Help me survive 18 month sleep regression!

[Ejr2012]

My daughter has recently turned 18 months and decided to only sleep for 40 mins in day (previously 1.5 h) and also started waking at 5.30 (previously 6.30 ish). She is very difficult to deal with as she is so tired all the time.
She falls asleep on her own but I cannot seem to sort out the waking. Have black out blinds, good bedtime routine, lots of fresh air and exercise in day.
On Sunday I pushed her in buggy for her nap and she slept for 1.20. However I am not getting into this habit as I am 7 months pregnant and need her nap time to rest.
Any tips?

Routine as follows:

Wake 5.30
Get up 6
Breakfast 7.30
Lunch 12
Nap 12.30/1 till I give in and get her up about 2.
Tea 5-5.30
Bath 6-6.30
Story and bed 7-7.30.

I adjust based on wake time and nap length. She is better at lying in if she naps longer in day.

At my wits end. Am I just fighting a losing battle and will it just pass? Do I grin and bear it?

Thank you.

I just posted this on another post but I think earlier bedtime! Sounds stupid but early wakes/night waking can often be caused by over tiredness. My ds used to watch in the night garden and then go to bed. I recorded it and started it 30-45 mins earlier- cunning!! And then put him to bed earlier and early wakes stopped. He was in bed at 6.30 at this age and slept til 7.30-8. Previously with a 7.30 pm bedtime he was waking between 4.30 and 5 for the day!

That really early wake up time is making her very over-tired at lunchtime and I think this is your problem.

At 18 months my children would be having their 2hr lunchtime nap at about 11.00am and I would be working on pushing it later. That would be with a 6.30am-7.00am wake up time.

So if your DD is waking at 5.30am, a 12.30-1.00pm lunchtime nap is very late. She is probably very over tired by this point and over tiredness causes disrupted, poor sleep (as Cooper mentioned above). So therefore she has a poor lunchtime nap, which compounds the over-tiredness through to evening and affects her nights sleep.

Vicious circle that you need to break.

I'd go for a three-pronged attack focusing on lunchtime nap, bedtime and wake-up.

Bedtime
As PP said, bring bedtime earlier. At least in the short term while you resolve the lunchtime nap and wake up issues. Once she is getting up at a more reasonable time and having a good lunchtime nap, you may be able to move bedtime back. Or you may find you don't want to.

Lunchtime nap
Lunchtime nap will be critical here. In the short term (in the next two months before you have that baby!) you need to do everything possible to get the naps longer. If that means pushchair walks or car drives, so be it. She needs to sleep for at least an hour, preferably 90 minutes at lunchtime.

Make sure she has had her lunch first, and a milk feed. Ideally you want this sleep in the cot, but while needs must and in order to get her used to actually sleeping for an extended period over lunchtime, then just get her to sleep anywhere you can.

Wake-Up
Solving the above two should sort out early wakings anyway. But also be clear to your DD that anything before 6.30am is treated like a night wake and not morning. So do what you do (or used to do) if she woke in the night. Offering a milk feed would be fine if needed, then settling back to sleep.