14mo inconsolable at bedtime. What's wrong?

[dampsquib94]

My 14mo is absolutely inconsolable at bedtime every single night. It's been this way for about eight months now, consistently. Every. Single. Night. They sleep through the night once down, but it takes anything from one to three plus hours of screaming and sobbing to get them to sleep when they eventually pass out from exhaustion. We hold our child every single night until they're fast asleep and they sleep in the same room as us in a separate bed, as has been the case since birth. We've tried sleep training-- didn't work as my child continues screaming well beyond twenty minutes or so. And it is proper, inconsolable, distressed screaming and sobbing, it's not just a normal tantrum that passes quickly enough. There have been a couple of nights where we've just let them run around until exhausted and even then we've had to intervene at about 10pm and go through the hellish go-to-bed routine anyway. I genuinely think they could make it through to 3/4am until passing out if just running around playing.

Naps are brief at the moment. Used to be one nap of about three hours until the past month, now on one nap of anything between fifteen minutes and an hour-- and that's not for lack of trying on our part. Night sleep is anything from eight to ten hours.

My baby looks EXHAUSTED. We as parents are EXHAUSTED. Just not coping. It's normally at least two hours every night and it only seems to be getting worse. Teething makes it slightly worse, but once teething has passed it doesn't get much better.

The HV can't see us until September. Is there anything we can do? Can the GP do anything?

The bottom line is, over tired.

Some 14mo can cope with one nap days, ususlly those with established long, uninterrupted nights sleep and easy to settle. Then, they'd be having 2 ish hours of a daytime nap.

The majority of babies at this age are still in two nap days tho. Morning nap and afternoon nap - probably 3h combined. The fact that your baby isn't getting this is likely the crux of the matter.

I'd force the matter for a couple of weeks in order to reestablish the routine if naps. Go for naps anyway, any how. A two hour drive if thats what's needed. Or massive daily pushchair, walks. Bouncy chair naps if baby will tolerate and you can monitor. Just reestablish good naps. That will help with bedtime, in time.

I agree, over tired. Up to 1hr in the day and 8-10hrs at night is not enough overall. I agree with PP to force naps however possible. When DS got into a bad state of over tiredness I sat with him for complete contact naps for a couple of days to ensure he got the right amount of sleep needed to catch up. At 14 months I would only expect one nap days if they are capable of having a long consolidated nap of at least 2 hours.

Agree with the PPs, probably chronic overtiredness. Try to get them down as early as you can in the evening (given there's upset whatever time they go down). Try and create as low stimulating environment as you can in the hour preceding bedtime (dim lights, relaxing music, books and only gentle play). Make naps happen however you can - contact, pram, car etc. Some babies can do 1 nap at this age (my daughter at 15 months does a 2 hour nap at lunchtime and nighttime is 7.30pm-6am ish) but some do still need 2. At this point though just focus on as much sleep as you can possibly squeeze in so they can catch up.