14 month old sleep chaos. On my absolute last straw.

[FruitPoppet]

Baby has never been a great sleeper, always needed lots of support to sleep and stay asleep. Most she's ever slept in one stint is 4 hours, and that's rare.

For the last month sleep has gone to absolute shambles. Early wakes, resisting bed time, resisting naps and waking EVERY HOUR over night and only settling if she can have boob. If I try anything else its an absolute horror show of screaming. She's having 8-10 full breastfeeds over night. Also frequently having a split night where she's awake 2-4am.

I thought maybe she was ready to drop to one nap? So we've been making the leap but she's now only napping for 1 hour in the day and still sleeping like shit overnight and looks shattered.

She eats LOTS in the day and had a bedtime snack, so I doubt she's hungry overnight.

I've been on an ENT wait list for over half her life, and the GP can offer nothing else in terms of support, even though I've said perhaps they can test iron/thyroid. I believe she has some kind of airway obstruction (she's always snotty, gets lots of colds, snores, mouth breaths, sleeps on tummy with bum high, gasps awake)

I don't believe in sleep training and I can't afford any kind of consultant or to go private medically.

I'm back at work and honestly feel like I might die from lack of sleep.

I'm so angry in the night because she's just sat up crying awake, ALL NIGHT. I feed her, unlatch, she wakes, cries more, rinse, repeat.

The only sleep she gets is if I sit up holding her so I can catch when she's waking and rock her back to sleeps or I just keep feeding her all night.

I thought it was a regression/teeth, but it's been a month and getting worse.

Dunno what I'm looking for. I'm just so tired that I'm honestly not enjoying being a mum at all.

Whilst I’m usually all for sleep training (with gentle methods if cry based isn’t your thing) and night weaning I wouldn’t consider either in your case as the root cause sounds medical. You need to go back to the GP and get them look at the tonsils and push to speed up the ENT referral. Focus on the sleep apnea, gasping awake and snoring which are not normal and should hopefully get them to take it seriously. Don’t lead with gets lots of colds and poor sleep because whilst yes they form part of the picture it’ll be easier for them to fob you off you when you’re complaining about what can also be standard 1YO things. I’d also see if your HV can help move things along. I know they’re often useless but worth a phone call to see.

I'm not going to tell you what to do as every child is different and it's best to be led by baby, to not cause anxiety. I've had a Non - sleeper AND a Newborn who slept RIGHT THROUGH from BIRTH....YES you heard that right.....
Absolutely No MILK during the night..offer only water if needed.
Have Cot in your room, or bed near yours. Change your Own pattern to enable less anxiety. ( go to bed earlier with child)
Accept that it's a challenge to work with and not a PROBLEM to overcome.
Use a thicker nappy/ diaper at night.
Only one nap during the day of no more than 2 hours.
Keep to a routine , to reduce anxiety ,so baby KNOWS what is next

Make evening FUN and relaxing, always the same, Bathtime, storytime.e, then into bed.
You may just have a CLINGY BABY and so will have to go along with it. And cling to Her.

I'm not going to tell you what to do as every child is different and it's best to be led by baby, to not cause anxiety. I've had a Non - sleeper AND a Newborn who slept RIGHT THROUGH from BIRTH....YES you heard that right.....
Absolutely No MILK during the night..offer only water if needed.
Have Cot in your room, or bed near yours. Change your Own pattern to enable less anxiety. ( go to bed earlier with child)
Accept that it's a challenge to work with and not a PROBLEM to overcome.
Use a thicker nappy/ diaper at night.
Only one nap during the day of no more than 2 hours.
Keep to a routine , to reduce anxiety ,so baby KNOWS what is next

Make evening FUN and relaxing, always the same, Bathtime, storytime.e, then into bed.
You may just have a CLINGY BABY and so will have to go along with it. And cling to Her.

Have you filmed the gasping etc?

Except that mine is 16th months old, you just described my life. Nice to find companionship, I guess. I have no answers unfortunately. Reading this thread with interest.

Also, split nights guaranteed. I know it's coming (because it literally happens every night), but still get so upset every time!

May I ask when yours stopped doing the split nights? Also, what medical issues does she have, if you don't mind me asking? Not just being nosy, mine also does split nights and is generally a woeful sleeper, but doesn't have the breathing issues of OPs. If you don't want to say just tell me to mind my own business, but i'm just looking for anything that might help explain why my LO is such a poor sleeper.

