My 18 month old hardly sleeps.

[sophz28]

Hi my 18 month old daughter hardly sleep or eats. I don’t know what to do. I have 2 other children aged 9 and 6. My 6 year old is currently being assessed for autism but I’m finding my 18month old much harder work. Today she’s eaten a few bites of toast and some crisps, she’s been awake for 14 hours on only 8 hours of sleep and is still not giving to go to sleep.
Does anyone have any advice please?

Hmm...is this a recent thing? Does your dd usually sleep/eat better than this?

It's possible that it's temporary due to illness or maybe her routine has been thrown out by Christmas.

Try to get her outside in the day for plenty of play to see if that stimulates her appetite and wears her out a little.

I can see you've posted this on a couple of boards on MN so you're obviously worried about this, hopefully there's someone here that can give you more advice or reassurance.

No she’s not eaten properly since she was ill before a year old. I keep asking for help from health visitors and GP but not getting very far. They’ve taken her off dairy too which has made things much worse.
Her sleep has always been a bit difficult she would only sleep on me in the day and go to sleep on me in the evening then go to bed. She went through a period of sleeping all the time 12 hours at night and then about 4 hours in the day but now it’s next to nothing.

Does she have a consistent routine? Lights out/sleeping bag/story/lullaby? Seems basic I know but I believe there’s a good evidence base for it and I wonder if it’s been hard to do with other DC.

Hard to know what to say about the food, lots of little varied serves?

Good luck, this sounds tough.

Will she go to sleep if you go for a drive? Is she filling up on milk instead of food?