18 months of little sleep is this the way it is..

Hi,

I am hoping someone out there can help me on this one as i am frazzled..

My DS has always been a bad sleeper he never slept through until 13 months old and then at 15 months old he reverted back to his old ways. He is 18 months old and for the last 3 months he has not only been waking at around 1am but he is now up and ready for the day at sometimes as early as 3.30am but normally it is 4am (before daylight savings hit it was 4.30 - 5am).

You might say i should try everything but I am thinking I maybe have.. just to get him to sleep through and then sleep in longer.

He has no bottles during the night anymore (i stopped that)
I don't pick him up
I don't rush in.. he would chatter for a good hour before becoming stressed. When i eventually go to him.. I am quiet and i sit next to him and he is fine until i leave the room.
I have worked on trust and won't let him 'cry it out'. But i am firm and fair.

By 6.30pm he is ready for bed. He sleeps for 2 hours during the day at 11am (ish).
He goes to bed easily and falls asleep on his own (i sat next to him for a while and then eventually i didn't have to - trust )
I have put him to bed later and earlier and done that for a week both times and if anything he was waking more (especially when going to bed later) and gets up earlier both when he goes to bed earlier and later.

He has a good routine, dinner at 5pm (not a great eater), shower at 5.30ish, stories with daddy at 6 and then quiet time with both of us before bed. He doesn't go to childcare, we have no family in Australia but he has friends he sees.. He has teeth coming but apart from a little more whingy during the day his night is no different to before teething...

He only needs 10 hours sleep at night so if he went to bed at 7 and got up at 5 then thats the way it is.. but at the moment he goes down and is up for a good 1.5hrs at 1am and then back up for the day at 4am.. last night he would be lucky if he had 8.5 hrs sleep...

I should say - he is a happy chap... what am i to do or what am i doing wrong....

Please pass on some sleep my way.. 18 months of 4 - 5 hrs sleep a night is a little draining.

Ella
x

Sounds a lot like my boy :hug:
DS was also always a "bad" sleeper (in the adult sense at least). He didn't sleep through at all till 19 months, and since then it is only an ocasional thing. However, things have gotten a lot better, though he stil only sleeps 10 hours (or less) overnight.

If he's chatty I guess he's not distressed, so maybe it's a developmental thing? Is he learning new skills at the moment? Maybe picking up language or something like that?

For my DS, he only sleeps well if he's comfortable, full, happy, content, not going through any developmental milestones, and all the plants are aligned with Saturn. Pretty much anything will throw him out of whack. Perhaps your boy is similarly inclined.

Sorry, I don't have any specific advice. Sounds like you've tried a lot of things already - sometimes they go through these phases and there's not much we can do. :hug:

I dont know if this will help but it was the same situation my sister was in with her daughter. She woke every 3 hours, and no matter what she tried refused to go back to sleep unless she was given milk (slightly different to you though but as she was obsessed with milk it was her calming tool). She took a trip to our gp, she was a reflux baby and it turns out was still suffering at this age, went back on zantac and just about instantly started sleeping properly again. Two weeks later went back downhill, back to gp and she put her on a nasal spray (nasonex i think), saying some children's passages are underdeveloped still and cause sleep problems, it worked literally overnight and she has slept up to 13hrs a night since.

Personally, my DD1 had a thing for 4am, I could hear her chatting away to herself until she started getting cranky, I would give her a bottle of milk and walk back out, she would drink and put herself back to sleep. I was told she was hungry and unable to make it through the night still (she was a huge eater of solids and milk during the day). I learnt if I didnt give her the bottle, this was her morning wake up time, when I gave her the bottle, she went back to sleep until 9.

Massive :hug: for you - it is awful!
The biggest thing I have struggled with is the 'helpful' suggestions as to why my DD1 is/was a non sleeper.
To be honest (and I certainly hope this is not your experience) she doesn't often sleep through the night very often and she will be 4 in June. We have tried pretty much all options (mostly under duress and out of sheer desperation so perhaps that is why they didn't work??).
To try and maximise everyone's sleep (mine especially) she has started coming in with us (about 1 year ago) when she wakes. I wish I had put my foot down earlier (with Dh as he was anti cosleeping) as rather than an all night party she snuggles in and we all go straight back to sleep. So not perfect but much better.
Also I am convinced it is her - DD2 is a great sleeper despite her big sisters lead - so please do not waste the little energy you have blaming yourself.
Good luck! xx