benjamin has been soooo full of energy and naughtyness the past few days he is exhausting me and adam!!! he refuses to sleep during the day, only sleeps pon avergae 7 hrs a night...goes to bed 7/8 (usually later- past few days i have to force him to sleep!!)
then he's awake at 2am, 4am 5am (then comes nto bed with us!) then sleeps from 5/6-7
we are so tired it is unbelieveable...like now he is sat on the sofa, so tired but refuses to go to sleep...i made a fresh bottle and cuddled him in, and he still wouldnt go to sleep...
anybody got any ideas why he might be doing this?
pinky and a few others said it was down to tiredness...but surely if he's tired he would sleep all night?? it has been constant non sleeping for 4/5 days now so tired!!

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but surely if he's tired he would sleep all night??

to my detriment this is the exact opposite of the truth my advice would be (and i am about to sound like all of banda screaming this at me over the past 6 months) do whatever you can to get benjy to nap.

for me this is sometimes bf, cuddles, going into a very dark room and having a sleep with him on our bed, going for a lonnnnnngggg walk, coercing hubby into going for a drive......anything you can do, and once you say to him 'this is naptime', try not to give in until he has fallen asleep, or he will learn he can get away with it..

i know all of this because i have done it elijah has 1-2 hour nap in the morning which is usually fairly easy (he is knackered within 2 hours of getting up, i never realised this and thought he was bored, but once i realised he was tired and could predict he needed to calm down it became easier to get him to sleep before he was tired if that makes sense!).

afternoon naps are harder and it can be anything from 40mins-2 hours. for me i had to actually stop doing anything i wanted to fit in with getting elijah to nap for a few weeks - and yes, if eli gets tired enough he gets very giggly, hyperactive, whiny and generally intolerable even now, if elijah is tired we will stay in or keep walking or leave lunch til later etc because it just gets harder and harder if i leave naps too late!

he also sleeps better if he has 2+ hour naps during the day. not *well*, but more than 45 minutes at a time, which at this point is wonderful

sorry that turned into an essay!

Is he teething or unwell hun? It could be that he is too uncomfortable to get to sleep.

If there doesn't seem to be anything wrong with him I can only recommend being cruel to be kind and being hard on him to make him realise he has to sleep.

Put him into a strict routine for naps, bedtime, mealtimes and stick to it. Wil's routine is below as an example and this is the routine he has been in since he was 7 months old although he used to have a 1/2 hour or so nap in the morning about 9ish. This is only an example though because Benjamin needs to fit in with your family's routine.

Wil's routine
6am get up (varies between 5.30 and 6.30)
6.15am ish 3/4 pint of milk and maybe some toast or banana
8.15am breakfast (weetabix, porridge etc)
10.30am snack
12.00 lunch
12.30 -2.30 nap
2.30ish snack
4.30pm tea
6pm 3/4 pint of milk and a snack (biscuits, toast, fruit)
6.30pm upstairs for shower/ bath, play quietly in his room and have bedtime stories and occasionally watch tv in bed
7.30pm lights out

It does get stretched a bit now because he is so used to it and is a little bit older we can get away with it.

The most important part for us is that once we go upstairs for bed he is not allowed back downstairs until the morning except in extreme circumstances.

If he doesn't want to sleep when he goes for his nap or bedtime I just let him cry it out (it is painful to listen to but they give in in the end and are better for the sleep so it is worth it). Wil very rarely protests about going to bed now because he knows it won't make any difference.

ps (yes there's more ) i said to pixel the other day, because arwyn isn't napping that much just now, that it might just be that he is getting lots of food and energy but if he isn't that mobile just yet he might not be burning it off so doesn' t need the sleep as much. eli got sooooooo much more tired once he was crawling a lot

mari- i have learnt that he is more hyper when he is tired...i guess it's his way of staying awake and fighting sleep...he is such hard work at the moment as he has all this energy and cant do anything with it. He is nowhere near crawling...doesn't understand the concept i believe lol
he can sit alone, but hasn't learnt how to balance himself (if he goes to fall over forwards/backwards he can steady himself) but side to side he doesnt understand to use his hands...
he has such strength in his legs,so i think he will miss out crawling and walk...but nothing else until then. which means months and months of this
gill- benjamins routine has been pretty much the same from about 6-7 months old...
6/7am- wake up
7/8am - breakfast (weetabix/porridge)
9.15/9.30- bottle and sleep (this is the bit i struggle with now- today it was 11.15!!!!)
10.30- snack/play
12- dinner
2- nap (yeah right mum!! i dont sleep at all now!!)
3- play/snack
5- tea
6-waybuloo
6.20- bath and pjs
7-bed

