15 month old awful sleeping

[Rubylu]

My LO is nearly 16 months and his bedtime sleep has become awful.

We took his dummy away 2 weeks ago, he’s never been the best sleeper and has always come into bed with us at about 3am, however he usually just went straight back to sleep where as now he is full blown screaming.

The last 4 days he’s woke up screaming so excessively and nothing will settle him, he will scream for hours he’s not one to give in. We cuddle him try and rock him try and shush him pat him, nothing will work, after an hour I put the tv on and he then fell asleep watching the tv after 30 mins.

Last night was AWFUL. Went down at 8. He settled perfectly without his dummy, he woke up 20 mins later and after 45 mins we brought him back downstairs. He stayed up with us till 10:30. This never happens. He went to sleep and then woke up again at 2am screaming until he was blue, we held out for an hour, tried absolutely everything but he was not giving in, we were desperate and put the tv on again. After 2 hours he finally fell asleep at 4am.

I know we’ve done such a bad thing putting the tv on, we tried giving him his dummy back multiple times and he will not have it! We’ve took it away and now he won’t have it back but he also won’t settle I feel like we’ve made such a mistake. I do not want the tv to become a thing he doesn’t have more than 2 hours screen time in the day and now I feel like he’s waking up to watch tv.

How else can we settle him??? I’m going insane and getting no sleep and I just don’t know what to do.

We had something very similar with my daughter at a similar age, she is 18 months now. It turned out she had an ear infection. She simply would lie down because of the pain.
it might not be but could be worth getting it checked. Has he had a cold in past few weeks?

One thing that has helped us with our son, who was a rubbish sleeper until around 2.5, was just consistency. We kept the exact same routine from when he went into his own room and we have never really deviated from that. It took him a long time to settle down at night but at least the routine has always been the same.

When he got to about 2 we did some gentle sleep training. This meant we did not let him scream until he was completely distraught but we just left him to grizzle for up to (but no more than) 10 minutes at a time, either me or DH would go in and give him a cuddle and wordlessly put him back in the crib, and go out the room. It might have taken a few tries but more often than not by the end of the 10 minutes he would have fallen asleep. We keep the room dark and use a white noise machine.

I’m not saying that will work for you as all children are different but I would say leaving a 15 month old for an hour to scream would not have been my approach at all as it can make things so much worse. I know it’s hard I am not criticising, we all get desperate as parents. Perhaps you’ve changed his routine too much for him to know what’s going on for now. Predictability and boundaries make young children feel safe.

@TheSunnyLemonViewer

sorry slight misunderstanding, we were with him the whole time! He was in bed with us, it feels like he’s always in bed with us😂 I could never leave him to cry it’s just not in my nature, that’s where I’m stuck is that he’s with us but he’s still screaming so I just don’t know what to do. Definitely think he’s had a lot of change in routine with his dummy being removed etc but he has the same bedtime routine since he’s been 3 weeks old.

@Downbadatthegym

He has had a runny nose the last couple of days but no other symptoms, he’s dribbling a lot aswell so not sure if he’s teething but we’ve calpol and anbesol and neither seem to make a difference. Might be worth a check for an ear infection Thankyou x

There’s me assuming he’s in his own room. So you co-sleep? That’s not sustainable if he’s not sleeping well. He could also be unwell as PP suggested. There’s no human way we could co- sleep with our son there are benefits to us being in separate rooms as we both get better quality sleep!

@TheSunnyLemonViewer

We put him down in his own cot, he’s in our room as we don’t have another room until our house completes in 2 weeks we’ve been stuck at my parents with a 6 month delay on the build.

He usually wakes up at about 3 and then comes in with us and goes straight back to sleep but that’s just gone out the window. I’d love for him to be in his own room as soon as we’re able to he will be.