15 month sleep problems

[Rowlie]

DS is a few days shy of 15m. His sleep has steadily worsened over the past two months or so. In fact, it’s the worst his sleep has ever been with the exception of newborn where he was waking to bf every 2hrs. A good night is one wake up. Bad night is three to four. This is from a baby who has slept through (7-5.30/6am since 6 months (early start I know but I couldn’t seem to change this!). The only plus now is that he sometimes sleeps until 7/7.30 but only because he’s had such a disturbed night!

When he wakes, he is relatively easy to resettle with a cuddle. Sometimes we give Ibuprofen/calpol if he seems in pain. Some times we don’t have to go to him, he’ll cry for 5 mins but settle himself. I just don’t know why he’s doing it. Is 15m a notorious age for bad sleep? What is going on?!

I don’t expect sleep to be linear but this seems to be getting worse and is now almost every night. He naps for 30 mins at 9.30-10am and for 1.5-2hrs at 1.30-3.30pm. If he wakes later he sometimes just has one nap 12.30-2.30 (although sometimes he’ll only sleep for 1hr or so which is a nightmare as then he’s really tired). Anyway, IMO naps don’t really seem to have much impact on his night sleep, may be different for other babies but it’s never seemed to correlate to night sleep that much here.

Is anyone else going through this with their 15mo or has been through it?! I was braced for bad sleep around 18m as that seems common but it seems to have happened early here! He is walking and understands a lot but no real words yet, he is trying though.

No idea if this bad sleep is teething, developmental, or just a phase!! Thanks if you’ve managed to get to the end of this essay

We are just coming out of this with our 16 month old. We've cut him down to one nap now but it's taken a few weeks of being consistent for it to have an impact.

Also does yours fall asleep on their own at nap/bedtime? You say sometimes you cuddle back to sleep but it might be worth teaching self settling. We did controlled crying but you could do a more gentle method where you move towards not picking LO up out of the crib.

Also is the temperature having an impact? We've switched to a 3.5 tog bag and added a long sleeved vest under his pyjamas as he was getting cold this week.

I feel like I could have wrote this myself.

Our 15 month olds sleep has got worse since he turned 1, frequent waking and will cuddle back to sleep.

He shares a room with his brother so we find it hard sleep training and he often ends up in bed with us just so we can get some sleep.

I think it's a big development stage, teething etc.

Last night I put him down sleepy but awake, there were lots of tears but he eventually settled himself and only woke up at 3am so going to try this again tonight.

He's at a childminder and his naps aren't really routine if they are out and about so it's hard to have him in a day routine. When I was off work I was quite strict with routine but can't do much about it now.

He can self settle fine. I do think people put too much importance on self settling… he’s always been able to self settle, well since 4/5 months and it’s had no impact on his sleep. So I really don’t think this is the problem. It may be different for different babies though. As I said, 50% of the time we don’t even have to go to him. I can hear him crying on the monitor and leave him 5 mins or so to see if he’ll settle and sometimes he does but other times he is so worked up and upset we have to intervene otherwise he’ll make himself sick.

We have our thermostat in his room set to 17c so temp never drops below that and he’s in a 2.5tog so think he should be ok?

He always goes in his cot awake and puts himself to sleep, that’s always been the case

My 15mo has been having trouble with sleep for the past month so maybe 15months is a time for tricky sleep.

Night wakes haven’t changed much, he wakes 2-4 times most nights which is an absolute improvement as birth-1year he woke 2hourly.

We are struggling with him being awake for 1-3hours around 2am some nights.

Some nights he just will not go to sleep and is up playing until 11pm, he is in a toddler bed as he can climb out of cot and he can also open his bedroom door so there isn’t a lot we can do to stop this as obviously communication is limited.

He has also had 3 days in the last 2 weeks where he has not napped 🤯 and other days where he has napped for 3hrs. His usual routine was one nap from 11am-12.30/1pm.

So essentially I don’t really have any advice, I’m just letting you know that you are not alone, hope you can get some rest soon.

@Sallythesloth3 this sounds rough! Sending hugs and coffee and strength.

I try to remember, This Too Shall Pass.

Mine can’t yet get out of his cot thank god.

Thank you @Rowlie sometimes I think he just likes to switch things up as soon as I think I know what’s going on 😂

It’s hard but I’m trying to be relaxed and go with the flow as trying to force things just stresses me out.

Oh yes, I would recommend keeping the cot as long as possible!

@Sallythesloth3 there’s only so much you can control. The sleep training industry likes to focus on self settling but IME doesn’t make much difference. My baby can self settle and is still waking frequently.

@Rowlie but he's not self settling if 50% of the time you are cuddling him back to sleep? I offered advice as to what worked for us (one nap on a consistent basis, moving away from cuddling back to sleep, adding another layer) which you've dismissed it all. So I don't think you're really looking for help, you're just wanting to vent. Hope it gets better for you but if you don't change anything then that will surely take longer.

@PurplePetalPip thanks for your advice. I agree 2-1 nap transition may be affecting it. If he’s crying to the point he can’t settle himself I know something is wrong, so therefore I am going to comfort him. He can self settle and does so at bedtime and nap time and also in the middle of the night. We are having problems where he is waking very upset, this is not a self settling issue. I am looking for advice otherwise I wouldn’t have posted. Thanks

@PurplePetalPip also he’s not been cuddled back to sleep, he’s being cuddled and given reassurance until he calms down and then goes back in his cot awake.

No advice @Rowlie. I just wanted to say I’m with you, currently an hour and a half in with my soon to be 15MO. Sleep has been awful for about 3 months and we can’t seem to get back on track. Lots of teeth breaking through, she’s been poorly recently with be very high temps so I gave up and let her in my bed to keep an eye on her which hasn’t helped (never co slept before). She will wake up crying 2-3 hours after bedtime every single night and it’s hit and miss as to whether she will go back down. We are also mid way through the 2-1 nap transition. A cuddle sometimes works, milk sometimes helps too although at her age she absolutely doesn’t need a night feed, it’s just comfort. I hope it’s just a phase, but it’s so hard to function on so little sleep, especially being back at work full time! I’m currently googling sleep consultants because I’ve run out of ideas!