18 mo suddenly waking at night

[emoo777]

My daughter slept through the night solidly for about 8 months. Suddenly she started waking when I was heavily pregnant and has carried on for three months. I have no idea whether this was caused by canines arriving or the new sibling but now she wakes about every other night and we are struggling with this on top of newborn baby wakings. My husband is in charge of her at night whilst I do baby feedings and he often stays on her floor for hours. Is this the wrong thing to do? She cries if she notices him leave. She can't just be waking from habit as she doesn't do this every night. Any ideas what is causing this and how to fix it? Pretty please? We neeeed sleeeeeeep! Incidentally, she seems fine with her brother during the day...

My DS is 17 months old and he can go through patches of waking at night, like your daughter doesn't do it every night and seems to be worse if he's teething. I'm due second baby in 3 weeks so will be in a similar situation!

Things I have noticed are that if he's had a good walk or a run round the park he sleeps better and if he's eaten well during the day he sleeps better. Also how is the temperature in her room? We moved to a new house recently and have found it harder to heat, we bought a oil filled electric radiator for our son's room when he was little to just keep the temperature to about 18/19 constantly overnight and use it now, its a godsend and means we don't have the central heating on overnight. If the room is 16 or less he is easier to wake and doesn't feel as warm, even in a gro bag and layers!

Most of the time we give DS a bottle of milk to get him back to sleep, it doesn't always work but is the best way of him being settled, sometimes he can babble to himself in his cot for ages before going back to sleep.

I wouldn't say what your DD does is out of habit either, just wanted to offer sympathy and our experiences, hope you and your husband get some sleep soon!

i had a similar issue when ds was 18m! He'd spontaniously started sleeping through 3m before and i was also pg. There is a developmental spurt around that age so i was anticipating wakings as that is how they normally affect him.
He woke up for a few hours several times a week for several weeks. Then it settled of it's own accord. But it has started again recently (he's now 22m and dd is 10wks so i don't think it's related to her. More that he's gaining loads of words atm.

I would never use cc so decided to ride it out...similar phases have been and gone for him before. I just went to bed early when poss and vastly lowered my standards around what we'd achieve during the day.

It's tough. You have my sympathy.