My daughter is almost 18 mo. We cracked sleep training with the Ferber method at about 6 mo when she was in a cot, but then nursery happened 😂 between the frequent night waking, germs and calpol doses it made more sense to have her in bed with me. This lasted 6 months before she was so mobile that I wasn’t getting a good night sleep! So we decided to transition to a floor bed in her own room as I couldn’t imagine her going back into a cot given the freedom she’d had in bed with me.
i love the idea of a floor bed and her room is baby proofed. So IN THEORY (and what was going to happen in my head, magically in a burst of rainbows and butterfly’s) we would say ‘mummy will stay with you if you want to sleep, but if you want to play mummy will go downstairs’. She could then do what she wanted and fall asleep safely when she was ready.
until recently she’s been pretty ok to put down. Bath, bottle, cuddle and then gently put her onto the mattress when she’s asleep.
HOWEVER this week everything has changed. She is NOT TIRED. She is WIDE AWAKE until I end up throwing in the towel and going to bed with her at about 8:30. If we leave the room at any point she is absolutely inconsolable - sobbing and comes to the door and knocks on it from the inside 😩😩😩
my issue is that I’m currently spending my whole evening watching a toddler play because she’s not tired - I don’t mind that she’s not sleeping, but I want to be able to actually have hot food for dinner not cereal, and for her to be comfortable enough in her room without me.
is sleep training at 18 mo even possible?!
do we need to work on separation anxiety as a whole (she’ll cry if we leave her in her room with the baby gate up even if it’s just to go for a wee or run the bath which is within eye sight)?
anyone with a floor bed experienced anything similar?
she’s only on one nap at lunchtime, and has just learned to walk, so I’m wondering if it’s a mental spike in excitement for her.
but I’m stuck and don’t know where to go from here! Halp! X