Holiday sleep hell!

[cockles]

Ok - perhaps camping was not the best idea for a restful holiday with a breastfeeding 20 month old who has never been an easy sleeper. But I left home with a baby who had finally got to falling asleep on his own & sleeping through in his own room for nearly 12 hours and within a few nights I had one who had to be fed to sleep, wouldn't go to bed til late, insisted on sleeping with us, and woke up every 2 hours for milk. And wouldn't nap either. Are holidays like this for everyone? And what do you do when you get back? Aaaargh!

Just got back from three weeks (two holidays back to back) where previously sleeping through until 7-8am from 8pm 18m old (in his own room) slept in the same room as us and woke up frequently in the night, until we got him in bed with us and then he wriggled constantly until we got up. He's now going to bed on time but waking at 3am and refusing to go back to sleep until he comes to bed with us, at which point he wriggles for about an hour and a half before dropping off. Am at work exhausted. I want to do some controlled crying but DP is too soft and gets upset when I do it.

Me too! Was just about to post something like this. 1 yr old had just started sleeping through and spent 1st week of hols waking every 2-3 hours and 2nd week every 3-4. Because we just wanted to shut him up as quickly as possible so as not to disturb the poor neighbours, I breastfed him everytime. Dreading tonight (first night home) when will try not to feed him (DP will rock him instead) as sure he will protest violently.

I never want to go on holiday again.

Mines the same and got two holidays coming up. Once drove home from my PILs they live 1 hour away at 3.30am as DD would not sleep there at all. She is 10 months old and hates sleeping anywhere other than her room. Dreading our holidays! You can see her face light up once she is home. She is happy to be out and about all day but wants the security of home. Last 2 months BF to sleep just hasn't worked and I won't do CC.

Glad it's not just us! When we got home the only thing we could do was fight it out with him I'm afraid - he is old enough & articulate enough that it had become an issue of boundaries. He screamed (with one of us in and out every couple of minutes, and lots of cuddles and talking) for over an hour the first night we got home & I didn't feed him to sleep (I knew I wuldn't be able to get him back in the cot if I did). It was dreadful. But after that it was more or less ok & he slept through again almost immediately. So there is hope! I found I really just had to keep telling him THings are different at home, you sleep in your cot, etc etc.

Yep! Just another thing to add to the list of why holidays aren't really a holiday and why I end up more knackered coming back than I was going (excluding the all night packing/house tidying debacle beforehand)!
With my 3 1/2 year old I practised tough love, but it's not working for my 8 month old at moment (got back 2 weeks ago).