Sleep training 14 mo

[ChloeHel]

Hi all,

Just after a bit of advice. Has anyone successfully sleep trained their toddler after 12 months? My DD is 14 months and extremely attached. She’s still breastfed at night, mostly just for the comfort and we co-sleep. She’s honestly the worse sleeper, she wakes about 6 times a night and won’t go back off without the boob. My eldest DD had a dummy so never used me for comfort and slept great, this one refuses dummies and bottles and I’m now at my wits end and I have to turn to some form of sleep training.

My DH and I have absolutely no life after bedtime because she will only sleep alone for an hour and that’s it. Its my own fault and I’ve been stubborn thinking “she’ll grow out of it, she’ll sleep amazing soon, it’s regression” but no.

So yes, any advice on how you successfully went about it and how long it took would be great thank you :)

p.s we do have a cot for the sleep training

How long does she nap in the day? And what time does she go to bed/wake up in morning.

I’ve not sleep trained but my sons wakes went from about 6 down to 1 by changing wake up/nap/bedtime timings at that age. Night wakings dramatically reduced with 3/4 days.

@Pastaf0rbreakfast yes should have mentioned times.

She usually has a nap around 1:30-2 for an hour and a half. Then bedtime starts at 8 and she’s down at 8:30, but only for an hour until the first waking up! Then because she’s up so much in the night she won’t properly wake up until around 8 the next morning.

she’s never had two naps during the day, it’s always just been one in the afternoon.

What timings/routine found worked for you?

So we did a 7am wake up no matter what (this was hardest part in first few days as if they’ve had a rubbish sleep it feels so wrong to wake them as your shattered too!) nap 12-12.45/1pm but no longer than 1hr for nap and then bedtime usually about 8pm but a little later if clearly not tired or a little earlier if very tired after a busy day.

We’ve always been pretty flexible so shifted timings of needed but kept spacing the same so if nap was 1hr later, bedtime was 1hr later.

Still fed to sleep for bedtime and wakes and coslept from first wake up but put him to bed in his bedroom at bedtime (put him into a low single bed so I could get in to feed lying down). Magically he started sleeping through at 19/20months with no other changes apart from nap length reducing but I didn’t do that, he just naturally started waking earlier from nap.

We nightweaned at 24months and since then his sleep has actually been a bit worse but still only wakes 0-1 times per night.

Obviously might not work for you and you asked about sleep training tips which I haven’t actually given you but we found making small changes made a significant difference to the point that we didn’t find his sleep problematic - 1 wake a night some of the time is fine for us and we have a super king bed so never have any issue him coming in with us if he needs to.

We have just successfully night weaned our 15 month old and it changed her night wakings from 4 a night to sleeping through in a week. She has always refused my partner at night and has been fed to sleep since birth so I was expecting it to be a lot harder.

My partner started going in when she woke, she was angry about this for a few nights but then just started sleeping through. It’s not the most pleasant so I’d say clear a few days if you can. She was never upset though just annoyed, which I found easier to deal with.

She had a cold after a fortnight and I made the mistake of feeding her to sleep in the middle of the night which meant we had to do another couple of nights of her resisting him putting her down again. My advice would be to stick to your guns if you try this. Honestly can’t believe how well it worked.

She sleeps for 1.5/2 hours in the middle of the day. Up at six, down at seven. I’d prefer more sleep in the morning but prioritise more evening time as I’m studying atm.

In hindsight I think I could have done sooner but waited until I was sure she was just using me for comfort rather than nutrition and I felt she could understand a little of what was going on.