17m old has NEVER slept, help?!

[Just336]

So my 17m old is still breastfeeding, naps 12 - 2. Gets plenty of exercise and outdoor time, eats well. Has milk in a straw cup before bed. But he wakes hourly, sometimes every half an hour. I do half the night and I have to breastfeed him back to sleep and my husband does half the night and he has to pat him back to sleep. Will never do cry it out or ferber. Have tried pick up put down and have tried getting him to fall asleep independently and he just WONT! He gets so so upset. My question is, does anyone else's kid sleep like this? He sleeps in his own room with a noise machine and a duvet and pillow. Dark room, with a dim night light. Has anyone had a kid like this and they improved? WHEN???? I am at my wits end, feel so isolated with this and feel like I'm losing myself.

9 month old ds had me on my knees.... Had to stop breastfeeding..
Ds was like a new baby after 3 nights. As was I and the whole family. No hard crying. Ds is now 11 and still loves his bed...

Why no sleep training? You realise your baby is crying more by not self settling. Nothing wrong with teaching baby how to put themselves back to sleep. Your baby is using you as a human dummy.

What aspect is causing the issue - the not going to sleep independently at the start of the night? I'm no help to you, my son is nearly 2 and we stay with him until he's asleep. I just think it's normal (for us if not everyone) and i quite like it, time alone quietly with him. The waking hourly business I am sorry to say only stopped when I packed in breast feeding and started weaning, and even then we were at 2-4 hours for a good few months until he started to eat better volume.

I should note, consistent bedtime routine, wakes at 7 ish for the day usually. Tonsils are fine, no mouth breathing. GPS not concerned medical wise x

Could you try without the noise machine?
I realised recently that last 4 wee ones I've looked after who relied on noise machines but woke easily from naps actually slept much better on the occasions their mums forgot to send the noise machines (&I was expecting dreadful naps). Once they'd managed it couple of times I just stopped using the noise machine & parents told me they were suddenly sleeping better at night ( I'd not told them I wasn't using NMs)

He’s at a good age for night weaning, have a read on Jay Gordon’s method. Having this much interrupted sleep isn’t good for either of you and while this method will involve some crying, it’s inevitable, you are there to comfort just not give them what they want. You need to do this for both of you. He has shown he can sleep without boob by being patted to sleep so if the boob never appears the wakeups should be less as when he wakes for your husband he’s probably still hopeful that it might be the boob half of the night.

Both of my kids were like this. We ended up co-sleeping. Both slept excellently as long as they were with one of us. It worked for us - we were so sleep deprived that any sleep won, so we settled into co-sleeping. We take turns and do one night each.

Yes my first was like this, (hence 5 years before the next baby!). We ended up putting a mattress in his room and someone slept in his room with him so they could resettle him quickly and the other person could sleep. He did eventually sleep, when he was old enough to understand “if you stay in bed asleep all night you can have x” and rewarding him for not getting out of bed. Pleased to say next one was an excellent sleeper and I did nothing different so it’s not something you are doing or not doing.

We had similar with our eldest and like the reply above cosleeping did help get a lot more sleep. Have you ruled out food intolerances? My DD was intolerant to dairy (which she got through my breast milk) and also wheat , and I think she was simply uncomfortable. The GP didn't find this and I realised through a naturopath and changing her diet improved sleep radically, So do keep an eye out if yours been sick or had possible stomach pain but hopefully it's not intolerance related .

Us too. Great sleep with us, terrible without. They were in their own beds all night by 3.

@Just336
here for the solidarity!!! I could of written your post!
we have a 19 month old DS and have had about 2 nights where he has slept though so i know he can!!
He is still breastfed, though falls asleep independently if not with me! We chose to cosleep from the early hours and dad sees to any wake ups pre then.
I have had friends suggest from experience that weaning off the boob was the game changer!
however neither of us are ready to stop yet!
good luck!

Water only through the night. He will learn there’s no point in waking up for water as no milk is forthcoming, and sleep on. Hopefully!!

Thanks everyone for the replies, pretty sure there's no intolerances. I'd quite like to set his room up for co-sleeping but at the same time I feel like we'll never stop once we start! We coslept exclusively for the first 7m of his life until he showed me he could sleep independently and now his sleep is f*cked basically. Its so so bad. Last night he woke 9 times. Its exhausting. I tried not offering the boob last night and it went so badly. I think I'll need to have a week off work to night ween honestly.

At 17 months he shouldn’t need a two hour nap during the day and he shouldn’t need breast milk.

@Smurphy99what are you on about ? Of course he needs a nap , most toddlers drop the nap close to 3 years old and perfectly fine to still breastfeed.

Echoing what others have said, two of my friends have just managed to reclaim their sleep by stopping breastfeeding. One child is 14 months and the other is 2.5. Both were prolific night-wakers but started sleeping through within the week.

Both of my children were like that they woke up multiple times in the night and yes sometimes hourly until they were 5 YEARS OLD 😭 sorry that’s probably not what you want to hear but on the other hand there is still hope that it will get better eventually 😅

One was breast fed coslept until age 4 and fed back to sleep until 3ish other was bottle fed, stopped night feeds pretty early and slept in his own room but despite the differences both didn’t sleep through the night until 5 so I think you just have to let it happen when it happens 😵

Both mine dropped their only nap at 18 months.

One always slept brilliantly regardless of how long they napped, and dropping the nap had no impact.

One slept really badly, and dropping the nap just removed the stress of trying to get them to sleep at nap time, but didn't really improve night time sleep. That improved gradually, as long as we accepted that the day started at 5/5.30am.