Starting sleep training for 17 month old

[evwright]

Hi,

DS is coming up to 17 months old and has only fallen asleep by himself a handful of times. I have just dropped his bedtime breastfeed and am replacing with a cup of milk/water depending what he wants. I was going to give it a couple of weeks to let that change settle (should this be more/less or just see how he seems?), but then really need to start sleep training as we cannot keep walking him to sleep. The last couple of weeks he has slept through or had short nw apart from last night where he woke after 3 hours and couldn't settle, so he spent the night in our bed. For the first night without his bedtime feed we expected as much or worse.

We are looking to do gradual withdrawal and just wanted a few pointers. Should we do naps or bedtime first, or both at once? Do we carry on settling nws any way we can to get him enough sleep or immediately treat them the dame as bed/naptime?

He is fully settled onto one nap - we often wake him at 2 hours to stop it affecting night sleep. However he does do long days and it is rare that we get more than 10 hours at night so we are nervous of losing any sleep time. he does fairly even splits of 5.5 to 6 hrs A to get good naps and not resist bt.  Until recently he was having lots of long nw and we are not sure what has changed, just very grateful for the improvement 

We would be very grateful for any advice and probably some hand-holding once we actually start the process.

[Emami]

Hi, if he has never been an independent sleeper then you're right that gradual withdrawal will be the best method.  Iiwm I would pick a time to start and go with it for naps and nights just so it's done and doesn't get confusing where sometimes you walk him and sometimes you don't.  So do your usual wind down, and then at the point that you would usually walk him around you put him down.  Here is the how to:
Toddlers: Walk In/Walk Out vs. The Gradual Withdrawal Method (HOW TO CHOOSE)

Sorry, I don't have any experience on dropping a bedtime BF as both mine were fine with bottles. But given that he's not BFing to sleep and it's the walking that's a problem (have I understood that right?), I would think a cuddle and a drink would be fine. Was he upset without it? 

[evwright]

Hi, thanks for the reply. It is walking to sleep that is the problem, I've read the link and gw did seem the way to try. We have tried once before, but it was at the start of the 2 to 1 transition and everything went haywire for a while. He was slightly upset about not feeding before bed, but dh walked him the first two nights so I wasn't close by. We had a 2hr nw first night and 4hrs the second, both starting 3hrs after he went down. I walked him last night, he didn't ask to nurse at all and slept through so hopefully our new wind down is falling into place. He has been slightly more clingy and gets a little upset when either of us leaves at nap or bedtime so I think that is probably related. I think we'll give a few more nights just to confirm the new routine before we start on the gw. He falls asleep for his nap within 5 to 10 minutes so I want to see what kind of time we get down to at night - last night took 30. Doing both naps and bt makes sense, do you think it matters which we start on? He does always seem ready for his nap so I wondered about starting then.

[Emami]

Yes I think starting with nap is a good idea because then he's not doing it for the first time at BT, and night sleep is really what you want to go smoothly. Do be prepared for crying though, it's a process but you're with him helping him learn so he will be fine. Good luck when you start, keep us posted.

[evwright]

Hi, we haven't started sleep training yet as sleep has really gone downhill. At first we thought he was having nw due to losing the bedtime breastfeed and expected it to take a few days to settle, but things have got much worse. We have had some nights where he sttn, some ewu (new for us) nw that were easy to settle and then some very long nw. Last night he went to sleep at 9 (good time for us) woke at 12 and for the first 30 minutes kept falling asleep in arms, but wouldn't go back in his cot. Then he woke fully, tossed and turned in our bed for an hour trying to get back to sleep with no success until dh took him downstairs to play quietly. He eventually went back in his cot at 4.30 and we woke him at 8.30 as we didn't want the day to start too late.

Today he has gone down for nap as usual, but woke at 50 minutes very upset and had to be re-settled, but did go back to sleep. At bt he isn't asking to feed, but he is very wriggly, grumpy, difficult to settle. He's using avoidance/delaying tactics that I would put down to UT, but is also grumpy and trying to sleep as if OT. Some early nw suggested OT, but the longer ones suggest UT. Without the breastfeed trying EBT is getting really difficult and we just don't know what to try. We don't know if it needs more time to settle into the new routine, a different wind-down routine or a complete overhaul. Current wind-down is shower first (if having one), small supper with Night Garden (instead of breastfeed), upstairs into sleeping bag, teeth cleaned, 2 or 3 books and then music to walk to sleep.

A recent good day would be

WU 8am
Nap 1.30 - 3.30pm
BT 9pm

He has consistently been napping 2hrs plus and we have often woken him. Now with ew some days, ew followed by feeding back to sleep others (leading to late wu) and the long nw we are exhausted parents and just don't know how best to help him. He isn't actively teething (pain meds haven't helped the nw if we give them) and doesn't show any other signs of illness.

Sorry this is so long. Any ideas or would I be best posting a new topic?

[Emami]

His routine looks good tbh, I'm wondering if you've hit the 18 month sleep regression. Really in that case all you can do is be as consistent as possible and ride it out. My DD1 has generally been a great sleeper, but this age was awful for us and the only way through it was through. One day she just went back to sleeping and the shenanigans stopped.

How do you try to resettle the NWs? If he's used to being walked to sleep is that what you end up doing? I'm wondering if the NWs are getting worse because he doesn't know how to settle himself.  It might help to start sleep training sooner rather than later. We are here to support you if and when you go for it!

[evwright]

We wondered about the regression, but then the last three nights he has slept straight through so we probably have that fun still on the horizon. He has previously had good runs of sttn so we assume he must find a way of re-settling himself at times. Usually we go in and walk him the same as for his nap/bt, but with the recent nws he has struggled to get back to sleep even with all the help we can give. We are hoping for a couple more good nights to catch us all up on sleep then will start with the sleep training.