Help - my 15mo has only slept through once ever! We all need more sleep!

[ernestbear]

As the title says! Have a gorgeous DS who is 15 months, and has only slept through the night once in his life. He gets off to sleep really well - can put him in bed awake but sleepy at 7pm-ish and he will get off to sleep independently and sleep until 1am-3am ish. From then he just is quite tearful, clingy and unsettled and we have got into the habit of co-sleeping from then as he seems so distressed when i try to return him to his cot. Co-sleeping worked well when he was smaller, but now he is bigger and can walk/move/launch himself off the bed means he is very active and kicks, wriggles etc and doesn't seem to get back into a decent sleep again, just dozing on and off -and DH and I are having a rubbish quality of sleep.

DS has a nap after lunch of 45mins-2 hours.

Both DH and I are knackered - DH works in a physically demanding job and really needs to have sleep to function safely at work. I am 7 weeks pregnant and feel that we need to find some way of changing this pattern which no longer seems to be working well for any of us, before DC2 arrives!!
Have lost any perspective in working out how to deal with this and would be really grateful for any advice from parents who have got through this stage! Thank you

Hi there
not sure if I have any good advice to offer, but my DD didn't sleep through the night till she was 15 mo, so I can sympathise! I was still BFing her at night though, as well as in the day, and when I decided enough was enough I night weaned her and she started sleeping through then, so I figure she was waking for the BF. Are you BFing? If so, it might be worth thinking of night weaning.

She is 18mo now, and has just been through another spate of waking in the night- she sleeps in her own room, but we were going to her and giving her a quick cuddle and drink of water, then back into her bed. She had got into a habit of waking for the cuddle, so we started going to her and comforting her without picking her up. She hated it at first and was really cross for a couple of nights, but now is back to sleeping all night again.

She naps for 2-2.5 hours every morning.

It might be worth trying to work out what your DS is waking for- maybe the cuddles he gets in bed with you? I'm sure it's probably not what you want to hear, but maybe it would be worth trying to get him to stay in his own bed all night? Perhaps you could try repeating a simplified routine like you do before he goes to bed in the evening when he wakes at 3ish. FWIW I was really worried about giving up the BFing as I thought that we would be in for a dreadful period with crying and endless waking but it really wasn't that bad she did wake more than usual but there was hardly any crying and it only took 3 nights.

Good luck!

Thank you Jeffily - I stopped BF last month, and like you although I had been feeding overnight, he managed really well when that stopped, however no change in sleep pattern.
My sense is he's waking for the company and I agree that we need to work at helping him stay in his bed overnight. there has been the odd time when i've thought he's clearly been thirsty/ in need of milk and have given a bottle which helped, but think these times are the exception rather than the rule, and that overall it's more about company.

I have a bit of a hypothesis that having had 6 bouts of bronchitis and bronchiolitis last year with loads of night coughing and wheezing that went on for a good 7 months may have meant he never got into a good routine of sleeping as the coughing woke him (and us!) 4-5 times a night and he was distressed so we gave him lots of cuddles and reassurance. Thankfully now his wheezing and coughing is really well managed with inhalers, but think that he is still waking regularly because he always has!