One year old still not sleeping - medical issue?

[JoannaKP]

Does anyone know if it's worth getting my one year old checked out for medical issues which might be affecting sleep? Or if anyone knows any medical issues which may be affecting sleep?

When I said I can count on one hand how many times he has slept through since he was born I'm not kidding.

The past week or so it's back to being awake pretty much all night screaming from midnight till we eventually get up around 5-6am.

I myself am now suffering from insomnia and spent my nights crying.

He is fed, changed, on reflux medication, white noise etc etc the list goes on.

I'm now wondering if there is medically something wrong?

Surely by one we should have had at least a run of decent sleep?

People blame teething etc but he cannot possibly be teething every single night.

Exhausted/emotion mum here!

I don't know how much longer I can cope. I'm in consultation with my HV who is equally as baffled as me.

He seems to be surviving on very little quality sleep and day sleep is just as bad/unpredictable. Tried shorter naps/longer naps/one nap/two naps. Nothing makes a difference.

I'm so sad. I feel like I'm losing any sort of bond I had with him as I now just resent him/am too tired to interact with him. My husband is getting there too with these feelings. Even taking turns and giving him overnight to others we are both getting angry and frustrated now.

Could he have CMPA? That can cause poor sleep.

How does he go to sleep? Does he fall asleep independently or is he fed/rocked to sleep?

I'd start with you. As the saying goes, "you cannot fill cups from an empty jug". I would speak to your GP about your anxiety and crying all night. I appreciate this won't change your sons sleep, but it will help you cope better and more positively with the situation you are in.

With regards to your son, lots of 1 year olds are still waking frequently. It might be something medical, but it could equally be a behavioural habit.

What is actually happening with baby's sleep? How does baby go to sleep? Where is baby sleeping? What happens in the night when awake, to get him back to sleep? Where/how do daytime naps happen?

I'm sorry to say this, but my DS didn't start sleeping through properly until he was about 3.5. There was nothing wrong with him, he just hadn't learned how to do it yet.

Like you, it caused me to develop awful insomnia and I felt like I was going insane.

Could your partner make sure you're properly taking it in turns? Even if they take baby downstairs and you wear ear plugs to make sure you're getting a solid stretch of sleep? Maybe they could book a week off work and do a few nights in a row to let you recover, and then you can start alternating properly?

Other options would be sleep training (something I wasn't comfortable with, but everyone parents differently and we are talking about a 1 year old, not a tiny baby!) Or co-sleeping to maximise everyone's sleep?

Sending lots of sympathy, it's so rough, and no one understands how rough it is once you're past the newborn stage

@Vicky1989x when he was about 3 months old the HV thought he did and he was on dairy free formula for about 5 months and he still had these issues and was sick all the time and didn't take much milk and his skin was awful.

So I put him back on regular formula and he was better.

His sleep is getting worse rather than better. He's always been up at least one per night for a feed but would normally go straight back to sleep. But he is now one and shouldn't need this and also shouldn't be having formula or bottles !!

He falls asleep a variety of ways, sometimes falls asleep drinking the bottle, sometimes doesn't take any milk and goes down on his own, sometimes in his cot and cries a bit then drifts off.

During the night either with a feed or being help and patted.

@FATEdestiny

I've already contacted my HV and told her I'm struggling majorly and don't enjoy being a mum. She is doing 2 weekly visits with me bur doesn't think I have PND just suffering majorly from sleep deprivation. We are working with her on solutions but nothing is working and as I said things are getting worse rather than better.

My parents would take my son every night if I wanted but that's not getting to the root of the problem. He sleeps better at theres but still awake for 30-40 minutes during the night and requiring a feed.

He sleeps in his own room in a cot with blackout blinds and white noise.

We have trialled earlier bedtimes (6pm) later bedtimes (7-7.30pm) recently we have tried no bath before bed to minimise any excitement which may affect him falling asleep. We have tried snack before bed.

Normal routine would be dinner, bath, chill time, get ready for bed, book then upstairs for bottle and bed. He goes down fine normally but it's keeping him sleeps

Sometimes he wakes 30-40 after going to bed, sometimes he sleep till midnight and is then awake, sometimes it's 2-3am. There is no rhyme or reason.

Naps are becoming awful too. He is fighting them at every opportunity. Again I've tried going by the clock, tried doing wake windows.

A normal day he is only having one nap in the morning sometimes 30 mins sometimes 1h. Again no consistency.

I offer him another nap but he just screams and screams.

I've tried car naps, pram naps. Nothing works.

When he wakes at night we normally wait 5-10 mins to see if he will settle, if not we go in and try to settle with patting and shhh, if they doesn't work then we offer w bottle, if they doesn't work it's a case of in and out in and out until he is asleep which can be 2 hours. Sometimes he is up for the day at 4am.

@TheCheeseBadge

My husband and I do week about getting up at night but when he cries because he is next door we both end up up. Also he is getting up so much now, one person cannot do it all night as we both work.

I think we may have to sleep train but it's a thought, even less sleep!

Co sleeping is definitely Not an option. We wouldn't feel comfortable and anytime we have tried to bring him into our bed as a last resort he just climbs out or climbs the headboard etc.

My partner is now at his wits end too. He is getting very angry during the night with the frequent wake ups and he used to be so patient but it's getting to him now too.

