18 month old seems to hate sleep. HELP

[Sillymummies123]

Hi all,

From birth we’ve worked very hard with our toddler. We’ve been all about gradually encouraging self-soothing, routines etc. And Like 90% of night he will just role over when put down awake and go to sleep.

However - when morning comes, he just starts crying, standing up, obviously absolutely shattered and in need of another hour or so. We’ve tried ferber at this point, we’ve tried taking him out to kip on us, getting him up for the day. Nothing works. He gets up tired eventually, screams and tantrums all morning until nap.

With naps, he also refuses and does the same thing - waking up tired and miserable after one cycle - 45 minutes - and then refuses to settle further (on rare occasions he will, and he wakes up refreshed and wonderful).

Is this normal? It seems so strange that he can put himself to bed at night, presumably also self soothe when transitioning throughout then night, but he’s a completely different child in the morning and at naps.

It’s been really hard with lockdown to get a feel for whether anything is normal / to seek advice. Any advice or reassurance would be appreciated.

How old is he and how early is he waking up?

DD is 14 months and will sometimes wake at 5ish evidently still tired. There is no point trying to get her back to sleep, so we do a "slow morning" - lights on low, wrapped in a blanket in the comfy chair in her room, white noise still on, and stories. The light being on and the stories give her what she wants (being up) but the low light, white noise and mummy/daddy cuddles give her what she needs (more rest). We do exactly the same if she wakes early from naps.

We have found that she definitely sleeps better when she's had an active day, so we take her out a LOT. Now she's walking we've pretty much abandoned the pram and sling and get her to walk with us to places. Takes years, works really well to knacker her.

Just seen he's 18m. Sorry, pre-coffee. What time is bedtime and how early is early in the morning?

Have you tried pushing through with no nap?

I have nothing against sleep training and I've used it myself, but I honestly don't think it will work in the morning after a full night's sleep. What time are we talking about? My DC1 was an early riser - I think to some extent you have to just accept it and get up (and make sure his nap is earlier than usual - say 11am?).

How many naps does he have? At 18m I'd be expecting one per day.

Hi both. One nap a day (45 minutes then wakes up exhausted, screaming, red faced, stays that way until an hour or so later) - I know he probably needs longer, hence the call for help.

Morning is 5:30 on days like above ^
6:30 on days when he’s had enough sleep and is a joy to have around. I’d say we have weeks of one and weeks of the other

I’m not bothered really on a personal level. I’m concerned about the impact on brain development of him spending a huge portion of time overtired / sleep deprived / cranky.

We basically get one shot at a nap. If we don’t time it just right , he’ll do the screaming until we give up. Like I say - trained well for night - no protest there. So we can’t move naps earlier because that’s our one shot blown.
The one shot thing is just from experience with this child.

Have you tried the "wake to sleep" method for naps? So if his cycle is 45min, you go in at 40min, make a little noise or rouse him slightly, so he comes up to almost waking and then goes back to sleep for the next cycle.