18 month sleep regression hell - drop nap?

[Fuehehe]

We're going through the 18 month regression with my second who was never really a great sleeper but now goes to bed 8pm and wakes up for a couple of hours in the night OR wakes up at 4am for the day! ....She naps for 45 mins also! I'm finding it so hard as I also have a 3 year old and work part time.

I cosleep and still breastfeed at night and usually find the frequent wakeups easy to deal with but the long periods of wakefulness and early starts are chipping away at my soul :o thankfully my lovely husband and I swap each night but that just means we're both slightly less tired but equally miserable haha....

I've been brainstorming as I'm convinced there's some magic formula that must fix the problem rather than a mythical 'regression' with no clear cause...surely if they're tired enough they won't be arsed with prancing around the room singing twinkle twinkle at the top of their voices and poking you in the eye / up the nose for 2 hours?!

Has anyone found it? ...my new plan is to try longer nap and later bedtime...like 9:30/10pm so that hopefully she wakes later around 7am. With 7am start I'm going to try and just drop the nap. She's very young but is so active and when she naps 45 mins she wakes full of beans and is full of beans and happy smiley till 8pm....admittedly she goes to sleep then quickly but there's no overtired grumpiness so wondering if she could last the day.

Anyone found any other solutions? Night weaning is next on my list....tried that with extremely angry hungry baby response but may re-try with husband doing nights for a few days first. The problem is she eats like a bird so is then hungry at night...vicious circle I know.

We had this at 18 months but mainly that we couldn't get her to go to bed. Was taking well over an our and loads of screaming etc was having to rock her like a baby (she was previously self settling). Tried earlier / later bed time, reduced nap etc, none of it worked. She was also up more during the night sometimes for up to an hour. After approx 4 weeks of this she just went back to normal so I think it was developmental.

The main thing that helped is DH started putting her to bed (she was improving by this point). First night but if wingeing but by 2nd night almost back to normal!!

With regards to appetite I saw a child dietician at 16 months and the first thing she told me was to cut out the milk (apart from before bed bottle). She was on formula so I watered it down over a few nights until it was just water. Milk is very filling for them. No sure if advice on breast feeding would be the same. Hope you find a solution as the sleep deprivation is horrendous.

Last thought could it be her teeth? X