Is this normal? 19 month old settling at night.

[sheffieldmama]

Hi,

My wonderful 19 month old son has never been what you would describe as a 'good sleeper', from a newborn he was up very, very frequently, settle a little around 7 months and then again at around 12-14 months.

Around 13-14 months we used the gradual withdrawal sleep training technique, which surprised me at how well it went, hardly any crying and we were putting him into bed awake and leaving the room and he would settle him self to sleep (with NO crying) within half an hour. This dream period lasted around 3 months, during which time he also slept through almost every night, from 7-6 ish.

For the the last 2-3 months bedtimes have become a bit of a battle, taking between 30 minutes and an hour to go to sleep. Sometimes he will go off to sleep alone and hapily as before, sometimes he will start well and then cry for help, need some reassurance and with some sshing, rubbing his head, going in and out of his room once or a couple of times he will go off to sleep, but sometimes he will cry straight away, and end up screaming, or start well, cry and then when we return to reassure him it makes it so much worse and he will work himself up into a real state.

Taking over an hour would be unusual but it's getting me down. Why does me returning to help him make it worse? Why can he do it some nights and not others? It really really upsets me that I don't seem to be able to comfort him.

Last few weeks he's also been waking a lot earlier, between 4:45 (worse case scenario, not often) and 6:00 (usually somewhere around 5:30. He hasn't had enough sleep (grumpy / tired mid-morning), but I cannot get him back to sleep! He wakes maybe 50% of nights, and usually settles just with me being there within half an hour, sometimes I have to get him out of bed to settle him down, but this usually leads to longer awake time (up to 1-2 hours).

Usual schedule is :

06:00-06:30 WU
11:30-12:30 Nap until 1:30-2:00. (1hour30-2hours)
07:15 in bed.

Any support / advice / suggestions would be very much welcome.

Thank you!

[JennieLee]

I'm well past the age of having a small waking child. However, it's been hot lately and it also gets light early. I'd be inclined to ask whether his room was aired and his bedding not too hot. If he's wearing pyjamas are they suitable for the current highish temperatures. Are the curtains reasonably thick so they don't let too much light in.

Also it might be an idea to try and settle him later - if he's not too shattered/grumpy - as it may be easier when the sky is darker outside.

[InNeedOfALieInNow]

My youngest is a few months older. Has never been great at settling herself to sleep. We’ve recently switched to allowing them (they share a room) to read in bed as long as they stay in the room and are quiet. They both just fall asleep on their own now once they are tired