Struggling with 14 month olds overtiredness and poor sleep

[Toon49]

I have a 14 month old, he went through a sleep regression around 12 months and was up half the night. This seems to have settled but he's now refusing naps during the day and waking at between 4 and 5am every morning then being whingy and crying most the day! We leave him in his cot until 6am and he's generally happy sitting with his teddy, babbling and cruising around his cot but will eventually start crying.
We've tried earlier bedtime 6am, later bedtime 7pm, 8pm nothing has helped. Done at least a week at a time with everything. We've tried changing his nap times. Now trying to go down to one nap, he managed this okay at nursery but was then exhausted and slept terribly that night so the next day was a nightmare trying to keep the same schedule although we're currently trying to persist with this (on day 3)!
Anyone had anything similar, how do you manage the day if they're waking so early on 1 nap without constant overtiredness? He's been teething constantly the last 4 months but never been this bad he's just so grumpy all the time which is so hard to deal with!

Thanks for any advice.

Hi, mine is younger (10 months) so I don't know if this will still help with a 14 month old, but we've had a lot of difficulty with naps. We're now into a relatively good routine, which might just be developmental but might be something we did - definitely not claiming to be an expert!

But one thing I did was that I decided 6.30am was the earliest wake up time. So when he woke up at 4/5am, we stayed in the dark nursery. Even if he was awake, I would just sit quietly with him on my lap. Often he wriggled around for quite a while, but often he eventually drifted back off, although it might be after 30-60+ minutes, then he'd just contact nap until 6.30. I was just very staunch that we weren't having daylight and getting up.

He might be struggling to re-settle in his cot and need you to go in and help him. It's a pain but it might pay off if you do it.

Obviously this only really works if they're not actually distressed - if he was crying then I might feed him or sometimes it was his nappy etc. But usually if it wasn't either of those things he would be a bit fussy but not actually distressed to stay in the room.

I did that for about 2 weeks and he did sort of reset his body clock - he tends to wake up at about 6.15 now (even then I still sit in the dark with him until 6.30, I'm totally rigid with it 😂)

Good luck, it is really difficult! x

It took mine months to go to one nap, it doesn't have to be a straight switch. If he's tired in the morning, do a 10 min buggy nap so that you can get through to a decent time longer afternoon nap. We did a few months of this.

Thanks this used to work (or similar)! But now he just cries and gets frustrated now as he's wanting to crawl around! He is okay until 6am which is fine by us for work anyway it's more that he's overtired during the day.

Thank you! That's what I've done today and he's managed okay although his longer nap was still pretty short and he's woke up distressed as still tired. Hoping it'll improve the longer we do it. I think it's nursery that effects him for whatever reason as it's always the day after he struggles!

Mine has got much better since she can really cope with the awake time either side of 1 nap; but that hasn’t happened til about 17 months .

We had 3-4 months of a short buggy nap that I had to wake him up from in the morning and a longer nap in the middle of the day when he was in the process of reducing his daily sleep. If his morning nap was too long, his afternoon nap was too late which affected bedtime, but if we skipped the morning nap he would be more restless over night and wake earlier from overtiredness.

Thank you I think this is what we'll have to do although he won't nap in the pram but will in the car may need to do some short trips haha! He managed today with a 10 mins morning nap although second nap was still fairly short and he woke agitated but I think he'll hopefully settle into this!