Struggling with 13 month olds sleep

[Mayandwest]

Just as the title says, really. I’m at a loss of what to do with my 13 month olds sleep. She wakes 3-4 times a night but takes sometimes an hour to go back down. I wish we’d sleep trained her but feel like it’s too late now, she relies on us to fall asleep as she falls asleep on me for both her night sleep and naps and then transfers to her cot. So when she’s walking in the night, she’s screaming and screaming until I go in and pick her back up again so she can fall back to sleep. We’ve tried co sleeping but she still woke up crying for some reason and I had to pick her up and let her lay on me to go back to sleep.

This morning she was up for almost an hour at 4.30am and then was up for the day at 6.15. This was after waking at 10, 1 and 2.30.

Her current routine is bed at 8pm, first nap at 10am for half an hour and second nap at 3pm for 1 hour. She has 3 meals and 2 snacks a day, with milk in the morning and before bed. Has the same bedtime routine, bath book etc that she’s had since she was about 4 months old.

I’m really struggling physically and mentally and I’m also back to work next week which I’ve no idea how I’m going to manage on such little sleep.

Shes never slept well and people told me it would improve at 3 months, then 6 months, then when she started weaning, then at 12 months, and it just doesn’t seem to be getting any better at all. Should I sleep train? Is it too late? I’m so desperate for sleep I just feel like a shell of myself. My husband does help with wake ups but she generally wants me.

I’ve found with my 22 month old that she has a more unsettled or shorter night sleep if she doesn’t nap enough (or too much) in the day. It’s a fine balance and every baby is different but that’s what worked for us, tweaking her daytime naps. Good luck!

I would think longer day time nap.

in the night before very boring, only say shhh, it’s nighttime and cuddle.

maybe she still needs a middle of the night bottle or water in a bottle in the middle of the night or soother dummy

@Mayandwestsounds as though she's overtired from never having 4 hour sleep windows in the night. Would it be worth trying cutting down to one daytime nap closer to midday?
I'd recommend The Happy Sleeper (Amazon or often available used on eBay etc). Gentle sleep 'training' later will take longer but you will both be happier if she has better quality sleep at night.

Sleep isn't linear. It does improve but then goes to shit again.

13 months was a tricky age for sleep, they sort of need to transition to one nap but it's painful as they're overtired. Molars also come through about now and they are incredibly painful and take weeks and weeks to finish.

My DS was the same until about 18 months. He started improving a lot around 14 months, but then the last 2 molars had to come through, so that was a painful couple of months. He's 2 now and I still breastfeed and cuddle him to sleep but he never wakes in the night so the whole sleep association/independent sleep thing is bullshit.

I think you need to grin and bear it for a while. Nursery will help transition her to one nap. You might find she's a lot more tired then for night sleep.

Although nursery also means a lot of illnesses which fucks up sleep so be prepared for that.

I'd also give some Calpol.and see if it makes a difference.

I don't think sleep training works at this age, they're old enough to know you're in the other room, and old enough to cry for hours and to hurt themselves too.

Career wise, yeah, it's shit. I went back to work full time when mine was still waking every 2 hours and it was awful. You just have to grin and bear it.