I’m at my wits end with my 20 month old and his mad sleep. Sorry this is gonna be long as want to get as much info in as possible.
We sleep trained at 8ish months using a very gradual retreat, took a few weeks but it appeared to work. Got to the point where we can put him down with a dummy, say night love you and leave. For a while he slept well, but would wake up at 5.30am. But that was fine, he slept well the majority of the time.
Then he hit 12 months and started having split nights. These were and still are absolute hell. They range anywhere between 1 to 5 hours. He’s happy as Larry during these split nights the majority of the time - if he’s in our bed clambering everywhere or if we’re sat by his cot watching him run around playing. If we leave him to it he descends into hysteria very very quickly. Split nights sometimes are linked to illness in our case, but not always. They’re not every night, but when they happen they’re absolutely awful.
Then in the last couple of months he’s started being an absolute nightmare at bedtime. Running round his cot, throwing everything out, then screaming at the top of his voice for me to go in there, him to laugh and point to show me where said items he’s thrown are, rinse and repeat for up to 2 hours after bedtime. This isn’t every night, tonight he went down within 10 mins.
He sometimes does the same thing at nap times - messes around for ages, throwing things out the cot etc. other times he’s falling asleep in his lunch at 12pm.
Then there’s the new thing of him randomly sitting up, absolutely screaming the house down until we go in there. He’s done it just now and I’m in the next room - there was no build up to this, no warning grizzling or whinging, just went from asleep to sat bolt upright screaming hysterically. Sometimes all we’ll need to do is say it’s okay, you’re alright night love you and he’s fine and we can leave. Other times we have to sit and wait with him until he falls asleep.
and then sometimes he goes to bed nicely, sleeps through and naps well. But this is becoming increasingly rare.
I’m at my wits end with it all. We recently tweaked his bedtime routine - since having my youngest 10 weeks ago we fell into a bad habit of going and watching TV after bath and cuddling on the sofa. I realised this wouldn’t help matters having TV before bed, so last 2 weeks routine has been dinner, bath, teeth, stories, cuddles and then bed. Also moved his bedtime back from 8pm to 7.30pm in case it was overtired was causing the hyperactive behaviour at bedtimes. Until recently he reliably napped 12-2. I’ve been experimenting with his nap recently as sleeping for 2 hours seemed to make the messing around for hours at bedtime more frequent, but I’m struggling to find the right time for him to go down and the right amount of time for him to nap for.
He doesn’t really have a consistent wake up time, anywhere between 6 and 7.30 is pretty normal and generally depends on what sort of night he’s had.
I just don’t really know where to start with making things better for both him and us. A massive problem is that he picks up SO MANY illnesses, so sleep is regularly derailed by this and when he’s poorly I usually bring him in with me as then at least I have a chance of settling him. He’s naturally quite highly strung, always has been. Always been very very vocal when he doesn’t like something. But obviously he’s even more sensitive when he’s not slept properly. I also am so so tired.
If you’ve made it this far, can anyone please please offer some advice?? I can’t do controlled crying for a few reasons - he shares a room with big brother who has to get up for school, as previously mentioned he’s very sensitive and he would become hysterical VERY quickly and because it would set me on edge having to listen to him absolutely howling. So any suggestions outside of controlled crying appreciated please.
sorry this is quite rambly, I’m very tired ha.
Tia!!