14mo waking at 4am

[unbearablelackofsleep]

Please help, we’re at our wits’ end.

DS was sleeping through the night, usually 7pm-6am, until Christmas-ish. He had two nursery bugs in December and has just learnt to walk which has all seriously disrupted his sleep.

We were having wake-ups every 2-3 hours which has now reduced to one very early wake - he’ll wake any time from 4-4.45am for two hours, but often for the day, even though he still seems exhausted, he refuses to go back to sleep.

He was on two naps and we’ve tried changing him to one nap due to the split nights but no luck yet. We’ve been trying since he went back to nursery on 5th.

He got back to sleep on Sunday morning till 7.30am after being awake 4-5.50am, so we managed to get him to 11.40am for one big nap, 11.40am-2pm, and this morning he’s woken at 3.45am.

He eats well, gets loads of exercise and stimulation. He’s at nursery two days, Grandma’s for one and home for four.

DH and I also seem to have developed some sort of insomnia (hypervigilance from listening out for DS?), meaning we got to sleep around 2am after trying since 9pm, only for him to wake less than two hours later. It feels like torture after weeks of this when he was previously a good sleeper.

Cosleeping doesn’t work as DS thrashes, bites, scratches, headbutts.

Please help.

Around this age (mine is now 20 months) my LO suddenly needed less sleep. Bedtimes because a nightmare and we had some split nights.

We moved bedtime back by 15 minutes at a time until it seemed about right. We now do something like
Awake 6.45
Nap 1-2.30
Bedtime routine from 7.15
Asleep by 8 or so.

I absolutely sympathise on the insomnia, I had that while breastfeeding.

Could he be hungry or cold OP? Have you tried a few more calories in the day or an extra blanket?

If he’s getting a lot of stimulation during the day, have you tried keeping things a little quieter? Hard to do with one so young and newly walking I know but you can cut down on going out and the amount of people around him?

Thank you both. I’ll try gently shifting bedtime to 7.30 this week and see if that makes any difference.

He eats absolutely loads and after tea about 4.30-5ish he always has a snack (normally toast with peanut butter or cream cheese) before his bedtime milk, I’m not sure how much more he’d eat/drink before bed. I did wonder about him being cold. He has a 3.5 tog sleeping bag with detachable arms and a blanket but he’s usually wriggled out from under the blanket pretty early in the night.

It’s such a minefield. His daytime sleep has historically been a bit rubbish so we really thought we’d hit the jackpot with a long midday nap yesterday, but he woke even earlier than before 🤦‍♀️

I feel like such a horrible mummy because I just don’t have my normal patience when I’m so sleep-deprived. When DS woke this morning I felt totally broken and just begged him to sleep and kept lying him down in his cot. DH managed to settle him and then I’ve had to take him to nursery this morning and leave him for the day. I feel so guilty and so sick with tiredness.

My DC2 liked to be warm so at this age she always had an extra layer than was recommended.

No advice but solidarity! We have almost the exact same thing with our almost 15 month old. She won't sleep past 5am 🙃.

We tried one nap for a week and she was completely miserable and a nightmare to deal with. Also only improved her wake time to 5:30 so we're back to two naps now.

So sorry you’re going through this too. I did wonder if DS isn’t ready for a one-nap day yet, but he does resist the second nap and then it’s too late for him to have one because it’ll impact bedtime. It’s so hard to get this right!

Mine is 15 month old and we struggle with early wakes 5am recently I’ve moved his nap earlier and shortened it so a typical day is
nap 12.30-2 wake him
bedtime 7.30pm 5.5 hour wake window seems to work well
wakes at 6ish

We moved his bedtime back tonight (he ended up falling asleep at 8pm) and he’s been awake and screaming now since 1.15am, so two hours. No sign of being close to sleep yet. We can’t do this much longer.

Could he be overtired? After last night, he didn’t sleep at nursery until 2pm and did an hour then in the buggy so 2-3pm, which is later than I’d have liked but he refused any earlier.

This is horrendous, even DH is at the end of his tether.

That does sound exhausting. Does he drink milk or eat a snack when he wakes @unbearablelackofsleep? Will he settle better if you put him in bed with you?

Also, if he was sleeping fine until
Christmas, have you tried some Calpol to see if that improves his sleep?

I ended up giving him 6-ish oz of milk at about 4am and he did go down after that. I’m not sure if it was the milk that helped or if he’d just exhausted himself by that point. I had to wake him at 7.30 this morning for nursery, he was absolutely out for the count and slept through me getting all his stuff ready in his room, opening cupboards etc, so a really deep sleep. Poor baba, he’s so different during the day, happy and chatty, and just screams at night at the moment.

We’ve tried calpol and nurofen, calpol had absolutely no effect last night and all of his first molars are through so it seems unlikely to be teething. Unless his second molars are really early? He already has his canines which seems early too, so I wouldn’t put it past him!

Thank you for your replies (also love your username!)

We had one who always did this. It was that dip in temperature just before the dawn.

In the end I learned to hop up for the loo and pop an extra warm blanket on and it passed. Easier to pre-empt it than deal with it once they have woken!

Could you try giving him some milk as soon as he wakes up to see if it settles him straight back down? My DS is nearly three and he still wakes most nights, but I bring a very small bottle of milk (2 or 3oz) up to bed in a lunch bag with a freezer pack in it so it stays cold, and as soon as he wakes up I give it to him. I think it’s the comfort rather than the actual milk, but he drinks it and goes straight back to sleep, so total wake time is only about 5 mins. I know it’s not ideal for a child this age to still be having milk at night, but without the milk he gets upset and properly wakes up and can be awake for a while screaming. With the milk he’s only ever half awake and settles back straight away. Could be worth a try!

I think I’ll definitely try milk sooner tonight! Thank you. He eats so much during the day that I don’t know where he puts it all. I did wonder if he’s also having a growth spurt hence so much food?

He needs to go to one nap. It's frustrating at first but he'll get used to that.

And my son still needed milk at that time until around 18 months. Not all the time, but when he did wake around 4/5am (a few times a week), milk was the only thing that settled him back to sleep. I breastfed so a bit different but he was sucking as if he was starving/very thirsty. And to be honest, I'd find it hard to only eat dinner at 5pm, a drink at 6pm then and have nothing until 8am so I don't blame him.

It apparently takes 5-7 days to see if a new tweak of routine works so stick to something / shortening nap / earlier bedtime whatever for atleast a week. X