Hate to say it but both my girls had horrendous regressions that went on for months. Tried everything, nothing ever worked. I honestly think the best thing you can do for your own sanity is accept that’s the way it is, for now, and at some point it’ll change. So so so hard but I think trying to solve it makes these phases so much harder

You're probably right, but a woman can hope. Mine never had a regression, just never improved from newborn 🙄. Literally, my friend's newborn sleeps much, much better.

Mine are now 3&4 and still don’t sleep through the night or go to bed independently. Things are much better but over the years I’ve had months of being up for hours, sleeping on floors, doing literally whatever I can to rest. It’s been torturous at times but then all of a sudden, be it days or months, the phase just stops. It’s bizarre. I think some kids are good sleepers, some aren’t and mine have always struggled with it, but if I could turn back time I would try so hard to chill out. It’s impossible though, and you get so desperate for answers but sometimes there isn’t one. Only suggestion is try a weighted blanket, these seem to have helped a bit recently.

I really feel for you. It sounds similar to my situation with my daughter. We co-slept too. Everyone advised me to sleep train but, like you, I never wanted to, and we did manage to sort it without leaving her alone to cry. The problem for us was the boob. She would only sleep if she was attached, and would wake and scream every 45 minutes if I unlatched her. I was so sleep deprived I was unable to function, because of brain fog. I felt totally broken. At 20 months we went cold turkey to get her off the breast at night. I still gave her a few breastfeeds in the day but never let her fall asleep on the breast for naps. I think someone else on the thread mentioned a similar situation where it took 3 days to break the habit, well it was the same for us. 3 nights of screaming, but I refused to give in and breastfeed. We offered only water. We still co-slept and I held her and cuddled her and told her that she was a great girl and ‘this is hard but we can do this’ sort of thing. Her dad took her outside and walked around the street cuddling her when the screaming got too much. It was hard seeing her so angry. It was like we suddenly changed the rules and she didn’t want to accept it. But she just hadn’t responded to a slower weaning approach, so we had to be drastic. After 3 nights of no boob she started sleeping through. We still had the occasional waking, but only once a night, rather than every hour. I just wanted to let you know that we got through it, without sleep training. She’s 4 now and we still co-sleep. She sleeps well now so I don’t mind. The other thing I started doing was going to bed earlier, with her, so that I could make up for all the previous sleep deprivation. I hope you can work through it soon. Wishing you a restful night zzzz

Thank you. I've considered a weighted blanket, but it wouldn't work because mine hates anything loose over her legs. Kicks it off immediately and has a little conniption if she can't. Hates the buggy footmuff and I have to use high tog sleepsuits with legs at night, rather than proper sleeping bags 🙄

I don't think it's worth sleep training til the medical issues sorted. Sounds like they're waking because they can't breathe well at night. Could well be dust allergy if you're on floor. It's not healthy to sleep there.
I had to breastfeed mine to sleep and didn't start boob reduction/sleep training til 18months when I had a breakthrough: they could understand No More at that age so as I'm totally noise intolerant I started reducing time to feed to sleep. Cut back to 5 mins each side etc and told them stories in the dark lying next to them as their bed routine. Worked great as it sent us both to sleep.

Mine is the same but I wait until she’s asleep then put the weighted blanket over her really gently and pray she doesn’t wake up!

The sleep tank thing is what I now understand about sleep. They have varied sleep needs and there is no evidence for regressions at a specific age other than the change that occurs at 4 months ish to their sleep biology. We found 2 to 1 nap rough and early bedtimes on 1 nap days didn't help so we had to stick to 2 naps for a while longer but compensate by doing a late bedtime as he needed more sleep pressure than before but couldn't do 6 hours yet. So bedtime was 8.30 for a while. How early are you offering 1 nap? How much total sleep do you aim for and how much h does she take? It does sound like you should explore medical cause though wirh what you describe about breathing, although no one other than an ent can say for sure

We did not sleep train (I'm aware it's safe, but couldn't bring myself to do controlled crying) but night weaning helped considerably at 15m. I suspect you are finding it hard to do this due to your sleep set up, so I'm not sure what to suggest. I felt as though tears were ok if we were supporting him and comforting him eg if dad went in overnight.

