I've been lucky with my daughter she's slept right through from 6pm until around 7am since she was about 3 months.
For the third time in the space of a week she has woken up just before midnight and is wide awake no chance of going back to sleep. The past 2 times its happened she's lay awake until 4am (and back up 7am) so I am assuming tonight will be the same 
.
Tonight she fell asleep around 5.30pm I couldn't keep her awake no matter how hard I tried but that's not unusual it has happened before and she has still slept right through.
I am now having flashbacks to the sleepless newborn days I'm a single parent and really struggled with the sleep deprivation and am so anxious of having to go through this again it was the hardest moment of my life. I also have a 7 year old so can't have this happening when the school goes back.
Currently she doesn't have or need a daytime nap but on the occasions she does have one it can take up to 2 hours to get her to sleep for the night so I've always been happy for her to stay awake all day.
Has anyone else been through this? She's almost 20 months so I assume all sleep regression stages are long gone. Should I try a later bedtime? This will be hard when I struggle to keep her awake most nights past 6pm. I guess I will have to try and introduce a nap during the day but don't know how to force this when she doesn't usually need one.
Sorry I know so many people on this board have it 100 times harder than me and hope my post hasn't annoyed anyone but I feel sick at the thought of sleepless nights again it was a really big struggle for me