I have a 15 month old who just does not sleep, never has (well the odd couple of nights here and there but never anything longer).
My DD who is almost 4 was never a great sleeper as a baby, and took a long time to settle but she got gradually better and by his age was sleeping through consistently.
He was in a fairly predictable routine, two naps a day 10 and 2, varying length, and was for a short time extremely good at bedtime, but still woke frequently at night (every 2-3 hours), since about 9 months he has been terrible at
bedtime. He had reflux as a younger baby but that has settled down and really does not seem to be the issue any more.
Some issues I have identified are:
He is a very windy baby although only one of the wakings at night around 10:45pm does appear to be gas related this one is oddly punctual. Even when the clocks changed the waking stayed at 10:45 (ie it moved with the clocks oddly) he is very rarely able to self settle after waking.
He wriggles a huge amount in his sleep - we stopped using sleep bags earlyish on as he hated being confined my DD was the same. He also seems to hate any covers at all on his legs or pjs with feet. Whatever you put over him he angrily kicks off and flings his legs down on top, if his feet are covered he lies in a rage trying to pull the feet off the pjs. He currently sleeps either in a vest and pyjama top or occasionally in a onesie with no feet although sometimes even these seem to annoy him. When he is very tired and has woken and is trying to get back to sleep he does this thing where he rubs his feet together and works himself into a rage, I have no idea why or what to do to help this, I would say it is a comfort thing but it seems to make him angry even though he is the one doing it.
To combat the whacking into the sides of the cot we moved him to a bed at a year old seems very young, but we were insanely sleep deprived and it had been one of the things to help with our daughter also a wriggler and was the last step to helping her sleep through. It is a low to floor bed a box bed basically and the extra room does seem to stop the whacking into the walls being the reason for waking. The bed move has neither improved nor worsened the situation so I am happy that he does not need moved back into the cot.
He is insanely clingy, it has flared up and down through his 15 months but it has always been there, we are currently in an extremely clingy phase where I am not even allowed to walk a few feet from him. He is walking, climbing almost running, very agile and not being able to follow isnt the issue, also he is fine if left with others as babysitters out of sight out of mind appears to be the case during the day, but if I am visible or he knows I am in the house he will scream the house down if I am not touching him unless of course he is the one who chooses to walk away. The clinginess is a major source of the problem at bedtime and I think also during the night. He will now no longer go to sleep if I leave the room, will not even go to sleep for Daddy if he knows I am in the house. When he wakes at night he just seems to not settle at all without me having some form of physical contact with him.
I am beyond exhausted, sorry if this is a real ramble but the exhaustion is seriously wiping me out and today as a result I appear to be a weepy mess pretty embarrassing in work not that Im balling my eyes out but I keep getting choked up and tearing up at totally random things and I just dont feel I can cope physically or mentally with any more sleepless nights.
Does anyone have any experience of a similar situation and know of any light at the end of the tunnel? Or any advice that worked for you. Should point out I wont try controlled crying. I am firm with him and I do let him cry when it is just whining or tantrummy crying but I cant be doing any sort of timed crying business, I probably dont have the stomach for it in my sleep deprived state and I just think it is not going to help with regards to the clinginess during the day. I always give him a decent chance to self settle before going in to attempt to help, but I cant just let him wail at night, esp with DD in the next room.
Ok, tearing up again at thought of son crying, this is insane HELP!!!!!