16 months old sleep issues and nursery about to start

[oyster86]

Male half of couple here. A description of the situation is below - any advice would be hugely appreciated.

INTRO
We have a 16 month old boy - our first. My partner is a child psychologist, so I trust her implicitly on all things kids, but that’s not to say I (or indeed she) don’t think outsider advice is useful too. She is vehemently against cry it out sleep training methods, and I respect that. However, I do fear - and it’s completely understandable - that she is reluctant to try new things or rock the boat too much in an attempt to get as much sleep as she can (and him!), after so much sleep deprivation for so long. I don’t feel as though we’ve made much sleep progress at all for months and I don’t think things are going to change unless we’re a bit more proactive about it. I take full joint responsibility for where we’re at with things - this isn’t blaming my partner, even if I do let her take the lead on it.

NIGHT TIMES
He has still not once slept anything close to through the entire night, which I appreciate will be fairly normal for a lot of children, even if you feel alone in it sometimes. Going to sleep around 7-8pm, he still suckles mum to sleep every night and then goes in the cot asleep. He’ll wake between 10pm and midnight and my partner then prefers to co sleep with him in their own bed, likely with a couple of wake ups along the way, if not suckling all night from time to time.

NAP TIMES
He’s dropped down to one nap a day, usually around 12-2pm. He has never napped in his cot. It is either whilst being pushed in his pram, driven around in the car, or suckled to sleep my mum on the bed, after which time she may be able to leave him to sleep until he wakes - usually more than once - and suckled back to sleep, after which time she may or may not be able to leave him.

He will not sleep with me in any circumstance, other than when in the pram or car. She largely tells me this is how things have to be and to just keep doing it, but I am questioning if there might be more we could be doing.

He’s starting nursery (well, childminders) next week for two days a week and I’ve honestly no idea how that is going to work since he won’t nap with anyone but mum. Will something just suddenly click in a different environment or do problems await us? It’s a Montessori setup and the naps will be in prams outside.

Please help!

It's likely he will adapt. He will be exhausted in a new environment.

It may take a while though. Trust the childcare provider to deal with it.

There is a huge difference to being used as a dummy for every nap and sleep to letting a child cry it out IF you want to stop the reliance on suckling which would likely improve sleep overall.

Nursery will figure it out. They manage well with my tricky sleeper. See if you can settle him to sleep at the beginning of the night when sleep pressure is highest, my partner managed this eventually, our baby will sleep by being held by him now. Have you looked at the no cry sleep solution book?

This sounds very normal in our family experience, and many of my friends. The baby just does manage in a new setting. They may take a little while to get used to it but the childminder is most likely also used to children being like this at home. For what it’s worth when our DC were a similar age I would give them a final feed whilst awake and then DH put them to bed. It was a pretty tiring week but the DC got used to it and were happy having a cuddle with him by the end of it.

Childcare settings have this magic ability to get kids doing stuff they would never do at home. Maybe it's a peer pressure effect? Your DC will probably surprise you and nap well there, although they might take a wee while to settle.