Is there something wrong with my one year old and sleep?

[Iwillsleepin2020]

Sorry for the long post. There’s something therapeutic about writing it all out.

DD has recently turned one. She can proficiently walk, has been early with all milestones (sitting at 4 months etc) and is a very switched on baby. Loves books, engaging with people, has quite a few words. No signs of anything obviously wrong? She is insanely clingy though and cannot play independently for even a minute and cannot be in a separate room to myself or husband for even a moment. We haven’t needed to put a stair gate up yet because she is clingy to this level.

Her sleep has always been shocking. We sleep trained at about 9mo and improved things significantly, so she would wake only twice overnight and resettle fairly easily. She has slept through a total of 4 times (still wakes at 4-5am and needs a bf to go back to sleep).

Her day naps have never improved and at best she manages 1.5 hours of daytime sleep broken in two naps. She’s completely unpredictable as to whether she has a longer nap morning or afternoon and ‘wake to sleep’ or deliberately shortening the morning nap does nothing to elongate the afternoon. She self settles for all of her sleeps.

For nearly two months now she wakes anytime between 11pm-3am and is awake for 2-2.5 hours raging. Bf, patting, rocking, calpol, ibuprofen, water etc nothing resettles her for 2.5 hours. She then wakes ridiculously early.

So for example - two nights ago she slept from 1845-0545 (wow). Then last night she went to sleep at 1900, woke at 11, back to sleep at 0130 and woke for the day at 0450.

We did nothing different on the days. Her diet was similar. I just can’t for the life of me see what makes such a difference in her night sleep? And no one I speak to seems to have this problem of a baby not resettling for HOURS. I go back to work soon in a job with a lot of responsibility, and I’m terrified that I’m not really going to be ‘safe’ to do it when I consistently get 3-4 hours of sleep a night.

Has anyone else had this? Could this be a really long phase? We’re seeing a sleep consultant next week but my heart isn’t really in it, because we’ve done all the sleep training and nothing seems to change. We can’t cosleep because she just becomes wildly excited as soon as she gets into our bed and thinks it’s party time.

Does anything stand out from anything I’ve put that could potentially indicate a problem? Or does anyone else have a child like this?! I just feel totally isolated and exhausted. I would desperately like another baby but I can’t imagine this torture again, and that’s also really getting me down.

My child is nearly 1 and does the exact same routine of waking for hours at a time at night, clearly exhausted, but simply refuses to go back to bed and will scream if we leave him in his cot. Some nights he’ll sleep 6pm-7am and I’ve done absolutely nothing different. I don’t have any answers but I am relieved to read someone else having the same issues. I’ve driven myself slightly mad over the Christmas break, I started a new job 2 months ago and am regularly going to work after getting up for the day at 2.30am, I was determined to sleep train during my holidays and it’s just not worked at all.

That sounds really tricky, not sure I can help much. The only thing I can say is that my DDs sleep goes something like that (up screaming for a couple of hours in the middle of the night) when she is a bit poorly. Either teething or a cold, something that is preventing her from self settling, and then she works herself up into a total state.

Calpol or ibuprofen sometimes help, usually we take turns to try and keep her calm, and periodically try to get her back to sleep until eventually she drops off. When it happens one night we then will give Calpol before bed the next night, which doesn't always work!

If this were me, I'd work on dropping to one nap as a first step.

I know it's so hard but if you can get her to one nap it should make a difference.

If it doesn't, check the symptoms for sleep apnoea in children - my son was like that until age 5 when he was finally diagnosed and had his tonsils removed. Might not apply here but just in case! X

This time last year I was in a similar position, it was horrific. I thought I was going to have a Breakdown.

I did controlled crying (never did with my first!) and it worked. He now sleeps 6-6.

It's such a personal choice though! My lo only cried for a minute or 2 the first night and if he ever cried longer or got distressed we tended to him.

Hugs op as it's horrible. You will be exhausted!

@Buttercup53 that’s so reassuring just to hear you have a similar baby. I’m sorry for you that you also have this problem though. It’s one thing dealing with night waking, but these 2-hour awake periods are torture

@Expat1986 I have a feeling dropping to one nap will be what the sleep consultant advises. I keep wanting to try it but I’d be worried to leave the house because I know she’d fall asleep in the car she’d be so tired. I’ll definitely be asking the sleep consultant how to manage it best and keep her awake either side!

@Mammyloveswine thanks for your advice. Unfortunately we did a ‘soft’ controlled crying/gradual retreat when she was 9 months old, which is the reason she can now self-settle. When she has these two hour meltdowns we tend to go in every 20 minutes to try and resettle, but otherwise she is just crying...which is awful. I feel very sure that if we did Ferber she would just cry non-stop for the 2.5 hour period. It’s as though she physically can’t fall asleep before that time period has passed.

