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18 month sleep regression - overtired and cranky toddler

1 reply

LeeMiller · 29/06/2020 22:11

Until recently DS was having two one-hour naps per day and sleeping through at night or waking once in early morning (easy resettled with bf or back rubbing). Bedtime routine was quick and consistent. The last few weeks he has dropped to one nap (1.5 hours roughly) and for a week now has been massively resisting going to sleep at night, then waking frequently in the night too. He always wakes up at roughly the same time in the morning (when DH goes to work) so late nights mean he's really overtired, yawning and cranky in the day. He is currently teething canines and suffering a fair bit with them generally. It's also hot at night where we live (not the UK) which doesn't help.

We co-sleep - he has a side-car cot (Ikea with bars removed) attached to our bed. He was self-settling to sleep sometimes but is more usually breastfed to sleep or sung to with his back rubbed (in the day he'll still sleep fine in a buggy/car/sling). The last week every night he's been shouting "no no no", "book", "play" etc every time he's about to drop off, or you stroke his hair, or he hears the song he associates with sleep etc. I have had to trick him into going to sleep by feeding him off to sleep in other rooms as when he sees the bed he starts fighting tiredness again and wants to run around. Lying next to him quietly in the dark no longer works as he throws himself about and it's dangerous. I'd rather not put bars on the cot as while he's sleeping poorly bf is a useful tool for settling him in the night and co-sleeping means I get much more sleep. And I won't leave him to cry.

Bad sleep patches always seem to pass after a while, but I'm worried about him being so clearly overtired in the day. Should I be trying to get him to have two naps? Start the bedtime routine early? Should I be more flexible and take sleep any way it comes, or be strict about a routine?

OP posts:
BabySleepTeacherUK · 04/07/2020 13:25

I would be more flexible with daytime naps. It sounds like he's entering an overtired cycle.

The transition from 2-nap days to 1-nap days should ideally be done over a couple of months, not a sudden change. And my own youngest child did this transition between 20 and 22 months old, so dont feel you need to change to 1-nap days just because of an arbitrary assumption that it needs to happen at 18 months.

For example it might be that initially you have 2-nap days every day and then as a one-off you have a 1-nap day because DS is on good form and doesn't seem tired that day, but then go back to 2-nap days the following day. It should then be that good days for trying 1-nap happen more often. Maybe you have a 1-nap day, followed by two or three 2-nap days to catch up and not get overtired. Then maybe you have two 1-nap days on the bounce, with one or two 2-nap days to catch up on extra sleep. Keep going this way until eventually you have more 1-nap days than 2-nap days, and finally phase out the 2-nap days completely.

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