To think that the 18 month sleep regression can’t be this bad?!

[MintGreenLife]

Having an absolute nightmare with 18mo DS sleep.

He’s never been a good sleeper but for about 3 weeks now we have regular protests at bed and nap time, he’s only sleeping around 7hrs at night, and waking 1-2 times in the night for anywhere between 1-3hrs at a time, and then up at 5.30am like clockwork.

We do have a tricky situation in that he can’t resettle himself if he wakes in the night. I used to BF to sleep, but that’s not working any more. So I’m currently rocking him instead, but he doesn’t seem to go into a deep sleep with rocking, which means as soon as I put him down he wakes up and cries and I have to start all over again, hence the 1-3hr wakeups. He will only be rocked standing up - if I try to sit down he screams. He absolutely will not settle in our bed (I’ve tried many times out of desperation) so I’m struck rocking an almost 2 stone toddler for hours in the night and I can’t keep going on just a few hours sleep too.

Is this really the 18 month sleep regression?! He only naps about 1.5hrs a day, so he’s managing on 9hrs sleep, surely that can’t be good?! Can anyone give me any advice on what I can do to get through this please 😭 it’s really not sustainable, I feel absolutely horrendous and I can’t hold him long enough in the night for him to go to sleep properly as he’s too heavy. It’s a complete nightmare!

@Covetthee thank you, hopefully it’ll just sort itself out one day! I’m trying absolutely everything and I’m probably just making things more stressful for myself 😖

I could have written this! Our son at this time went through the same thing, it was about 4 (!!) months of him waking every single night and being awake for 2.5-3 hours. If we weren't in the room he screamed, all I could do was sit in his room and cuddle him til he eventually fell asleep. It was exhausting and I felt ill from tiredness, and convinced we were doing something wrong.

What we did was:
Reduce nap times to 1hr max
Push his bedtime back
Offer porridge before bed
Reorganise bedtime routine*

*We used to do bottle, bath and straight to bed. But we then tried bath first, then back downstairs for bottle in pyjamas and cuddles then back upstairs. It's like it triggered his brain into winding down, then because he had longer in this winding down period he became sleepier.

Anyway it eventually worked and one night he just stopped doing it and he's been fine since, he's just turned 2.

Good luck! X

Oh and he'd wake up between 4:30-5:30 every day despite his 2am parties too! He's always been an early riser but that was a joke 😂

@lemonyfox thank you. I think I’ll have to try sitting with him in the room as I can’t keep rocking him, it’s breaking my back and mentally I’m not managing with the repetition of rocking for 30 mins until my arms are about to fall off, put down, he wakes, start all over again for 1-3hrs 😖 it’s not working either, so I don’t know why I keep doing it. Was yours upset the whole time he was awake when you’d sit in his room? I’m worried he will just scream and scream if I sit in with him but don’t pick him up and rock him 🤦🏻‍♀️

@lemonyfox yes exactly the same thing!! Mental isn’t it - how are they don’t just nod off mid play I have no idea. Mine has never been one to take a “they’ll just sleep when they sleep’ approach with 😂

@MintGreenLife Classic signs as previous poster mentioned also - not entering deep sleep, excessive crying at wake ups, early morning waking. You say he’s never been a good sleeper, so it’s more likely he is chronically overtired (which is overwhelmingly common, it’s not a criticism). Some babies can cope with overtiredness to a certain extent - coping with overtiredness and being low sleep needs are two different things. Now he’s 18m, expending a ton more energy physically and developmentally, so overtiredness is likely to effect him more.

@Didimum but how can I help him sleep more, I already do absolutely everything I can and always have done from the day he was born. He’s almost 2stone and I’m up rocking him for hours in the night to the point where my arms go completely dead and my back is agony. I have never just lay in bed and left him to it. I support him in every possible way, but he just will not sleep more. I have tried earlier bedtimes and they rarely work.

@Didimum I’m just over 5ft and 8 stone myself, and for months I’ve been saying I can’t continue to rock him, and yet I do, because it’s the only way I can get him to sleep, but it’s completely exhausting!

18 months is a separation anxiety peak.

Insisting that the tiny human sleep alone whilst adults enjoy the comfort of bed sharing is bizarre to me. Enforcing this at a time of natural separation anxiety is even more counter productive. Independence comes in time.

OP, can you try bedsharing though this phase? It shouldn’t last long. Mine coslept until 19 months then moved into her own full sized single bed in her room quite happily (for the majority of the night at least).

