What is going on with my 16 month old?

[reetgood]

So to date, he’s always been a fairly terrible sleeper. 2 hour cycling, still breastfeeding, he’s finally in his own cot but comes in our bed early hours because I can’t deal with feeding early hours. We did have a brief period a month ago where he was going for four hours and it was magic. Then he was ill, there was yet more teeth and it all went to shit again.

I’ve never considered him (or us) a particularly good candidate for sleep training. When he wakes, he’s usually on his feet very quickly and crying for us (well, me). He absolutely loses it with me in the room and not picking him up. The few times I’ve left him (unplanned, usually at end of tether) he’s stopped crying after 20 mins but has never actually gone to sleep.

We have a routine but he feeds to sleep. My partner can settle him to sleep but not in the cot, and it takes a while. He does not fall asleep without someone there. I can sometimes rescue a failed transfer but it involves some gymnastic moves on my part as he wants physical contact until he’s asleep.

Anyway, we were slowly making progress (for us) and had a routine that felt manageable, but he’s throwing us some curveballs and I can’t figure out what’s driving it, or what the best approach is in response.

His first wakeup of the night is a) back to 2 hours in b) turning in to a protracted nightmare to settle him. I’m feeding and he’s not going back to sleep. If partner goes up there’s lots of hysterical crying and calling for mama. But he’s also started just lying in the cot awake, without freaking out (initially). We left him 20 mins last night and he was still awake: sat up in the corner with his bear.

I can’t work out why this wakeup has become so tricky? Should I leave him for longer when he wakes? He does call for me, but it’s not on feet wailing, which is a change.

He’s also been doing a lot of developmental things and had a growth spurt. He’s been extra clingy and I’m wondering is this return of separation anxiety? In which case leaving him seems like a bad idea. I’ve no idea what to do, except that I don’t want anothernight like last night, where we were trying to get him to sleep from 9.15 to 11.45 . And I’m not sure leaving him to cry for more than a few minutes is a good idea at the moment.

Hi, it sounds like you have had a tough time with a poor sleeper.

Perhaps it might be time to not be doing the feeding to sleep. There is no reason for night feeds at 16 months. If it were me, I would start with making clear defined times between day and night. So using a darkened room with a sleep-training clock, and making a big difference between night and day time, with a specific routine of bedtime prep, including story-time and cuddles before bed.

To stop the night-time breastfeeding, it might require introduction of bottle/cup water being offered only during the calmdown time and night time. Reassure and stay in the room but keep no talking during night time, gentle replacing in bed only, patting on back if that helps, but no chatting / talking / verbal reassurance. He needs to learn to fall asleep in bed, rather than in your arms, but this might require you to maintain physical contact through the bars of the cot to begin with, and gradually reduce the physical contact. You could also consider a toddler bed instead of a cot, the change could help with the transition in getting a better bedtime routine.

Anyway I hope this might give some thoughts to ways in which you could tackle the issue with sleep.

A totally new routine, will take a few days to work, and requires everyone involved to remain consistent, but it can work.

Thanks for the thoughts. I do wonder if we’re on to a new stage of sleep.

Currently my partner is upstairs with little one, has been for the last 45 mins after I spent 45 mins trying to settle. He is resolutely not asleep.

I don’t want to be rejecting solutions, but I don’t know if I can quite convey exactly the effect of putting him into the cot at night. If I put him in the cot without feeding him, and he’s awake, he stands up, there are tears, he says mama repeatedly and holds his arms up to me. If I or anyone else is in the room and he is in the cot, he becomes more and more distressed. Patting his back would be like patting him mid tantrum - ineffectual. He gets himself worked up to a point very quickly where sleep is not on the cards. If we leave the room, he will eventually stop crying but I’ve never yet known him to actually fall asleep from that. Physical contact through the bars of the cot is also not effective. He is usually beyond that the minute I put him in the cot, if he’s awake. When I do get him to fall asleep in the cot ( i try to transfer him before a deep sleep so he at least has some practice falling asleep in a bed) I usually need one hand looped around him, and one hand by his head. And he needs to be almost asleep if I’m putting him in the cot. We do have a dropside cot thank goodness, but I think I’ll hold off on toddler bed as I would lay money on him being up and out of it the second he wakes up.

