15-months and not sleeping through the night - at wits end!

[jazzibelle]

As the headline says, I have a 15-month old and he does not sleep through the night, and never has. There has been the odd one or two nights here and there, but generally speaking this boy will be up for at least an hour every night.

He usually wakes around 8am, has a 1.5-2 hour nap around 1/2, and goes to bed around 8:30pm. He eats three meals a day, with a snack after his nap. He drinks water during the day with milk in the morning and before bed. He’s on follow-on milk as I cannot get him to drink cow’s milk - he hates it.

No matter what we do with him, he is awake around 2-3am and doesn’t got back down until
around 5am. We’re exhausted and out of ideas.

We’ve tried night-lights, phantom feeding, increasing his calorie intake, snacks before bed, pyjamas, no pyjamas, baby duvet, blanket, co-sleeping etc. NOTHING IS WORKING 🤯

It’s not sleep regression, it’s all the time! Plus he has all his teeth now and he’s walking. Even on the days we do activities (like swimming) he wakes.

Any advice on what I can do to get this kid to sleep, I will be forever in your debt!

I’m at my wits end and need sleep 😩

Sorry just got to ask this - if you’re crying at night because you are upset about something and someone just said sleep time now, does that work for you? Wouldn’t for me. I would find it incredibly disrespectful and unhelpful.

Clearly there is a reason the baby doesn’t want to sleep. (IMO too much overall sleep). Let’s not forget, we are parents with just as much responsibility to parent overnight as in the daytime. Crying is communication!

This.

Definitely this. Absolutely no food or playing, back to bed. Just say back to bed now, no other chatting and no getting out of his cot .

He is having two naps. He doesn't wake at 8 am he wakes at 2.30 has two hours ish awake then has his first nap at 5am and then another at 1/2.

I think he goes to bed too late. I would wake him at 7 and then bring his nap an hour earlier and his bed time to 6.30, for sleep at 7.

We usually change him, milk him, sometimes give him a snack if it seems he’s hungry. Usually we just sit quietly with him until he falls asleep.

Can you take turns so at least one of you can sleep? No point both of you being up and awake.

We were in a similar situation to you, what we’ve done is:
-cut out the milk overnight, he has the milk to go to sleep with then isn’t offered it again to eliminate him waking for milk in the night out of habit.
-1 hour nap after lunch, wake him up if any longer.
-up at 7am every morning.

we had one very hard week of him pushing back but we’ve had more nights where he’s slept through now and he never slept through before, this was when he was 20 months so a little further on than you.
every time he woke up in that week we just lay him back down and patted and shushed. We always responded and didn’t leave him crying and the change had been amazing. Finally getting some decent sleep. It’s also improved his eating too as he wasn’t eating much either.

• wake him up 7am every morning
• cut nap to 90 mins & bring forward to 12
• put to bed earlier
• don't give eye contact or put light on at night time
• dream feed at 11pm
• lots of exercise & running about outdoors & basically wear him out during the afternoon so he's too tired to wake up at night

Crying is communicating

I am awake I want attention and milk

But it doesn't always mean what baby is asking for is right - it's the start of negotiations if you like - baby wants at a couple of months isn't the same as 18months

Thanks everyone for responding. Lots of great advice and things to try here.

I should have given more info; we have experimented with his bedtime in the past and found 8pm-8:30pm to be his sweet spot. He sleeps 10-hours (albeit broken) at night with a 1.5/2 hour nap in the day, so around 12 hours overall.

For a while he was only waking briefly and would be up around 7/7:30am but we are in this cycle of him being up much longer at night, pushing everything out. I am in my first trimester and exhausted; there's zero chance I'm getting up at 6:30am to wake him at 7am 😂Especially if he's only been asleep 6 hours overall. He'll need two naps during the day, and we end up in the same spot, so we're grabbing all the sleep we can get!

Usually he doesn't need changing, or if he does, it's only a light wee, and we don't change him at night for that.

I do tell my husband not to go into him every 3-seconds. I personally don't, unless he's crying or seems not ok. I might pop my head in every 15 minutes or so so that he can hear my voice. My husband usually deals with him at night, so I can sleep, but I'm such a light sleeper I wake anyway. After listening to him 2 hours into our DS being awake, I can hear the desperation in his voice "please go to sleep!" I can't not get up and give it a try -- he's just as exhausted.

I know some are advocating controlled crying, but I just cannot. If he's crying and trying to communicate that he's not ok, I will go hold him and reassure him. I don't want him ever to think that crying is futile because we won't come, no matter what he does -- IMO, that's horrendous.

Interestingly, he woke at 6am this morning 🙌We treated that as him waking for the day. I will push him to stick to our usual schedule and see how we go.

It's interesting those who said this is a habit, I think you might be right. He wakes and doesn't technically need anything, maybe he's just got himself into this rhythm.

I also greatly appreciate those who shared they're in the same boat and assured us we're not doing anything wrong. A friend once told us "if he's not sleeping through the night, you're doing something wrong" which was rough considering our DS has never slept through and we've tried our best and tried to crack this for over a year now.

Fingers crossed for us!

But it doesn't always mean what baby is asking for is right

Christ. This mentality

@GentleparentJ ok I was just trying to help OP and I do parent my children overnight as well as daytime!

Definitely too much time in bed OP....awake for an hour during the middle of the night just screams undertired. I'd start by shortening the night by at least half an hour and stick with it for at least a week, it takes a while for schedule changes to take effect.

Also, the nap needs to be earlier, if he's having a 2 hour nap at 2pm and then in bed for 7 that's only 4 hours awake time before bed, he needs a longer last wake window to build up that sleep pressure for the night.

I'd try something like......awake at 7am, nap at 12-1:30pm, bed at 8pm.

if he's having a 2 hour nap at 2pm and then in bed for 7 that's only 4 hours awake time before bed

Sorry, got my figures mixed up here.....should say bed at 8:30pm means only 4.5 hours awake time.

What happened in the end?? Also in the same boat and loosing my mind!

@jazzibelle

If you want him to go to bed at a reasonable time you need to get him up at 7am. I don't see why you would need to be up at 6.30 to do that. If he was up at 7am his nap would then be maybe 12-2 and he would then go to bed earlier & potentially stay asleep.