I didn’t say to make him sleep alone. It was in response to the suggestion to take him downstairs when he woke at night.

@OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide I think I’ve said in my other posts, but he absolutely will not bed share. I’ve tried countless times to settle him in our bed, including the last two nights and he just screams and screams. If I could bed share I most certainly would as everyone would be happier and better rested then.

Absolutely. Hence why I say you’re going a great job. You ARE doing a great job to help him get some rest. It’s 100% not easy. It’s horribly difficult. I’m just relaying what I have found useful to know about infant sleep.

@OverTheHillAndDownTotherSide yes did say in my original post he won’t settle in our bed

@Didimum sorry, I hope that didn’t come across as an attack! I just don’t know where to go from here and I don’t know what else I can do 😭

Do you have a chair in his room? I used to just sit with him cuddling on there til he eventually fell asleep. He wasn't upset if he was being cuddled but he'd be instantly upset if we tried putting him down. We either had to wait til he was fast asleep, or get lucky and put him down when he was tired enough to not care.

It was almost comical, he would only ever go to sleep after minimum 2.5hrs awake. He'd just want hours of awake cuddles u til that point!

No, of course not. Don’t worry. Is your partner giving you and your son as much support as possible?

This might sound a bit silly, but one thing that helped with my twins at bedtimes was ‘the kissing game’, which I read about online. We did the whole bedtime routine, white noise on, lights off and I would give them a big kiss and say ‘I’ll be back for more kisses’, I would leave for literally 2 seconds and then come back and say ‘more kisses!’, then I’d leave for 5 seconds, 10 seconds, 30 seconds … and so on. It taught them that I would always come back whether they cried or not, so they would increasingly not fret when I was that 10 seconds or so later not coming back in. Eventually they would just fall asleep. Sometimes they can find a continuous presence in the room to overstimulating to sleep, especially when overtired - but obviously they don’t know this.

Anyway, as I said, I don’t want to suggest you try loads of things at once, as I think it’s less stressful to focus on one thing at a time, but the above was a fairly pleasant way to make them less anxious at bedtime.

@lemonyfox yes we have a rocking chair, but unfortunately as soon as you sit down, regardless of whether he’s awake or asleep, he completely loses it. He’s done this since he was a newborn. It’s either up and moving and no crying, or sit down and screaming, there’s no in between. This is the problem I’m having, I just cannot physically hold him standing and rock him for 2-3hrs every night. It honestly feels impossible 😭

@Didimum the kissing game sounds like a really good idea, thank you x

Thought I would just post a little update in case anyone finds themselves in a similar situation - yesterday for his nap I tried staying in the room with him (have tried in the past and it didn’t work, but may have been down to a timing issue!). I lay on the floor so he knew I was close by, and pretended to be asleep. We played a little game with his teddies pretending they were asleep, and then I lay down to ‘sleep’ too. It took 45 mins, but he was happy in his cot rolling about and eventually fell asleep. Did the same last night and for his nap today and he fell asleep in 10-20 mins each time.

I slept in his room last night (on a mattress on the floor). He woke twice and I ‘shhhed’ from my floor bed. First wakeup he was screaming and arching his back (I was a little concerned he was in pain, but I think it was just frustration at being awake), and it too 5 mins of shhing for him to go back to sleep. Second wakeup only 30 seconds. He also slept 10hrs overnight, compared to his recent 6-7hrs! Really hoping this continues and I can break some of the habits we had gotten into with rocking and him waking lots in the night. I will stay sleeping in his room overnight as long as he needs ☺️

@MintGreenLife it was a few years ago . I think he got use to not being picked up quite quickly like literally a few days but the being able to leave the room took weeks!

No we didn't leave the room and kept things dark but just didn't focus on getting her back to sleep until she was totally calm and distracted if that makes sense...so talking to teddies about it being night time, looking at the stars through the bedroom window, putting a different night light on etc. No other intervention and it eventually stopped. She just desperately didn't want to be alone I think and could only go back to sleep if being held or if we lay down next to her and she was touching us/ holding hands.

Just seen your update. Excellent progress. I do think they need us close as you say and this modern western obsession with self settling sets us up to fail or make them feel alone.

Can't remember dc1 but dc2 was quite recent. I just got up, we watched tv for 2 or 3 ten minute cbeebies segments. Then back up to bed, bf to sleep.

1. it didn't start this way. I tried bf to sleep and it didn't work

2. looking back, I'm sure my work suffered

That sounds like great progress, long may it continue.