Someone with better knowledge will be along to help properly.
I just wanted to say you will get through this, it will get better.
My babies both started reliably sleeping through the night at 3 years old. So it can be normal not to be sleeping through at 1. The only way we got through it was co-sleeping. I know you don't want to but it's the only thing that worked for us.
I hope someone has more advice that will help.

Has he had any ear infections or been checked for ear, tonsil or adenoid infections, or glue ear?

@Garman no ear infections that we know of?

He had a bit of a temperature a couple of weeks ago but the doc wouldn't even see him as he wasn't unwell just a Temp.

He doesn't rub his ear or show any signs of an infection.

My first thought was cmpa, could also be soya and egg allergy. I suspect its tummy ache when he is crying. I have been there.
As you are both exhausted take him to your parents for the nights for a week. You'll get some sleep and everything is easier with some sleep.
My bad sleeper is now 4 and sleeps through about 50% of the time.

My son had no signs of ear infection but it turned out he'd had one at some point which had left him with glue ear, and he had infected adenoids, between the two he was in discomfort and pain during the night and waking screaming every 45-60 mins. Worth getting checked out to rule it out if nothing else. My ds never pulled at his ears or anything.

None of mine slept through the night until they were 3 so it’s not entirely unusual to still have night wakings at 1.
I remember sobbing at the GP once when DD1 was nearly 2 and I had a newborn as well, as DD1’s sleep was worse than the newborns.
Having said that, there are definitely things you can try to help. Have you got funds for a sleep consultant? When DC3 was 15 months we paid around £400 for a sleep consultant to give us some pointers. He still didn’t sleep through for another 9 months or so but it definitely improved things significantly.

Neither of my two slept through the night until the day they walked (at 16 months for both of them).

Night wakings for both were frequent until around 5 years ago (they are now 15 and 11).

I wish you rest and soon.

Sleep train.
This is not good for him either.

Have you read 'The Baby Detective'? She is phenomenal and can definitely recommend her help - I think she's called Sarah?

My 11 month old wakes between 3-6 times a night. Mostly 3. I can put her back after her feed mostly twice, but the third time she'll cry for more than an hour. It used to be that all wake ups would take roughly 90 minutes but since we did controlled crying she sleeps a lot better. She has never slept through. Her sleep is definately worse when she's teething so I give her paracetamol before night when she's teething. Most nights I went to bed really early so I get enough sleep to survive the night/next day.

So I would recommend sleep training. It didn't "solve" the wake ups for us but they're definately much, much shorter now. I wish I had done it months earlier. I felt like a bad mum for two days but then she started sleeping better and has become a happier baby because of it!

As a one-off experiment, if you give him a dose of calpol just before bed, does he sleep noticeably better? If so, he's likely in pain with something. You still have to work out what, but its a start.

If the calpol makes no real difference, it may be behavioural (separation anxiety, night terrors or something else)

My 4 year old still wakes in the night and has never napped since the day she was born. It is unusual for a child of 4 to still wake during the night but its not unheard of. At 1 she barely slept an hour at a time. Absolutely nothing wrong with her she just needs very little sleep to function and likes being awake.

However, its hard to say if something other than personality is causing this as we don't know your baby. The suggestions above are good ones.

Following as we’re in the same boat

So he only wakes up once a night? My 22month old still wakes up atleast once, but sometimes twice. We havnt done anything different with him than with either DS1 who started sleeping through at 9 months and slept great after that. Sometimes some babies just take longer to be able to sleep through unfortunately

My son was like this at 1yrs old and it was absolutely exhausting. I called the HV and she helped us so much!
She said every night do dinner, bath book and bed. Put white noise on. Say goodnight hugs and kisses. Light off and child in cot. Sit quietly in the dark and let child settle themselves off to sleep. However long it takes. If they wake in the night same thing. Reassure them then just sit quietly until they are asleep so they learn how to self settle. Do same at nap time and keepnap time aame time each day. Took a good few weeks over an hour each time intially but he slowly learned and now he naps well everyday and sleeps 12 hours through the night. No night feeds or screaming etc. It was a life changer for us instead of 6+ wakings a night and up for hours at a time and 4am wakeups and refusing naps. Hes now 19 months and I have my sanity back.

It’s so tough when sleep is so disrupted and there just doesn’t seem to be a solution.
Have you tried to have a more consistent nap schedule based on awake windows? A friend of mine is a sleep consultant and really advocates focussing on the nap routine rather than focussing on night sleep when there are so many issues. She would always say looks for tiredness signs and then put down for a nap so for a 12 month old it would be between 3-4 hours after they first wake for the day, then regardless of how long they sleep for, put them down for their next nap 3-4 hours after they wake up. Then bedtime should be 3-4 hours after that, and be consistent with how you put them to sleep it’s always the same, eg cuddles and story,sleep sack, comforter, then lay down and if they get upset always comfort in the same way….we used a hand on the back to start with and can now just leave our little one to fall asleep on his own. It did take a number of weeks though

My 15month old still wakes a couple of times a night, sometimes sleeps through sometimes wakes 5 times. There's no reason to it, it's just what she's like. I'm just keeping to the routine and I hope for the best each night.

I know that's not what you wanted to hear but it may be worth trying a dose of calpol before bed to see if that helps? If it does then it's probably worth taking him to the gp x

@ISaidDontLickTheBin we give him calpol when he has been struggling with his teeth during the day. He's had calpol most nights for the past week and still his sleep is awful :(

When he's been waking I've given him the teething gel too.

@abbs1 yes we are beginning sleep training tonight with him so fingers crossed we see some improvement!