I would point you at Doze sleep coaching on insta and tired baby sleep if you don't want to sleep train but want to make changes. They both have a lot of free resources that may help and a weekly q&a. A lot of things can be done just with routine and tweaks - If you are concerned at trying to force a sleep training situation when it could be a medical issue as this could just lead to distress.

Apparently over tiredness is not backed by science other than to cause dysregulation at bedtime. It has become a bit of a myth that it causes all night disturbances for a long period of time (companies use this to sell you the idea that your baby needs more sleep). There is a really broad range of how much sleep a child needs and at this age mine only needed 12hrs total which is normal

Could You try a cranial osteopath? It cost about £50 a session for my daughter but it changed the way she breathed. She was basically such a tense baby she was moving her rib cage incorrectly when breathing, meaning she was constantly congested and a mouth breather, always on inhalers to open her ai after one osteopath session all of that stopped.
We also night weaned one feed at a time by dropping the first feed of the night first when I was still awake then dropping the last feed of the night when it was at least daylight so didn’t feel so bad if we didn’t get back to sleep. I have to say with my youngest weaning didn’t help sleep though but it does for some people.

That's actually a really good point, might work. I do put the footmuff over her in the buggy once asleep and she tolerates it. I will actually give that a try in bed too. Thank you!

Any particular one / brand that you'd recommend?

This brought back some traumatic memories for me. We followed Georgina May’s advice which is not sleep training as you might traditionally know it, no crying involved at all. she went from waking 10 times a night to twice and then slept through after a couple more months. You have to really stick to it though as it does take the three weeks. Good luck.

My DS had sleep apnoea due to enormous tonsils. GP told me kids don’t get SA but I insisted on a sleep study. Diagnosed with SA before we’d even left the hospital. Haven’t looked back since having his tonsils out. Doesn’t snore, doesn’t stop-start-gasp at night and can sleep on his back.

While waiting for the above, on the days you don’t work have you tried co-napping or allowing her to nap on you? If it’s a cycle of over tiredness, you need to break it, starting with letting her sleep as long as possible in the morning and at nap time, then working back bit by bit to reach a reasonable schedule.

Have you tried calpol at bedtime? Could be teething. My DD went through a period where (and this is not an exaggeration) she had a dose of calpol every single night for about 3 months. On the odd night we tried without it she slept terribly. I checked in with her HV who, on seeing her, immediately said ‘yep, she’s teething’. Pharmacist confirmed one dose in 24hrs wouldn’t hurt if it was impacting her sleep without it. I spent those months terrified I’d cause my child to have an addiction but nothing of the sort happened 🤣

Big thank you to everyone who responded and hated. It's nice to know I'm not alone, although sad times read if so many sleep struggles!!

I was so tired I couldn't see the wood through the trees, but a huge thanks to whoever mentjonedy piriton! She has been extra snotty and it occured to me on reading that she could be suffering with hayfever, which could be massively impacting her already problematic ENT issues. I gave her a dose after dinner a few nights ago and she woke far far less and without as many tears.

I think these super problematic weeks have just been a culmination of allergies exacerbating her airway issues, a sleep regression and huge changes with me at work.

Fingers crossed but she seems to be settling into some kind of daytime sleep routine I've the last few days that looks a big like

Awake 6
Catnap 9-915
Big nap 1245- 230
Bed 7

Still multiple wakes a night this week, but far less tearful and definitely some chunks of restoration sleep! (Funny that I consider ,2-3 hours a nice long stretch of sleep 😂😂)

I am going to keep pushing for ENT but GP surgery is actually terrible and are not doing any routine appointments for 2 weeks while they update their system?! Wild. They told me to go through 111 of I want to be seen.

I had this with my baby, paid for a private ENT appointment and diagnosed and medicated for silent reflux. Congestion cleared up and she is snoring or coughing at night

I totally agree with this, with a caveat that sleep training should only be attempted when any medical issues have been addressed.

split nights are a textbook sign of undertiredness. She likely needs less sleep than you’re trying to get her to do, not more. Your situation is complicated by the medical/ENT side of things.

once you have this addressed, the advice in this post is what we followed and it worked.

Apologies OP, just seen your update. Glad you’ve seen some improvement.

I would go for a private ENT appointment for your daughter if you can. My brother had awful issues until he had his adenoids out.