Prior to this setback I’d been working on the transition of getting from feeding to sleep to falling asleep in cot, but it feels like we’re at square one with new unwelcome variables. It could potentially be teeth, but then again it feels like he’s been teething relentlessly for months. In January he had 6 teeth, he now has 14...

Teething is a difficult time, and if he has never learnt the technique to go to sleep without cuddles / feeding, probably not a great time to start. But at some point you will need to start the process of getting him to sleep by himself. Does he do the same at nap-times?

If the teething is still going on, it is possibly best to just ride out this difficult time. But if you want to deal with it, then a big change is needed.

The cot only has a limited time for safety, once they start climbing the sides, the risk of an accident is too great. So in your situation I would be planning a big change. Switch to toddler bed, and sleep- training combined. In sleep training, I specifically mean a routine, that includes a sleep/day clock that the child can see when it is day/night. So that they start to know when it is time to be in bed, and when it is time to get up. the claessens kid sleep trainer is my personal favorite. It has music that I set for storytime, and a countdown picture for bedtime. It gives a clear visual picture of day/night. I also use the gradual retreat with no talking. So plenty of physical reassurance and getting them to lay down, but no verbal instruction, once the "bed" time has started.

Your son is age-wise old enough to be told it is time to lay down, and given reassurance that you will stay there till he is asleep. He is old enough to be given boundaries, of this is where you sleep and reassured that you will come to him in the morning. But he will resist this as he is also at the age of growing independence, and demands! He is learning that he is a separate person to you, and when tired does not want to be separated from you as he has always known you to be there while sleeping.

He is currently geared up, ready on alert, for when you try to put him down to sleep. So trying to put him down when not fully asleep is not going to work at his age. Continuing to put him into the cot when deeply asleep will become more physically difficult due to size, and become more difficult to achieve. (Also personally I think that it is sending a subliminal message to them that they will not know where they will be or where you are, when they wake, so less secure about falling asleep without you. And increasing the need to find you first thing when they wake, but that is just my opinion)

So if you want a more easy time of things, then co-sleep for a longer time. There is nothing wrong with co-sleeping if it works for you as a family. He would probably happily fall asleep beside you in your bed, if you are already bringing him in during the early hours, then why not start there?

If you want to teach him to go to sleep by himself, then it will need a more radical change. He is learning that standing up and crying in his cot gets your attention. You will need to break that association, by creating a method of your choosing.

I would suggest you stop continuing with this battle over bedtime, change things up and allowing him the ability to get out of a toddler bed and come to you is the next stage, and will have to give him boundaries at some point. It is more a matter of whether you are ready to make that big change? He is old enough to start learning to stay in bed, but you need to be ready to teach him the boundaries, it is not easy! But then what you are dealing with at the moment is not easy either!

Oo thanks that lays out the options really well! Thanks for this. Yup I am a bit conflicted about which option to take. I will think on.. right now I’m going to stick with what we have but it’s worth thinking about in future

No advice to give but we’ve had a poor sleeper too. We’ve seen some real progress. He’s gone from breastfeeding to sleep and a fair bit of co sleeping because he was waking such a lot to finally now him going to sleep in his cot with some (a lot) of persuasion. He sleeps and stays in his cot until early morning (with one wake up before then). He’s just turned 15 months so now I wonder if we’re just a month behind you and it all going wrong again.

It’s helpful to read the advice you’ve been given and to begin to think ahead to when he’ll need to move from the cot. I’m hoping that’s not for a good while yet though!

Hope you’ve had a good night tonight and that this stage passes quickly!

My tod is 2yr na dsince day 1 he's been a terrible sleeper. He sleeps around 930(aim) but he takes 1hr to soothe to sleep. He will not and hasn't learnt to self soothe.

He naps 2hrs a day ive tried to put him in bed early.. No toys.. No eye contact.. Patting.. Singing.. Routine.. Nope nothing works. I struggle as we speak of using 1hr for nap during the day and then another 1hr for bedtime at night. When he does sleep during his sleep he moves like a gymnastic. I'm a light sleeper so every little movement wakes me up.

