Help! Toddler bedtime/wake

[immy12]

If anyone can offer any words of wisdom I'd be so appreciative...

I have an 18 month old. She's always been a pretty good sleeper and since being in her own room from 6 months, always went straight to sleep in her cot. Her bedtime has always been 7pm. She has been on 1 daytime nap for the last 2-3 months and has been having around an hour, though in the past few days it's more like 1.5 hours. Bedtime is now a little later as she doesn't seem as tired.

All of a sudden, she's stopped drifting off to sleep when we put her in the cot, and instead won't sleep unless we're next to her, holding her hand. Last few nights it's taken ah hour until she actually goes...

She is also waking around 5am every day. She's always been an early riser but with her later bed time now, I don't know why it's so early.

We're exhausted. She doesn't go back to sleep at 5am but instead is up for the day.

Help! Any ideas why this could be or is this pretty normal?

Yes it's completely normal and it is a phase that will pass like everything else does. I used to lay on the floor beside mine till they drifted off I think they get to around this age and are aware of being alone. It's perfectly normal.

Could it be the longer days?
My daughter really struggles at this time of year. We have to do fake sunsets by closing all the curtains and as soon as the clocks change we make sure her room is dark before she goes in in the evening
The first year when she was 10 months her bed time went to 11pm and since mine was 10pm this was a problem!

Have a 21 month old and tbh our amazing sleeper went west from 16 months. It was particularly bad around 18-20 months, I'm sure it was separation anxiety. No real cure, just had to ride the wave and also embrace it a bit because they just want mummy and daddy, you're their world.

One thing that helped us with 5am wakings, was dropping the nap from 1 hr 30/45 down to 1 hour only. Sounds like you've done this.

Watch out for over tiredness, this will lead to resistance going down, night wakings and early wakings.

Always best to catch up on over tiredness with an earlier bedtime, try 6.30pm then 6.45pm and get it back to 7pm. As soon as we did early bedtimes he started going down easier. Once past over tiredness the wakings moved back to 6am.

We are good with him going down again like a dream and waking up later but he still is 50/50 with night wakings, I think this is separation anxiety still, or molars/illness causing discomfort. Going to give calpol nurofen before bed tonight so he is comfortable.

Thank you all for the advice, that's so helpful.