm he has a bottle in his bedroom and put down to bed. I think sticking to the same routine every day really helps, making it really calm and dark/dim lighting. At first we rocked him till asleep, then till he was drifting off and now we can put him down awake.
I try to keep a similar routine during the day for naps too.

Hope this helps and you get some sleep soon. x

It could be the room xx
i had problems frm birth to 6months he would only sleep on me sometimes when i put him down he would sleep other times he would scream hold his breath and be sick x i was doing this in livingroom as we live in a flat too and his room tiny x
but frm 6months hv gave us new routine which was done in his room gettin him changed for bed n give him his bottle milk he had radio on low because he was so use to hearing the tv on in background she recommended it would help it really did.
Now he is resaonably good the only time he falls asleep on me now is when hes poorly x

so hope it works again doing it in his room xx

Thanks for all the replies, it seems to be working out really well! He's going to sleep much better, still needs to be rocked but we can keep working on that. The best thing is, he's started taking naps properly! he had 1/2 an hour this morning and an hour and a half in the afternoon - does that sound about right? He's never napped, so i have no idea what's normal..

Thanks again for the support!