18 month old - Sleeping

[haze46]

Apologies in advance for the long post.....My 18 month old son still does not sleep through the night, he has a good night time routine and goes to bed okay it's just keeping him there.

Every night he has bath, bed, story, bottle then bed and he still wakes usually about twice a night and the only thing that gets him back to sleep is giving him a bottle, if this fails I end up taking him into my bed as he just screams.

I just cannot carry on like this I'm a single Mum and I work 5 days a week so it's very draining.

Last night I offered him his bottle which he refused so I bit the bullet and just let him cry going in every 10 mins just to lie him down. But it took well over an hour for him to go back to sleep. I'd been reluctant to try controlled crying as I dont really agree with it but I've tried everything else and am soooo TIRED!

Is this the only way does anyone have any tips, tricks or been through a similar experience?

Thanks in advance Hazel xx

HI Hazel,

DD was just like this at 18months but BF and would just scream if DH tried to settal her so I was doing all the night wakings. Not sure I've really got any info that will help. All I can say is she did just get there on her own nothing I tired really help and I couldn't do CC either. She would just get hysterical when left to cry anyway so it didn't help.

As he's on bottles you could try diluting the milk untill it's just water to see if he then stops waking for it.

I do know that it woun't necearly stop him waking if he's not having milk and that it's really quit comone for toddlers to wake up during the night. Apparently about 50% of all under 5's wake at lest some of the time.

Hi Hazel,

I feel for you and I can understand how tired you must be! I am in a similar position with my 21 month old and I have tried CC method ( I tried that when he was 8 months old and have not bothered as did not work for us I personally believe that CC method doesn't work on older toddlers depending on their personality), it just made DS more clingy and some nights he has started to go without the bottle of milk and takes his dummy but if he sees me asleep next to him , he tries to go back to sleep. Sometimes I think they just need reassurance that you are there. MigGril has good advice and you should try it out (did not work for me to water the milk down and I am quite frankly not bothered about it as long as it does not effect his food intake - I just give him a 100 ml if he wakes up- again waking up for milk is just a sleep habit for some if he is not hungry that is). I have read that most toddlers start waking up several times even if they were good sleepers!

Maybe you can try and sleep when your toddler goes to sleep several times a week so you can catch up on your rest and do your other routine chores on the other nights (thats what I did... 3 times out of the week I would sleep early with my toddler and just preplanned (tried) and got things done in the weekend for the week etc)