As of today I've tried to cut his nap totally and he fell asleep within 10 mins tonight. Although I'm abit skeptical as I think tods his age must nap.

Hope you find a solution and if and when you do don't forget to update

You have just described my ds who is 14 months... I can't quite explain to anyone why I don't just "lay him back down and let him cry for a min before he goes back to sleep " he would scream until he is sick if I don't pick him up.. Last night was particularly bad.. Been up since 3am
No tips here but am following to see if you get good sleep today

Solidarity to other people in the same boat! Well night before last was fairly terrible, I was solo and he only went 1 hr and 45 mins before waking and not settling. So I took him downstairs and ate my dinner, and then we went to bed. Lots of feeding and fussing. I was pretty sleep deprived and it ended at 5am with me yelling ‘this is bullshit’. Then apologised to my poo startled son...there was also crying.

The next day I came on my period and that explained a lot. I’m breastfeeding but at that point in my cycle I can’t bear feeding for protracted time. And I had a look at his mouth, it appears he’s doing three teeth in one go. Of course he is. That does explain why it’s been particularly terrible.

I took a night off at my parents and I feel pretty renewed!

I’m still thinking about our options going forward, and what I want to do. A lot of the time what we do is fine, except when it’s not. Then it’s really not fine! But I just know that the option for us is going to be some form of controlled crying - I can’t stay in the room with him as he simply won’t sleep. And am I ready to do that?

I may as well journal the sorry saga! Tonight I started thinking ‘this is teeth and separation anxiety’. He was apparently more clingy than normal at the childminders. He clings to me like a limpet when I go to drop him off at the moment (he’s fine within seconds).

What on earth do I do with him. I don’t want to go to sleep at his bedtime of 7pm. It seems mean to do Ferber type controlled crying. But he’s definitely trying to string out any routine and thus feeding to sleep is not as effective. Tonight we changed, ‘read’ a few books, fed ... and he would not sleep. He kept pulling off to chat. So I switched to holding him and singing a lullaby. He was trying to get comfortable and couldn’t settle in my arms. But, transfer him to the cot and he screamed and screamed. Literally the minute he touched the mattress. I didn’t ever get to actually gradually retreat because he didn’t stop crying. I ended up just looking at him crying in the cot. If I picked him up (I did twice) it of course intensified once I put him down. The only reason I think I actually got him to sleep this way was that he was exhausted, so eventually tired himself out and feel asleep (with both of my hands on him as per usual).

I do not know what to do! He’s not giving me many options apart from controlled crying, but that feels wrong right now. I am pretty sure ‘gradual retreat’ is not meant to look like a screaming tearful toddler on his feet in the cot :( The kid needs to sleep dammit. We are considering whether my partner should do bedtime, as the fear of being left is slightly less intense with him. And then once we’re through the intense separation anxiety, maybe we just do controlled crying.

There are many reasons why he’ll be an only, but damn, sleep is pretty high on the list.

I would stop breastfeeding.

I’d offer nothing but milk between bedtime & morning

One hellish week and then it will be better.

Just try to not introduce another reliance

I do recommend reading the Ferber book if you’re going to do controlled crying.

And update:

So after two fairly brutal weeks he started actually sleeping again. Definitely teeth. We moved to Daddy doing the settle where available. I don’t know if it’s that, the strategy previously, or developmental, but on his first sleep of the night he’s going four hours or so. He is also showing some signs of associating routine - he asks to go in cot to read book, and plays out putting blankets on his toys/ on himself. He is clearly processing the whole sleep thing and routines associated with. Last night he woke up twice and I was able to lie him back down (he was sitting up and had clearly just fallen back to sleep).

But...

It’s 45mins to an hour of him crying for Mama for my partner to get him to sleep :( . It’s brutal. My partner says he can deal with it, but I keep questioning myself. Surely this is craziness! We’ve been doing partner settle rather than me feed to sleep for a week. He is cutting a tooth right now, which might be the issue? He’s also started really crying and clinging to me when going to childminder twice a week, which he’s been to since he was 8 months. I wish I knew what was going on in his brain, but I am wondering if things are linked.