20 month old sleeping....or not, I should say!

[LennyLenster]

I'm after some advice please. My DD used to go to bed so well and chat herself to sleep happily in her cot but for the past few weeks this has been really hit and miss, with most being a miss and her becoming hysterical unless my DH or I are with her until she falls asleep. It is making me a bit loco as it can take 1hr to 90 minutes. She is also waking up in the night still, which she has done mostly anyway but is now struggling to settle again for those too. She is breastfed and has milk before bed and also during the night which I know she doesn't need from a hunger perspective but I'm happy to do this if it provides her with the comfort she needs. Is this all just a wonderful phase which toddlers go through (she likes her tantrums now too 🙈) and that it will pass or are we gearing up for this long term? I'm not a CIO person but if anyone has any thoughts or a softer approach, I'd be very happy to hear them. Thank you!

How many naps? How long?
Time is bed time?

My LO done this at similar age and we had to adjust timings

She has just one nap after lunch and it's usually started around 1pm and she doesn't normally sleep for more than 90 mins, sometime 1hr45. Bed time is 7pm so maybe nap needs to be earlier or bed time later? I think she may also be teething but can't say for sure. Fingers are in her mouth a lot though!

I would keep the 7pm bedtime and try and shift the nap earlier.

Thanks for the advice. Nap at 12/12.30 do you think? What time would you then have lunch? It feels mad to have lunch at 11.30 but perhaps that's what needs to happen. Not sure how that works with having dinner around 5/5.30. A bigger afternoon snack in between?

I should add, tricky to do an earlier nap on a couple of days as she finishes nursery at 12pm one day and 1pm another. The 12pm day she has lunch at home then naps and the 1pm day she's had lunch there then naps when we get home....

So on the days she gets home at 1, straight down for a nap and adjust bed time by say half an hour.
Days shes home at 12, lunch straight away then nap.
Days she's not at nursery id go for a 12/12:15 for nap. So lunch either 11:30/11:45.
A bigger snack of a sandwich if needed to last till dinner.

I’d try making the nap no longer than an hour.
Could you send your DH in to to comfort her in the night so breast milk isn’t on offer?

Thank you both, I will try a bit of tweaking all round and see what she fancies doing then...!

I'd night wean if I were you, that was the only thing that improved my DD's night waking. I did it so I'd still go in to her and lie down with her if she woke up but I didn't let her feed. Lots of tears for a few days and we had to try a few times as she was doing great then started teething and really wanted the comfort. It made a huge difference to her sleep though and she sleeps through I'd say 60% of the time now whereas before night weaning it was 0%. She still doesn't go to sleep on her own but it's not something I've really tried to get her to do by herself so I can't complain there.

How long it's taking her to sleep might suggest she's not tired. All babies are different obviously but my DD only wants 10 hours or so at night so if I tried to put her to bed at 7 that would not go down well at all! Her routine is wake up 8/8.30am, awake for around 5 hours then a nap at 1pm for 1-2 hours then she's awake for 7 hours and goes to sleep 10/10:30pm. I think for a lot of people this wouldn't really work for them with such a late bedtime but for us it's nice. We all have dinner together when DH gets home then get ready for bed, play for a bit and after she goes to sleep me and DH chill out for a couple of hours.

I'd try putting her down half an hour later. Sounds to me like she is just not quite tired enough and then gets overtired. She'll no doubt revert back to an earlier bedtime when she drops the nap completely

There's a major regression at 18 months, of this started a few weeks ago I'd suspect that. It will right itself!

If you'd like a gentle approach try The Beyond Sleep Training Project on Facebook. But for what it's worth your toddler sounds totally normal to me

@Outfoxedbyrabbits Quite reassuring you say that because that's what I thought but then the lack of sleep makes you go bananas and question everything!

@Pikamoo I have considered night weaning but can't fathom how I would get her back to sleep so easily.... usually. I'm actually mad enough to think that when she understands better, that I will just be able to have a chat with her about weaning 🤣 Yes, I'm truly mental!

And for everyone, she actually went to sleep perfectly fine tonight. Perhaps just me writing on here as helped! Who bloody knows! Kids!!

@LennyLenster it'd be a tough few days but if she's like my DD she'll pick it up quickly and to start with wake up but quickly roll over and go back to sleep then just stop waking up (or if she does wake up she doesn't need me there to get back to sleep so I don't know about it). I felt like my DD was ready for it though as the feeding wasn't comforting her in the same way it used to, possibly cause I was pregnant so there wasn't much milk available.

@Pikamoo Thanks for the advice, I will have a think about it. It's very encouraging to hear how it worked for you.

@Outfoxedbyrabbits Thanks for recommending The Beyond Sleep Training Project...I had a look at their website and really enjoyed reading their blog posts. It's very similar to my approach all round which seems to be quite "earth mother" at times 🤣 I went to a restaurant for lunch today and the waitress said my daughter was too old to need my milk. I found that quite bizarre (not to mention nothing to do with her) especially when I took DD to the car to feed her. Anyway, each to their own which I fully respect. Going back to the point of my post, my DD woke up once last night but then thought the day started at 5am! She went to bed well again tonight so fingers crossed she can decide that at least 6am would be better for tomorrow.....

Thanks everyone for all of your tips, really appreciate it.