18 month old used to sleep but not any more!

[Dontforgetyourbrolly]

Hi. I've posted in this section many times and found the advice really helpful. My ds did not sleep through til 8 months, we did controlled crying and it worked ( oh how smug we were !) Well since then he's slept well on the whole with the odd week of teething or illness etc

The last few weeks have been hell - he goes down ok , 7pm . But starts up when he hears us go to bed. Then hourly wake ups til he wants to get up ridiculously early like 5am. The wake ups can sometimes last seconds or hours - on bad nights he's shouting and throwing his toys. What has happened? Will it get better? I'm so tired I'm close to tears every day. Dp tries to help but he's even more badly behaved .....it's only if he stays with my mum or dps mum overnight he doesn't do this!

Help - end of tether

[nottheOP]

He sounds a little overtired, what it his daytime schedule? Ideally at 18 months it'd be something like 7am wake up, lunch at 12, nap at 12.30 - 2.30 and then bed between 7/8.

Early waking is often an indicator that they're overtired or a need to push back the daytime nap a little.

For the actual night waking, I know its horrid in the middle of the night but I'd ignore as much as possible and only go in if he's been crying for 10 minutes or so. Even then, I'd see what's wrong, fix it if it's anything that needs fixing and leave him to it. I'm not very patient in the middle of the night.

In terms of coping, buy ear plugs and take turns with your DP. One does the shift from bedtime to 4/5 and the other does 4/5 to getting up time.

There is, of course the possibility that they're teething but often it starts off as that and becomes a habit.

HTH!