14 month old sleep regression - pls help!

[Hannah2025]

Hi everyone, I’m hoping I can get some advice from anyone who’s been through anything similar!

14 month old son has never been the greatest sleeper, however for a couple of months since he turned 1 he got a LOT better and ended up doing 6:30-6am with only brief wakes for his dummy.

Over the last 2-3 weeks he has regressed again. He has learnt how to walk and he has molars coming through so there is a lot going on. A few nights ago the regression seemed to start to settle…and now it’s back in full swing again!

He is waking up around 30-40 mins after being put down for bed and throwing a huge tantrum. Pointing to the door, wanting to be picked up and taken out. Nothing consoles him or works unless I take him downstairs and let him play for a couple of hours which I’m really trying not to do anymore because it’s too exhausting and I fear it’s starting a bad habit. He does eventually go down after 2 hours and a second bottle of milk, but then he will wake again later on in the night. By this point I end up bringing him in with me because I’m too tired and the thought of getting up and down to him all night is too much. I do end up transferring him back to his cot from my bed around 4am and he sleeps until 6am.

Hi schedule looks like this…

6am wake up
11am 2 hour nap
7pm milk and bed

Any advice or ideas as to why he is doing this would be hugely appreciated! X

If he’s waking up after one sleep cycle he’s treating it as a second nap. Maybe he needs a bit less sleep overall? Can you push the nap later and make bedtime a bit later? Or cap the nap at 1h30? There’s no magic solution, you might just have to try a few things and/or ride it out I’m afraid… don’t let him go down to play when he wakes up though, keep it boring. Books in his room or trying to sleep, nothing else.

Oooooh interesting you say about capping the nap. I’m going to try this today! He’s never been a big sleep needs baby and dropped the 2nd nap super early (8-9months) so you could be on to something here!

Being awake for two hours after less than an hours sounds like he doesn’t have enough sleep pressure, so is adding an extra couple of hours awake during the night to build it. 7pm is a very early bedtime and I’d try pushing it back to around 8:00, and also consider cappng the nap like the other poster has suggested.

So I tried capping his nap yesterday and things got even worse last night! He categorically would not go to bed. Had his bottle at 6:45 and I genuinely thought he was going to go to sleep he looked really tired. Then he suddenly got a second wind and would not sleep. I did everything - kept him in a dimly lit room, rocking him, shushing him, singing. He just screamed himself red for 2.5 hours. I ended up having to bring him downstairs and he eventually had another bottle at 10pm and went to bed. I am starting to wonder if he is overtired!?

I wouldn’t change his routine during a sleep regression. They are developmental and you just have to ride them out, there isn’t a magic fix but I think changing his routine now when he’s already unsettled will make more problems.

you have my sympathy as sleep regressions are absolutely awful. My second and third children didn’t sleep through the night until gone two years old and it absolutely broke me. I researched every sleep regression/sleep fact I could find. Hopefully things get better for you soon!

Try a later bedtime, and also I'd really be cutting the bottles of milk out overnight, at that age they should go to bed with clean teeth and only have water overnight.

Seeing as he's screaming himself silly whenever you're actively in the room with him, have you tried leaving the room whenever he's doing that?

I'm not saying cry it out but leave him for 30 secs, 2 mins, 5 mins max if you can tolerate it, then check back in. You will be amazed what this can do. He's probably angry because he wants to sleep but as long as you're in the room with him he associates that with being awake.

That was the case with our son anyway. He just does not sleep if he sees you in the room. You need to leave the room and then he understands it's bedtime.

It’s so tough! We have actually slightly amended his schedule but not by too much. We’ve brought his nap a bit later to midday after his lunch, and his bedtime to 7:30. Last night was a good night so I’m hoping tonight will be the same. Hoping things will get easier as time goes on but sleep has always been a challenge for us. It’s always comforting to hear other mums who have been in similar situations as I feel like my other mum friends all have children who sleep amazingly!

We’ve tried a slightly later bedtime which worked well last night so hoping for another good night tonight. We did speak to our dentist about the bottle and he is absolutely fine with it, a lot of children have a bottle before bed/milk in the night way past this age so I’m happy to continue for now if it gives us some calm!

We have tried this a few times but no luck at all unfortunately, he just works himself up even more 😓

Sleep train

Update: we had a good night on Saturday. He didn’t go down until 9pm which was annoying, but then he slept all night with just one wake at 11pm for around 15 mins. That’s a real success for us! However, we didn’t have a great night last night. He initially went down at 7:30pm which was great and he didn’t wake up until 10:30pm. I went and settled him it only took around 5-10 mins which is amazing. But then, he woke fully at 3:50am and didn’t go back to sleep no matter what we tried. He has only napped for 40 mins today and it’s 2pm! He’s so miserable too, I’m not surprised as he is probably exhausted but I feel like I’ve exhausted all options with him I’ve tried everything to get him to nap a bit more.

I really don’t know what’s bothering him, thinking it could be teeth?! It’s been 4 weeks since this regression started and I really hope we are going to come out the other end soon