Hooray he can sit himself up - oh no he refuses to sleep

[reren]

My little one has just mastered sitting up from lying down and pulling himself up to standing - all good but now its a nightmare getting him to sleep! No matter how tired he is - when he sits up it wakes him up and it can take an hour of putting him back down to a lying position - probably at least 50 times! Exhausting and bad for my back - not to mention not much fun after a days work! I'd be inclined to be a bit tough and let him cry a bit but his dad caves in after 5 mins! And i prefer to try other routes - i am concerned however that we could be making a major rod for our own back and he needs to learn to go to sleep...does anyone know if this is just a phase and once the novelty of being able to sit up fades he will go back to his previously easy ways...

[Inkmaiden]

This is exactly what happened to us- Inkspawn was up and down like a yoyo and then getting stuck standing up. It took one or two hours to settle her every night and gone were our lovely 8am starts, replaced by anything between 5:30 and 7:30am as once she woke up she stood up. She was also waking and sitting or standing up in the middle of the night, which was a nightmare.

After a week, I did start leaving her at bedtime unless she sounded really distressed in which case i knew she was stuck standing up. I would settle her a couple of times and then tell her I wasn't going to keep coming in. It didn't last very long, she goes to sleep quite quickly at night now as the novelty has worn off- if you leave them to their own devices it's no longer a fun game if someone doesn't keep laying you down so you can pop up again. The middle of the night wakings have eased off as well as she can now settle herself.

I also started bedtime a lot earlier because it was taking her so long to go to sleep that she was then so overtired that it was affecting her sleep and then she couldn't settle and so on and so forth.

Sadly, the 8am wake-ups now seem to be a thing of the past...

[buggie]

It's a phase!! Course, for us the end has also involved dropping to one nap a day (bugglet is 10.5mths) so could be part extreme exhaustion too!

Was especially bad for us last week with the heat, but now seems she sits herself up to rearrange her cuddly toys before flumping (normally find her zonked out bum in air with a toy underneath her! Is really annoying though as takes a few weeks before you feel confident that they could sit themselves down again - till then you have to respond to the screaming as it's normally that their stuck stood up!

[craigy]

Number 1 never did it but number 2 did. Would find herself in a sitting or crawling position then start crying as couldn't work out how to get back so we would go and lie her down and she would be so indignant about it and howl for anything up to an hour and a half in which time she would also have to be turned back another couple of times... Very frustrating and a phase that lasted a couple of weeks until she could do it herself and now as soon as I put her down she rolls over, sits up and that is how I leave her and she pretty much always goes to sleep on her front face down!!

So frustrating though as when she started to do it she had literally just started sleeping through the night.....