16 month old awake for hours a night

[NickyWiresTeeth]

At my wits end with my 16 month old. I haven't had more than 2 hours sleep a night for weeks, and work full time, so am on my knees.

My DS wakes up at about 1am and will not go back to sleep until about 5am. He grumbles, cries, wants to play, chats, stands up, etc. You can't leave the room or he becomes hysterical.

He naps for 2 hours a day (one nap), goes down very easily- you tell him sleepytime and he grabs a teddy and goes to sleep. No dummy, music or anything. He has milk before bedtime but doesn't go to sleep with the bottle. We give him a bottle when he wakes up. His good intake isn't great, it never has been. But he'll refuse more than one milk a night most nights. He just seems to want to talk.

His sleep was fine until a few weeks ago. He had been ill (herpetic gingamatosis- so severe cold sore) but has recovered. He was sleeping a lot when he was ill. Ever since then he's been doing this.

Any ideas, tips? Is this just a phase he'll grow out of? We've also wondered if it's teeth and cans ee canines coming through, but calpol makes no difference.

Thanks in advance!

Anyone who thinks that a baby has the cognitive development to actively try and get their own way, this is worth a read sarahockwell-smith.com/2016/06/02/the-manipulation-myth/

I really appreciate people's input but I also don't believe he is capable of trying it on, he's a baby, and I won't do anything that involves leaving him to cry.

By trying it on, I mean wanting attention, wanting to play etc. The op said this herself. He is not ill or in distress, he just wants to do other things apart from sleep. With reference to drinking from a cup I was referring to the NHS guidance that bottles should not be used after 12 months old. You can obviously make your own choices like I made mine.

Sleepless nights it is then!

Nect-
No need for the Sarcasm.
Cio/cc is not for every parent. She's looking for advice that doesn't involve crying.
Op- I hope it gets better soon.

Yes, sleepless nights for ever and ever and ever Just because a mother wouldn't leave her baby to cry......Nonsense! Keep doing what you are doing op, it really will get better in time!

Plus, I would never trust a 'parenting expert' who hasn't had their own children, no matter how many they had....errrrm.... trained.....!

I tend to feed my DD around half 4/5 now as she was up screaming the same as your DS. We've kept a bottle and she eats earlier now and tbh it settled her straight away. Maybe try that? It may not work, but it might

That evolutionary parent diurnal sleep link is very interesting. Because he goes to sleep very easily when we pit him down for naps and bedtime and will generally sleep until 1am or 2am. That's a good 7 hour stretch.

I find all her articles very interesting reading and all backed up by science and studies.

Definitely definitely go to bed early. If you go to bed at 8 then you'll get 5 hours sleep in plus dozing while he dicks about. Should get you through at work. And do night on night off with DH.

Last night was much better. I went to bed at 8 and he didn't wake up until 4. Only took 40 minutes to go back to sleep and he's just woken up. Infuriatingly nothing was different so I don't know why!

That's because it's nothing to do with you! That's the maddening part!

But only 40 mins is great.

It still makes a big psychological difference when they wake up and you know you've had a few decent hrs behind you already though, doesn't it?

Glad you had a better night! I completely agree with Elspeth on the psychological difference. I used to get woken at say 3 and think "that's fine, I've had 6 hours sleep and I'm just going to relax in his bedroom till morning" (morning was 6am). I would then lie on the mattress on the floor on his bedroom and ignore him if he was happily awake or put him next to me if he was crying.

I am not for a second saying I was happy if he was then just awake till 6 but it took a lot of the panic out of it for me.

He used to do a particularly annoying thing for a while of being awake from about 2-5 then he'd sleep from 5-8 or so but I went to work at 7 so I wouldn't really have had any sleep since 2. Meanwhile DH would be snoozing till 8 with the monitor on. I'm getting rage flashbacks just thinking about it.

Ha, my DS does exactly that! I was working from home today so it was fine he slept in til 8.

It does make a big difference, I was actually quite happy to see him really.

Oh and one stupid side effect is that he's been pretty reliably sleeping all night till 6/6.30 for months now and I still find it hard to sleep myself past about 5. This is an improvement on when he first started sleeping when I would be wide awake at 4.

Aww yes I know exactly what you mean! It's lovely being able to go into their room and have a nice good morning rather than waving a white flag and opening the curtains having spent all bloody night wrangling them!

Okay, so last night he woke up at midnight had some milk then slept til 5, woke up briefly then slept again til 7.30. Is he reading my posts?

My little girl must be reading them too. From sleeping twelve hours straight, last night and the night before, she decided to wake constantly. She often settles herself but last night called out for me or DH every time she woke. She got up at 6.30am instead of her usual 8.30am and was like a possessed girl by 10am. She has been sleeping for the last three hours thankfully. I have NO idea what was wrong and I'm hoping it will be a short phase.