Help Please 19m

[HoboHippo]

My DD is just under 19m. We had sleep pretty nailed, bedtime routine, down in cot, self-settling without me staying with her, sleeping through. All great. Then out of nowhere about two weeks ago - bam. Suddenly really struggling to self-settle - it can take an hour or even more to get her to drop off and requires me to go back and cuddle her til almost asleep repeatedly. My evenings are non-existent. Does anyone know what might be causing this and what the best approach is? I have tried being firm and saying it's bedtime and lying her back down but she gets totally beside herself - it's not doable. Any advice gratefully received!

What's her daytime sleep like? And what time is bedtime / wake up. It does sound like a phase but I am in the minority on MN in that I support sleep training which sometimes means that if they're struggling to sleep, I let them have a shout in their cot and figure it out on their own. I learned the hard way with DS1 that me going in there and trying to soothe him would make it 100% worse as he would calm down while I was in there, then go mental again the second I left. It felt kinder to let him try to soothe himself and he would end up calming down and going to sleep much quicker than if I was constantly in and out of his room trying to fix something that wasn't fixable. He didn't actually need me for anything, he was just figuring out how to fall asleep by himself.

Thanks for the reply. Bedtime usually starts at half seven to eight but at the moment she often isn't asleep until anywhere between 8:50 and 9:15 because of how long it's taking. She won't accept DH at bedtime, only me. Wake time is variable but has got earlier over these past few weeks and I've ended up bringing her in with me at 4/5am quite a few times. She'll usually sleep a bit more in my bed. Daytime sleep - she goes down anywhere between 11:30 and 1:15, depending on how early she woke, and usually sleeps for around 1.5&2 hrs.

It’s a phase.

you have been lucky up to now btw!

Sounds like overtiredness to me. I would really suggest starting bedtime at 6-6:30 with a view to having her in bed by 7pm absolute latest. If not 6:45 if it's taking her a long time to go off. If she's waking early in the morning and not falling asleep until 9pm then she's going to bed overtired and it's makes it very difficult to fall asleep. Bedtime needs to be much much earlier if you can

Ps, my 20m old also won't accept DH at bedtime it has to be me. So he does the 3yo and I do the baby. It can be tiring but it's pretty common, especially if you're the primary caregiver

Thanks - I'll try bringing bedtime forward a bit and see what happens...

@3luckystars well... DD slept in our room for more than 12 months with a lot of that time being co-sleeping. I did not know how I would get her into the cot in her own room, as trying to put her in the cot led to full on screaming. Then one day she must have just been ready. Once in her room in her cot, I had to sit in the room with her until she fell asleep or again, she would get v upset. It's only in the past couple of months that we had things seemingly sorted and I could put her down and leave but yes, we are lucky to have had that at all, for sure.