: How to get a 1-year-old to sleep through? We've got a boy who is nearly a year old. He's woken practically every night. He is breastfed, and is currently eating solids very well. Down to a couple of breastfeeds a day really.

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TL/DR: Many 1 year olds just are not ready to sleep through. Rather than trying to fix something that is not broken, try to accept how it is and find ways coping with it.

Last night he woke at 1am, just having a bit of a whinge, which eventually became crying and screaming at 1:50.

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We've tried toughing it out but he will keep going - even after nearly an hour - unless we intervene.

A 1 year old depends on his/her parents very much. Basically they can't fulfill any of their needs by themselves. By toughing it "out" you deprive your child of one of its very basic needs: Safety. It's quite normal for a child to wake up to assure themselves that their parents are still present to protect them from sabre-tooth tigers and the like. While you know that there are no sabre-tooth tigers around, your 1 year old does not. Hence waking at night is still normal for a 1 year old. Furthermore, even though do not believe it's true, it's still possilbe that they are hungry.

Cry-it-out works only because the child will at some point suffer from such a severe stress level that its brain switches to a basal survival mode. Finally it will be that exhausted that it will sleep, but at a high price. Middlemiss et al. (2012) showed that children that were exposed to cry-it-out had a higher stress level (cortisol) even after the program was finished and they finally slept without crying. Programs like cry-it-out were originally invented for parents that are so overstressed that they would harm the child otherwise, not for parents convenience because they falsely assume that a 1 year old has to sleep through.

Hence in my opinion you framed the question the wrong way. You are the parent and the wellbeing of your child should be your first order in your role as a parent. Don't let them tell you that taking care that your child feels safe at night is spoiling, it isn't. I'd suggest that you think about the following questions:

Are my expectation of my childs behavior reasonable? and
What can I do to reduce my own stress level?

While I cannot help you about the former, there are practical approaches for the latter. You could try to switch to formula for your second child too. There are very convenient ready-to-use servings which can ease some of the stress. At night just rip up the package, pour it into a feeding bottle and feed. This really helped us very much. Prior we had to stand up, mix the powder with warm water, cool it, feed. Way more stress. I also found that co-sleeping reduces the stress for me (actually we did not try to do otherwise back then, but now when my daughter wants to sleep in her own room, it's way more stress for me when she wakes up at night). I appreciate (can you really use this work that way?) that not everything may be possible for you, but, for the sake of your childs wellbeing, be creative. Make up ways, that reduces the stress for all of you, I'm sure you can.