Thank you everyone for your replies. Doesn’t feel quite so lonely

My DS was a horrendous sleeper from 10mo - 16mo with usually a long awake period in the night and then up from any time from 4am. I have never been so tired. He stopped the random night wake ups by himself and then we did a bit of sleep training to get rid of the early start. He dropped to one nap at about 13 months and it did get better from then on.

My daughter is 2 and still inconsistently sleeps through the night, so I do understand where you are coming from. One thing I would say is that whenever she seems to hit the next developmental milestone it messes her sleep up. I recall when she started walking, she was having having similar nights to what you are describing. I think she was so over excited by the new skill that she wanted to practise night and day! It was a phase though and things did improve. We dropped the morning sleep at around ten months to finally get a long afternoon nap and it did make the world of difference and helped to get her to sleep until 6am. But she definitely had to adapt to this. I also found she needed to be in bed at night between 6 & 6:30 if we were to stand a chance of getting her to sleep through the night.

Not sure how helpful any of this is, but wanted to reassure you that you are not alone!

I could have written your post myself! I feel your pain. My daughter can sleep through the night for 11 hours or so, and she does a couple of times a week. When she does wake up though, she wakes for a long block of time like your little one. It is usually 2-3 hours until she falls asleep again. I feel like she has some sort of insomnia, which sounds ridiculous as she is 16 months old, but she really wants to get back to sleep but can't. We often bring her in our bed as it stops her from being upset, and she will try to sleep bless her, but then gets frustrated all over again. I can't leave her to cry - she would cry for hours if I did.
I have been contemplating cutting down her one nap to an hour or so, as sometimes she has a good couple of hours and although all the sleep books 🙄 say this should be breed good night time sleep, I'm not sure it does for her. She has slept better at night recently when she has only had a car nap.

Basically...who knows. I hope it is a phase, but I am SO glad I'm not alone. I swear every other toddler sleeps!

Mine unfortunately does the same, stays awake for over an hour every night. He's 14 months and we've just turned the baby monitor off so we can sleep through it (he doesn't cry though, just lies there playing with his muslin and telling stories).

What did help temporarily was night weaning. A child over 9 months shouldn't need feeding overnight. We night weaned DS at 11 months and it gained us 1 month of sleeping through until he started nursery.

I think I would agree with putting her down for one nap, most are on this by 12 months.

Does she have anything that might affect her sleep, like tongue tie or milk allergy? My DS was an horrendous sleeper and it turned out to be tongue tie.

If you want to night wean, have you read Dr Jay Gordon's method?

Have you read the No Cry Sleep Solution too?

@Parastars some good suggestions there actually - will try bringing her into bed and perhaps putting a very soft light on and quietly talking to her. I think it wouldn’t be so awful if she wasn’t as distressed the whole time. And interesting what you say about cutting her daytime sleep. I also have a horrible feeling that DD just doesn’t need as much sleep as other babies and what the books say...yay

And to the suggestions of night weaning..we’ve more or less done it! Since the sleep training at 9 months she doesn’t feed until 5am but in the last couple of months some nights, out of desperation, I have fed her. It’s made no difference though - she just can’t go back to sleep before 2/2.5 hours.

Tried an earlier bedtime tonight (1830) and we’re currently 45 minutes into the crying fest

We were the same. Milk made no difference so just didn't bother so that she didn't expect it. My daughter only had 30 mins nap time at nursery yday and slept through last night so I have let her have an hour nap today and will see what the night brings!

How did your DD sleep last night once she had settled?

My DD is 2 now but has always been a bad sleeper! We had a looooong phase of this around her first birthday when she learnt to walk (awake, unsettled and unhappy for 2 hours every night no matter what we did). We've also had another couple of phases of it over the last year, lasting a couple of months each time. If it helps, it does pass eventually! You're doing nothing wrong. Hang in there, it's torture.

She eventually went to sleep at 2330 until 0445 and then amazingly slept (after a feed) until 0730. So getting the awake period out of the way earlier in the night certainly worked better for our sleep, but unfortunately we have no control over what time she has her party

Let me know what happens with your little one’s sleep tonight. We’ve also had a day of very little sleep because of injections, so I’m intrigued to see if it means a better night..?

@UpsAndDowns13 thank you. I’ve remembered that when she was 6-8 months she would wake shortly after going to bed. We used to just bring her back downstairs for a few hours because she wouldn’t go back to sleep. So it does seem it’s a phase and perhaps is due to development/leaps?! I guess that does give me hope

And out of interest - has anyone with similarly crazy babies gone on to have more children/had any before? Did they have the same problem?

The shorter nap made no difference whatsoever! She was awake 1-3am. She is having a longer nap today as if it makes no difference to her night time sleep, I've got stuff to do! (Probs need to trial it more to be fair..)