20 month old. Refuses to sleep. Ever...

[Corporalpokes]

I am honestly at with end here. I have 2 absolutely beautiful girls. Both have had problems sleeping. My oldest (almost 3 now) only started sleeping through the night just before she turned 2. My youngest (20months) seems to get worse at sleeping, day by day. They have solid bed time routines.

My youngest is still breastfed and I feel like this is the problem as she sleeps through the night when I am not around, but when I am there she will wake and scream the house down until she gets the boob. My husband is a trooper! He will sit with her for hours to calm her down and try to get her to drift off again. Problem is, most nights she just won't settle at all. She would sleep from 7/8pm til she wakes for the first time at around 10pm. She will then wake again at around midnight and that's when the chaos starts.

My husband and I are really struggling. We haven't had a good night's sleep in our own house for over 2 years.

We have tried everything to get her to sleep. We know that lack of sleep comes with the territory.. however, she isn't improving or showing signs of sleeping better, like I said, her sleep is becoming worse and worse. She screams as if she is in serious pain, and it makes my husband feel like he is doing something wrong because as soon as I take over she instantly calms down (she won't fall asleep near me though). Once I have her I will be up with her for hours basically just giving my husband a break so he can sleep.

Just a bit of information as to how our night time goes.

5.30pm - dinner
6pm - bathtime
6.30pm - daddy gets home so they play a bit, nothing too exciting.
7pm - bed time - we go upstairs, do our little bedtime routine and change and get in bed.

Once my youngest is asleep we Tippie toe around the house as to not wake her. It's like walking through a landmine infested field.

We get no time for ourselves anymore and we fight all the time. We are busy losing ourselves and I am scared that things between myself and my husband are becoming so bitter because of a serious lack of sleep, me time for both of us, intimacy.

So tired l. So desperate. Just need this to improve now.

Have you thought about making her bedtime a bit later? How much does she sleep during the day?

@Corporalpokes

What time does she wake in the morning and how many naps during the day?

I'm in a similar situation - feel like hubby and I hardly get any time for our ourselves or each other...only recently, slowly , had a few evenings where our DD is down and in bed and sleeping through....she's 18 months now.

Teething turns everything on its head of course!!!

She sleeps on average 1.5 hours in the day. Her bed time is 7pm because if I leave her to go sleep at say 8 or 9 she becomes a little terror. She gets over tired and then won't sleep at all. Some days she will start running her eyes and says she is tired starting at 6pm already. So moving her bedtime later will only be bad in her case.

She has 1 nap time during the day (12:00 - 13:30 on average) and she wakes at about 6/7am. She is currently up screaming her lungs out after going to bed at 19:30 tonight.