this is his routine and has been for a while...but the naps during the day are gone...unless i force him to sleep (i mean holding him in and forcing sleep!!)
i have tried the controlled crying; putting him down for nap, saying naptime/bedtime and them crying it out until they go to sleep! Problem is, i gave up, because he wouldn't give in!! The day would be ruled by his screaming/crying...the record was 5 hours of screaming...he still didnt nap!!
so if he screamed for that long, he would miss out on say dinner/snack.
meaning the routine would be even more messed up!!
on average if i put him down when i see he's tired, he goes to sleep after about 1.1/2 -2 hours...my son's cry/scream is soooo loud!! Everyone who has heard it has a massive headache afterwards!!!
I just don't know what to do with him and his routines...
Thanks for reading

im just running after eli but i would say if it takes all morning to get him to sleep and then all afternoon thats ok (awful but ok) as if he has had bottle and brekkie he shouldnt be starving and could miss the snack and will be ok to have late lunch/tea. it can still take me an hour to get eli to sleep even with a handy booby. try bottle/cuddle/dark room before he even looks tired (you will have an idea by now of when he starts getting the tiredness giddyness)
at nighttime if you stick to the routine (tape waybuloo if it's in there) and still do the programme/bath/pjs/bed. that way we have managed to move elijah's bedtime back by 6 whole hours

eek have to go chase horrorchops!

Some very good advice from Mari and Gill there hun.

The thing is with teeny ones - the world is just so damn exciting and everything is an adventure when they get themselves mobile (rolling/crawling/bouncing etc) that their little brains are working at lightening speed all the time. I'm sure you know yourself that if you have had a hectic evening and loads on your mind - it's very hard to wind down and go to sleep and they have a 'hectic' day everyday. A lot of people fall into the trap of thinking that if they've been really active and lively they will tire themselves out and need sleep but it's the opposite - they need calm, quiet time to help their brains wind down and sleep.

I would do exactly what the other ladies have described - be strict on daytime napping and get a good routine in place and stick to it (as much as is possible - obviously there will be occasions where you dont but if Benjy is anything like my two you will pay for it for a couple of days ). My two have 'quiet time' before each sleep. They have their afternoon nap straight after lunch. They sit in their chairs and eat and drink and we chat and watch balamory and then it's bum change and nap. At night they have dinner at 5-5.30 and after that we keep the house quiet and calm, they have a bath and a story on the couch with daddy with milk then bed. Like Gill - once they are upstairs for nap/bed they don't come down again (apart from extreme circumstances).

Don't get me wrong hun, it's taken a fair ammount of hard work to get to this stage but it is so worth it when you do. Both my two have been through stages where I have to let them cry it out (I return to retuck and shush every 3-4 mins but dont talk or make eye contact) - we still have the odd occasion now where we have to do it (usually when thye've been to stay with nanna and grandad and they come home hyper ). Now that they are both fairly sure of their routine and know it better than i do, we can stretch it out and change it now and then to fit in with our life but we did have to spend a good while fitting things around them so we could et it established.

My kids routine is:
7am - up and milk
8.30 - breakfast
9.30 - Hannah sometimes still needs 20-30 mins nap but she is in the process of dropping it so I just let her lead me here
12 - lunch, balamory, chat, bum change
1 - nap!
3 - snack
5(ish) - dinner
6.30 - bath
7 - story with daddy
7.30 - bed

Good luck hun - I'm sure you'll get there in the end. Just remember this: Sleep promotes sleep!! and you'll be fine

xx

Ok it took me ages to type all that and now I can see all the other stuff so Ive pretty much repeated everything

xx

lol thanks for helping me whilst chasing horrorchops mari bless you
its so awful having to "waste" a day trying to get him to sleep...i wish he would just go down for a nap
like i said, he had a nap today at 11.15 and he woke up at 12.30...but he had dinner...and now he is tired again??? sat on daddy twisting...my sister has her tutor here...(she isnt back at school yet- my mum is at work so she cant be taught alone, so on a wed/fri she comes here and gets taught) we have to obviously be as quiet as possible, and if i go put benjy to bed, without him being asleep, he will scream the place down and they wont be able to concentrate on work....:/ so confusing lol
i could try having a nap with him, but i know fine well he wont settle...and i dont have the patience quite frankly lol
can he just not crawl yet??? lol that way he might tire out more often hehe

thankyou too debs i can see the thought and care that went into typing that, and it was all to help me so i really appreciate it
you all seem such brilliant mums, and i feel like a pants one, when benjy just acts so stubborn!!
i may just take him upstairs and try nap on the bed with him...
well *try* is a very big word in that sentence lol
i know fine well that he will just fight it all...and i will end up just losing the plot and bringing him downstairs..."stay strong lou"!!!

