20 month old sleep issues

[SleepDeprivedParent]

Hi, we can’t afford a sleep consultant so I’m hoping someone on here might be able to help. My daughter had always been a terrible sleeper. She wakes up at 4am so during the Christmas break we worked hard on putting her back to bed until eventually she would wake at 5/5:15. Unfortunately with the change in her wake up time she was then also refusing her nap in the day in her bed and would only fall asleep if she was out in the car or buggy. We assumed maybe she was trying to drop her nap but since returning to work and nursery 2 days a week with the others being at home she’s gone back to waking at 4am. The first day of nursery she had 2.5hr sleep and woke at 4am the next day so the following day I asked my mum to not let her sleep for longer than an hour or no nap at all. Neither has helped and her sleep pattern has progressed to bed at 7pm awake as early as 3:50. We spend well over an hour back and forth putting her back in bed to the point we cave. She doesn’t have anything for comfort, I’ve tried endless things and she’s not bothered with milk so I can’t give her some in bed like I could my eldest. Just at our wits end with this now!

is something waking her up at that time such as heating going on? Or is she cold?

I don’t know. We are looking at getting a bigger rad put in her room to eliminate that issue and the heating is on when she wakes us up. Maybe I could look at getting some soundproofing board for the cupboard too

I feel for you! My 2 year old is going through a sleep regression and I am finding it so hard. He would usually sleep from 7pm until 6am. We would lay him in his cot and he would drift off to sleep by himself. Now, getting him to sleep is a battle and he is waking up multiple times in the night and refuses to go back to sleep.
Some things I was told that I have noticed have helped...

6 hour wake window between nap and bedtime. We make sure he's awake by 1pm the latest so he's ready for bed at 7pm.

An activity after his nap, like taking him out for a walk to wear him out.

Have you tried a later bed time? Sometimes going to bed that tiny bit later, 30-45 min can make a difference.

I am told it's a phase and it will pass...

I feel like it’s a phase that won’t stop! Since about September she has been like this and having the opportunity to work on it over Christmas was great as she went to sleeping 7pm-5am but now shes waking at 4 and going to bed at 7 so we have tried 6pm and she still wakes at 4.
shes going in her sisters bed tonight and I’m going to sleep in her cot bed 🙈 to see if I can find out what’s going on. The things we do for a bit of sleep 🤣

I don't have any advice but just wanted to commiserate that I'm in exactly the same position with my 20 month old, her sleep seemed to go to shit at 18 months and hadn't recovered. I did find that putting an extra layer on her gave me an additional hour so now it's a 5am wakeup. To be honest I have kind of accepted it, her language is really exploding and changing at the minute and she's forming small sentences so I assume that's a big part of the sleep disruption and I'm just crossing my fingers it will settle in time. Sorry! I know how shitty it is.

We've had this with our 21 month old - a few things helped.

1. capping her nap to two hours, awake by 2:30 - yours might need shorter still
2. pushing bedtime to 8
3. merino sleeping bag with sleeves, and merino baselayers and not letting the house get colder than 17 degrees overnight!

We're now consistently being woken at about 6:30 ( apart from this morning when she woke up at 5:45! 😕😕)

How long did it last for you?

Average overnight is about 10-11 hours at this age, particularly if still napping. (12 hours total in 24). If you're on the lower end of average, then probably needs a later bedtime. Try bed at 8 or 8.30? It won't shift the wake up immediately, like jet lag, but might work after a few days.

We had 4am wakes for about 2/3 months and it was a killer - as soon as we pushed bedtime back it shifted to about 5:00/5:30, then we added the sleeved sleep sack and we had some nice 6:00/6:30 wakes - we're now consistently more or less 6:30/7:00 but to maintain that we've had to be more strict about capping her naps - if she sleeps too much in the day she's up before 6am!
The improvements happened pretty quickly once we figured out the root causes.

I really feel for you. Ours has been the same, around 18 months too.
when do you get to a point and think it can’t be a sleep regression anymore, all all the books say they don’t last long and this feels like forever 🤣.

Thank you all for the advice.
She refused to sleep in her sisters bed last night so i changed the boiler schedule to stop heating the room at 18 by 4am to see if the boiler kicking in was the problem. 4:15 and she is wide awake ready to start the day! Only blessing was no crying she just wanted play and put her Tonies box on and “read” her bing book loudly while constantly getting out of bed and opening the door 🙈 so tonight’s mission is to put the thermostat to 19 and see if she’s cold. I’m going to see if she will go back to wearing a sleeping bag aswell. We stopped them because she was getting annoyed and taking it off. I might have to start an elimination list 🤣

we had lots of sleep issues with our 13 month old at the time. Consistently woke every hour no matter what we tried. We had a sleep expert from the NHS deliver some CPD to our team at work, and she recommended I call the Sleep Charity for advice. It’s a free service and run by volunteers who are sleep experts. At first I felt a bit deflated because I felt we had tried the stuff they suggested before, but never really consistently or for long enough. But gave it a go as had nothing to lose, and within 3 nights we went from hourly wake ups to sleeping through. Don’t get me wrong, we still have blips with different sleep regressions but it’s much better overall now.

https://thesleepcharity.org.uk/national-sleep-helpline/

Thank you, I will give this a go

We are also have so many issues with separation anxiety with a 19 month old toddler. He often wakes between 2-4am and takes 60-90 minutes to get back down…. (If he will at all). Have ended up doing some co sleeping just so he stops screaming and we can get some rest but worried this will make it worse long term.
We put an electric heater in his room on a timer overnight but doesn’t seem to have solved it. Interested in the merino wool sleeping bag idea. Sending solidarity as it’s awful.

We had to cap out little ones nap at 1.5 hours when she was 18 months old because of early wakes or, even worse, split nights! She only sleeps about 10.5 hours at night, too. If you cap the nap it can take couple weeks to have effect.