18 month sleep regression

[Pjones96]

I need help with the 18 month sleep regression!! My little one has began waking in the middle of the night and will not settle back to sleep for 2-3 hours, he has also stopped self soothing and every time we leave the room he stands up in his cot, throws his dummy and teddy and screams and cries. Me and my husband are at a loss on what to do, we have tried everything from altering naps, moving bed time, trying a new bed time routine, not using the white noise, making sure he’s not getting too cold, soothing him to sleep, sitting in his room until he falls asleep, turning the cot into a toddler bed and on some occasions he has come into our bed. We have tried letting him cry as well, never any longer for 5 minutes but he gets so worked up that he makes him self sick. Nothing has been working and this has been going on for nearly 6 weeks now.
Our little one has always been up and down with his sleeping, we will have some months of him sleeping through then go through a patch of him waking or needing support to sleep but it has never lasted more than a few weeks at a time.
Has anyone else been through this and got any advice?

Can you post your current schedule? Has anything else changed like starting to walk, going to nursery etc?

So his bed time is around 7pm, he has a bath, massage and book just beforehand. He wakes anytime between half 6 and 7 when he sleeps through. He has one nap a day from 12pm until around 2pm, we have tried shortening this to 1:30pm. Nothing has changed in terms of routine or development, he has been attending nursery since 9 months old, although there has been some staff changes his key workers have remained the same. There have been no major changes at home either.
We thought he might’ve been teething, he still has his last set of molars to cut through but he has been fine in the day and doesn’t appear to be in pain or struggling.

I think it's just too much total sleep. Mine is 16 months, wakes 7am or a bit before, 1.5-2h nap and then bed at 8pm. They can suddenly need less sleep and surprise you. Mine did split nights around 13 months and an extra hour awake fixed it.

We have had days where he has napped less, there have been some days he has slept an hour or less but he has still woken in the night for around 2 hours

Going through this now:(
Did anything change for you? Would love some advice

Sorry to hear you’re going through this, it is so tough when littles ones aren’t sleeping.

Honestly I don’t know why it worked but it did. Our boy goes to sleep with white noise anyway but his monitor also plays lullabies. One night in desperation, I put the lullabies on and he settled down straight away. Each bedtime or night waking following this, we pit the lullabies on again and it worked!

I hope you find something that helps for you and your little one!