20 months terrible nights........

[willyk]

Not sure where to begin really......

We've had several problems with dd, especially her sleep.
This particular problem started at Easter. She'll go down to bed at the usual time, and really be ready for it (she's never been a big napper). Then between 11 and 2 she'll wake up, at different times, usually screaming.it will usually take half an hour to settle her, but can take upto an hour and a half to get her off again.

You'd think after that she'd have a nice lie-in, but then sometime between 3 and 6 she's upagain, and won't go back to sleep.

Occasionally we'll give her a bottle, but we're not keen to start making this a habit again. And tbh that doesn't always do the trick anyway.

We're at our wits end, we both work and my wife is 4 1/2 months pregnant and needs her sleep.

Any suggestions or do we just ride it out? I'm sure it'll pass, but it drives us crazy

Teething?

Probably just a phase... I've got a 20m old and he recenty went through a frequently-waking-through-the-night phase too, after sleeping v well since about 1yr

Ride it out, I reckon - it will pass!

What other probs have you had? Just that they might be all tied in with the sleeping thing. Don't say if you don't want to tho :)

Hi, my 20 month old is exactly the same at the moment. :(

No advice, just sympathy!

20m here too & we're not having night wakings, but we're getting BT battles & early waking instead. Seems like a tough age for most of us. My DS is having a huge huge language explosion atm & is copying everything we say & coming out with 5-6 word sentences so I can't help but feel like its related.

However, I also think his sleep needs have dropped. We are still struggling to find the right combo of nap v night sleep but find that with a nap of 1.5hrs+ we get a pretty short night.

OP - can you post your full routine for us to see? It might help to spot if there is anything that needs tweaking.

OH the internet is being so helpful today - you lot included! My 19 mo DD has been such a good sleeper for months - 7pm-7am without fail and even the odd saturday morning lie-in which has had us feeling very smug indeed.

For the last few nights though she has been waking up several times a night, crying and refusing to go back to bed. We've tried bringing her into our bed, leaving her to cry (can never bring ourselves to leave her longer than 10 mins though, and much less if it's 2am and we're thinking of the neighbours) walking about, reading a book... whatever and nothing has really helped at all. The web has told me about the sleep regression peaks at 4 months (ours had hers at 5 when she started waking 6 times a night before we got her back to sleeping through) and 18 (so, a month late again for our DD) and it seems the answer is to wait and let time pass. The problem with these stages is that when you're in them you feel like they will never end!!

Good luck to you all

Thanks for the sympathy/advice all.

I'll post more on routine etc later, just thought i'd update....

We had more terrible nights until Saturday, we looked back over the last month trying to think what wa sdifferent, while her vocab has increased at a terrifying rate, we realised that her bed time had been getting later. She typicall has been going to bed at 7pm, but due to her equally terrible eating habits (anothe post entirley) it had crept closer to 8pm. On Saturday we got her down by 7, and it was so much better, she only woke up a couple of times, and just going in and lying her down and patting her for a second got her back off. And last night she was in bed and asleep by 6.50 and we had another similar night, so we're all feeling much better today. I think it was overtiredness, but I'm sure that will get blown out of the water soon enough, just as soon as the next problem comes along..........

She also seems to be teething again at the moment, she's been chewing manically on her fork and spoon at meal times, it's all connected I guess!

if anyone finds an answer please share it! Our 19 mth DS has stopped sleeping through too. He was perfect from about 8 weeks until just a month ago. Now he wakes every two hours through the night and wakes early! We tried CC out of desperation which after 3 days looked like it was working but then he cottoned on and would just cry continually everytime we left the room. We couldn't bear it and went back to staying in his room til he settles, but it's exhausting! Has anyone tried cutting the daytime nap? Or is that asking for 'over-tired' trouble?

God I could have written that post about my 18 month old. I just posted my own thread about it. His sleep went completely nuts when he hit 12 months then it got better then it got worse about 6 weeks ago. He now regularly wakes between 4am and 5am every morning. We do get the odd morning where he sleeps until 6am or even 6.30am but it is becoming rarer and rarer. We do give our DS a bottle and I think that makes it worse because it becomes a habit. I keep thinking it's developmental and he will grow out of it......

and yes, my son is also going through a language explosion. I find when he wakes up and has his bottle, then afterwards he really just wants to chat. He is as happy as larry. Meanwhile it's 4.45am and my alarm is set to go out in 30 minutes and I have a full day of work ahead of me.
I feel quite desparate because I feel like I am the only one whose toddler wakes up and is given milk. Everyone in RL seems to have these toddlers who sleep 7pm to 7am every single night!

So it's good to know at least on MN that I am not alone

Ha! You are definitely not alone FWIW all my friends tell me their LO's sleep until 7 or 8am. but then I find out they are doing several 'dummy runs' and resettling sessions throughout the night.

I'm v lucky my ds usually sleeps all the way through from 7-5 and though I hate these early starts i do appreciate him sleeping through.

We've just come out of the lots of night wakings phase, lasted 3 weeks here and also coincided with him starting to use lots of new words, sentences and counting. Hang in there!!

juju I did tinker with naps and that seemed to work for us although not all respond in the same way. And you're right- it can result on overtiredness really easily.

At 19 mos my DD was on one nap of approx 1 hour. Any more than that and we would get settling probs or early waking. If she went to bed fine, but then woke a few hours later, I used to find that was overtiredness instead. It really helped us to know that was her dynamic and we've (touch wood) been able to resolve most sleep issues using that theory.

Development stages have also played their part, without a doubt, so for us, it's been a case of trying to guess whats affecting her! Not easy...

Hmm...I think I might reduce the day naps to a strict 2 hours, no more. and then just ride it through. TBH I can handle 5am but 4am is not cool.

Good thinking emmylou. I would say that if that doesn't work you could try v slowly cutting off an extra 15 mins every week or so. That way you can avoid shocking their system and creating an overtired baby!

My friend's LO cut ALL her daytime sleep at 18 mos, to give you an idea of how different their sleep needs can be.