Argh lou i'm so frustrated for u!little benji is being a right tinker isn't he. I really think it's time you take the tough approach. I really thinking that benji is over tired. Alfie's not a great day time sleeper and only sleeps a max of an hour at a time (if i'm lucky) once a day (or sometimes two half hour naps) but he's a great sleeper on a night so can handle the day time lack of sleep! Alfie still won't to this day go to sleep on his own during the day. I have to rock him and give him bum pats to get there!he has his dummy,blue bear and he fight's and cries and screams and pushes me and hits me(yes he's only 11months old ha) but after a good while gives in. I know it's frustrating and tiring but just think after a couple of days you'll feel so much better for the sleep. With regards to the night time sleeping. Wat do u do when he wakes? Does he still get a bottle? Because i think he's too old to be taking milk during the night. Have you tried leaving him to cry on a night? X

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its so awful having to "waste" a day trying to get him to sleep...i wish he would just go down for a nap

think of it like...wasting 2 weeks is an investment for a baby that naps and will eventually sleep. as for being a good parent, pah! my nearly 11 month old still gets up 5-10 times a night! wait.....should you be taking advice from me?!

if you do manage to nap with him on your bed you will feel the benefit even if its a short therm solution - the comfort from you might be enough so settle him if he wakes.

aaaaaaand also, he might have been tired at lunchtime cos babies have 45min sleep cycles, so he is in very shallow sleep at 45mins so he would have been easily woken, sometimes eli wakes up at that time and i need to tell him its not waking up time yet and if im lucky he drifts back off.....

back to baby wrangling! (lucky i can touch type )

lol amy, he is doing my head in...and thats putting it nicely...
i obviously love him tp pieces, but now, i could quite easily pack him off to grandmas for a few nights haha...im falling asleep right now
he wakes up during the night, but we take turns to go in and put his dummy in, tuck him in and stroke his head...no bottles until 5am (earliest!!)
this worked until a few days ago, when all of a sudden he keeps waking up at random times during the night, crying, tuck him in etc and within an hr he's up again crying??
then during the day (like you said amy!) i dont mind because i would normally have had enough sleep to get on in the day...but now im just shattered...zombie-like lol
if push comes to shove mari, i do take him upstairs (during day) and nap on the bed with him...it does settle him.
BUT only if HE'S ready for sleep (which he obviously is, but all the "fun" of mummy and daddy and banjo (doggy) keeps him awake!) lol

praying i can get some sleep in before hols next fri...i dont wanna be a tired, zombie-looking mummy lol

Hi Lou,

It sounds like his body clock is at a set routine and u have jus got to try an alter it.
But him to bed later so he starts to sleep longer, then when his body clock has changed but him back to bed at 8:00.
When noah starts waking through the night for wat ever reason, i put him in our room in his travel cot it seems to put him back into his routine.
Do lots with him in the day to tire him out. Noah will have two 40 mins naps throughout day one at about 11 another about 3 then he will go down for about 7:15.
Does he settle after a bottle?

Char

thanks for the advice char, he's still walking up loads through the night...so tired today it's actually made me upset and for some reason i feel lonely
he woke up looooads last night...he went to bed at 7...was exhausted, and fell asleep without a bottle on the sofa, i even changed him with the prospect that he would wake up and then i could give him a bottle...but NOPE! zonked lol
so he woke up about 3/4am crying, dummy back in tucked in.
then pretty much every 20-30 mins until we gave up at about 530am and he had a bottle with us and went to sleep til half 6...he has a good routine and i feel like a crap mummy when he just won't settle...although today his cheeks looked red...so i'm guessing some more tootsiepegs could be on the way...although he always sleep right through at my mum's house (which is a travelcot in the room with us!!) v strange lol

ah well...i am so desperate for someone to have him for the night, so me and OH can have a rest...but NOPE my mum is busy right up until hols...so can't even have a good nights sleep before then...i am gonna be a zombie on hols...