Help with a 18month old!

[EthanM]

Good evening!

First post here. But I feel I need some help. I'm a dad to five children. Our youngest. Is approaching 18 months old. And for 14 months of that. She hasn't slept properly.

She will wake multiple times. We've tried different beds. Different locations. She often wakes for comfort. Juice. Water. But lately it's been in a bad mood. Hard to console. Wants to be up and ready at 3am. We're not prepared to cry it out. It's not who we are. This has not been a problem with our other children either. So it's a little new. But it's exhausting.

She has between one and two naps a day. Lately it's been one. That nap is perfect. She sleeps solid. It's only at night. We've tried adding white noise. Nothing seems to help.

Id like to thing it was just a sleep regression due to development, but if so. It's been going a long time. Health visitor has no answers.

So if some one can suggest anything that would be amazing.

Oh. She is practically co sleeping. She has a next to me forever at the moment. And willingly goes in it. But she won't stay. She ends up back in bed. Sometimes wants to go back in her bed. Other times doesn't. It's all over the place. So thank you I appreciate any replies and offers of help.

2naps is a lot of day time sleep for an 18 month old

my 18 month old only sleeps 2 hours in the afternoon at 12-2ish

if he gets up super early like before 6 he would look to go asleep mid morning but I keep him up until as close to 12 as possible - as realised it just keeps the early wakes coming as he uses the morning nap as a catch up sleep for early wake

you don’t need to cry it out but could do a more gentle sleep training.

we did - he was waking loads in the night for milk / milk water - comfort - I now leave a water in his cot so he can get it himself

we went into him for these wakes and refused to let
him out of cot basically - just sat next to him and offered the water and patted back to sleep for a while - then moved on to sitting next to the cot, then moved on to sitting nearer the door and within maybe a Week I was literally going in to reassure and now a few weeks later I hear him up see him get his water on monitor and grab his Teddy and he usually goes back asleep within 10 mins

some days we stil have early wakes but getting to 6/7 too regularly so it is improving

good luck

I agree that she definitely needs to be on one nap consistently and possibly not even that. It could also be her big molars coming in - tend to cause issues at night rather than day so I'd try some ibuprofen before bed and see if that helps. Best of luck!

Should be on 1 nap. My 16 month old only sleep 45 mins - 1hr 15 mins a day now.

Split nights like are also a sign of molars with my DS (he has 3 now). They take weeks to come through.

Have you tried just co-sleeping?