16 month old night wakings :(

[Tambini87]

My 16 month old has never been the best night sleeper. He has slept through the night on multiple occasions (730-600ish) or just one night waking. He slept in his own cot in his own room since 6 months.

Ever sleep regression or teething affects his sleep but after a couple of weeks his sleep patterns returns to normal.

The reason for this message is for the last 6 weeks he's been waking between 2230-0030 but will not settle himself. We've tried multiple methods to get him to sleep but nothing works. When this has happened before I have held him to sleep which I know is not great but we don't make a habit out of it. The odd thing is which is different to ever bad bout of sleep regressions is he wakes up an hour later crying.

He has had 4 molers come in all at the same time but this looks to have past.

Anyone else been through this? And any advice?

In a similar situation here. DD has not been a great sleeper since 4 months.

She is 16 months now and going through a particularly bad patch. She hasnt had a tooth come through for ages so not sure if there are any about to come through.

Sleep really improved at about 13 months and we finally thought we were over the worst, but a month later it all went to pot again.

She generally goes down fine at roughly 7, but for the last few weeks she has had multiple wake ups in the evening, and then again at roughly midnight. She often then has a period of being awake for about 2 hours!!! She seems wide awake. Wont get herself back to sleep and not happy to just lay there. My hubby is going into her initially as sometimes a quick settle works on some of the wake ups (i try not to go in as she will expect me to pop a boob in) but if she wont settle I end up feeding her and am with her for ages. We are both so knackered all the time!! We cant even sleep well when she does settle as we are just expecting her to wake up again!!!

So no advise I am afraid but you are not alone!!

Hopefully someone can offer some advise soon

@Waffle12 I think there's a developmental leap around now which doesn't help.

What we did is when our boy struggled to go back to settle after waking we would hold him back to sleep. Before he would sleep for hours but now he'd wake after an hour making it exhausting. Which sounds similar to you?

What we did a week ago... thinking our boy was waking for comfort from us, is we needed him to settle in his cot by himself. Not using us as a sleeping method which stopped working.

We couldn't do cry it out. So if he woke up crying. I'd go in, pick him up. Hold him for a minute or two until he settled. Told him it's 'time for bed and put him down. As you can imagine he rolled over and cried. We left him for 50 seconds and did the same routine over and over.

After a couple of hours he sucked his hand and put himself to sleep. The night after he woke again, we only picked him up twice and he went to sleep himself. Last night he woke up crying and settled himself and slept all night.

Msybe it's worth trying a method like that. It was hard but we thought as we're up.anyways let's try something

@Tambini87 I know this post is a couple of years old but we’re going through exactly this and it’s been going on 5 weeks.
any advice? How did it come to an end? What should I be doing/not doing?
@Waffle12 when and how did it come to an end for you?
thanks in advance!

Hi @Halftime23, I feel your pain as i remember those tough nights. Our boy was never a great sleeper at that age and I remember we tried everything... Apart from cry it out and co-sleeping. I really hated the term sleep regression but it's a thing. I think when kids are developing so much it affects kids sleep.

Our boy loved to be held and we came to terms we just had to ride it out. Sorry I don't have the magic answer. When our boy was sleeping in a cot I just ended up sleeping next to it on the floor so he knew I was there. Or holding him until he was asleep. Then eventually he would just sleep longer and longer. Being consistent is key and your not doing anything wrong.

I never ever thought he would sleep through the night and was resigned to never sleep well ever. But our boy now sleeps all night so it will get better. Just try to hang in there.

@Tambini87 thank you! I needed to hear this, really appreciate your reply.
I think we always worry that we’re doing something wrong or missing something don’t we - easier to ride it out when you know it will pass if you are consistent.
Long May your decent sleep continue.. and I hope we follow suit soon!