18 month old STILL won’t sleep and I’m at breaking point. Desperately seeking advice

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pastor_rob

New member
Hey fellow mums and moms. A desperate rant and question about terrible toddler sleep. Thank you in advance.

My incredible girl is 18 months old. She’s never been great at sleeping. I breastfed on demand at night and co slept since she was about 4 months. It was ROUGH. Eventually, around the year mark, we put her bed in our room and started putting her to sleep in there. She got very used to it and got great at putting herself to sleep. She’d wake up in the night and we’d let her come in to bed with us as I didn’t have the energy to keep BFing and resettling. Then, around 15 months, I night weaned.

Dreams can come true! She’d start the night in her bed at 7pm, wake up between 11-3am, come in to our bed and sleep through until 6. Amazing. But then…

We moved house. The clocks changed. Shit hit the fan. For about a month she wouldn’t go down until 8pm and would wake up about 5am. I’m a morning person but like, 7am. 5am is criminal. She’d spend all night wriggling around in our bed, unsettled, restless. With an 8pm bed time that leaves an 1 hour of downtime. On top of that, she obviously wasn’t getting enough sleep and that impacted her mood, my mood, our day etc.

I’ve managed to get her down earlier for the last couple of weeks, between 7-7.30pm. But she’s still waking up way to early - today was 3.30am. I waited until 6 o clock in the goddam morning trying to get her back to sleep. It’s just soul destroying. She slept or maybe 20/30 minutes more. I also don’t know why she’s very very wriggly in bed at the moment, like super unsettled and it’s really disrupting the short amount of sleep we get.

My question is, is she old enough to do some kind of controlled crying without it having a hugely negative impact on her in the future? Or what else can I do? Currently when my husband tries to attend to her or we try to resettle in her room, she just screams for me. I didn’t want to push it as we only moved house 6 weeks ago but I feel she should be pretty settled by now.

It’s been 18 months of terrible sleep and I’m at breaking point. It’s making me hate everything, dread the day ahead, loose my patience, cause huge fights between me and my husband. I just want to sleep. She must know she’s safe by now and that we’re always there for her, why does she feel like she has to be literally glued to my side throughout the night. Have I done something wrong? Is this insecure attachment? She must not feel safe, right?

Other things worth mentioning - our rooms are dark, not totally black out but I’m going to try make it so. I try to wear her out in the day but that’s hard when you’re so tired right. I try to make sure she’s full before bed, like offer her a banana or something. I’m going to start not taking her downstairs to start the day or have her first breastfeed until 6am. Even if it means spending 2.5 relentless hours lying in bed screaming inside.

I’d love some tips/experience from fellow mothers of unsettled sleepers. I also wanna give everyone that’s been through similar a huge hug cause this is fucking HARD.
 
@pastor_rob My first question is how much daytime sleep is she having?

Secondly my kid went through a stage of waking up in the night for hours at a time and it was really hard. I used to take her downstairs, put a movie on for her and watch the real housewives of Beverly Hills on my laptop to cope haha. It was easier to deal with when I just accepted it. Luckily I stay at home with her so could catch up on sleep when she went back to bed/during her daytime nap.

Once all her teeth came through at around 2 yo she stopped doing it. She will do it now at 4 yo if she has a fever
 
Also my kid only needs 9/10 hrs of sleep at night if she has 1 hr in the day as a nap so when she was still napping she wouldn't go to bed until like 10.30pm and would wake at around 8.30am. It didn't matter what I did, she wouldn't go to bed until late. Now she doesn't nap she goes to bed at 9pm and wakes at 8am which is amazeballs.
 
@pastor_rob I am not anti controlled crying - but controlled crying is for teaching kids how to self soothe or fall asleep independently. It sounds like your kid has that skill. Controller crying almost NEVER solves early risings or MOTN wakes. What you have here is a classic schedule problem. It’s either overtiredness at bed or too long of a nap OR it could be a combo both. You say your daughter’s nap varies. You need to commit to keeping a pretty strict schedule for a few weeks while you try to make adjustments to figure out what it is.

I wonder if that last WW before bed is actually way too long. Normally kids can only tolerate a 5 hour WW. If they are overtired it can cause them to wake up early and sleep restlessly. Try pushing nap back later so 11:30 and then try a 6:30 bedtime. I’d do that for a few days and see if it helps.

The other option is that your kid needs less daytime sleep to preserve nighttime sleep. My son can only tolerate a 90 minute nap if we want good overnight sleep. The way we solve that is by doing a later, shorter nap. So - 6/6:30 rise, 12:30-2 nap and 7 PM bedtime.

I’d start by first shortening up the last WW and then slowly pulling back on daytime sleep. I’d be really surprised if sleep doesn’t get better. It does sound like that MOTN waking where you pull her into bed is behavioral - you may have to break that habit but the rest should resolve with schedule tinkering and consistency.

Good luck!
 
@pastor_rob She still wakes up at 1am to come through to my bed and I let her because I can't be bothered to fight it. Then she will wake up a few more times in the night to be cuddled back to sleep. I have a 3 month old in a crib next to me and he already sleeps better than my 4 year old! Some kids are just sleep demons!
 
@pastor_rob I recently read this post and I think you might find it helpful in handling bedtime. I know my evening feels a little better if I'm not trapped in a dark room with my 11mo for hours, even if bedtime is still quite late sometimes (he's awkwardly on 2 naps at the moment which means he's up quite late to have a long enough last wake window).

https://evolutionaryparenting.com/helping-sleep-resistors-fall-asleep/

Secondly, I think your expectations of a 7pm bedtime is probably not realistic, unfortunately. I know we want it so badly to be able to have time to ourselves/with our partners in the evening, but if kiddo doesn't need to go to bed that early then they don't need it. Maybe they only need to be up for 1 more hour before bed to get 2 more hours of sleep in the morning. I think it's worth following your baby's lead and seeing what happens.
 
@whosthe2witnesses Thank you for the link. She’s always been a 7 o’clock gal but with the clocks changing maybe I should have let her be 8 for the summer. Oh god knows. It’s like nothing works. Anyway, thanks for the tips!
 
@pastor_rob 18 months is when separation anxiety often starts for littles so it is totally normal for her to be freaking out about sleeping alone at this point. My 24 month old seems to need to be touching me at all times. It is exhausting, especially when he played happily alone at 12 months, but it's what he needs to regulate.
 
@moonbeams I commend your acceptance, i’m really struggling with being constantly in demand again. I feel like we’ve taken three steps backwards. Swings and roundabouts ey!
 
@pastor_rob My son only now at 23 months is maaaybe waking up 1 time at night. It took a long while to get to that point. Sorry to say but you may have to wait longer, but it will happen. Every child is different, so it’s all up in the air which is so annoying. I do make sure he gets a 1.5-2hr nap BEFORE 3pm, and we take him outside around 6-7pm to get him super tired before we put him down around 9.
 
@dtom It’s good to hear this in a weird way because you can never get too comfortable 😂 you never know when the rug is gonna be pulled out. Glad he’s finally on one wake up though!
 
@pastor_rob Yeah he’s going to daycare in June and it could very well all go to shit 🥴, plus we have to potty train him…and he is going to have a new brother in 2 weeks. All these changes are most likely going to affect his sleep. Can’t wait haha
 
@pastor_rob We've had great luck with pick up put down with our 13 month old, if you're interested in trying that. I feel like a new woman. We were having similar issues and now his sleep is much much better.
 
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