18mth night wakings

[wilkes]

Hi People, I have got a 18mth LO who keeps waking up anytime between 12 - 4am. He will stand up in his cot screaming, i go in making no eye contact, give him a cuddle, say time for sleeps and lie him down.  Sometimes he will go off to sleep within minutes, but some nights he is awake anything between 2am - 4am!! What am i doing wrong... This is his routine:-

7.00am Breakfast / Milk
11.30 / 11.45 - lunch + Water
12.15 - Sleep (1.5hrs at home, but on 30mins / 45mins at nursery)
3.00 - snack + Water
5.30 - dinner + water
6.30 - bath
6.45 - bottle
7.00 - Bed.

If anyone has got any ideas / solutions please let me know, as this is slowing killing me.

p/s he is at nursery full time.

[yaya]

hmmmm, my DS is same age and has woken last 2 nights, is there any teething? SA? thirsty? room hot or cold? sorry not to be of much help

[Layla]

Its the nap at the nursery that is causing the problem here. 30-45mins for the day is definitely NOT enough and is causing the nightwakings.

Anyway they can work on extending the length of that nap???

If not, I would definitely suggest a super early bedtime for those days (which is everyday practically) at the latest 6pm! He is extremely overtired from the short nap.....needs catch up sleep so early bedtime should help


hth
Layla

[brightside]

I agree he is definitely overtired. I work on a 2pm wake time-bed around 7ish. Anything earlier than that or less than 1hour sleep, 6pm bedtime. He does sometimes wake a bit earlier because of it but its usually a solid sleep and puts him in a better 'sleep frame of mind' for the next day. All the nws will also be making it more likely that he only sleeps for 45 mins at lunch because he is overtired from the night before.

[shelliz]

Wilkes...

  I agree with pp's that 30-45 minutes is not near enough nap for an 18 month old. My dd is 18 months also and if she gets less than 1.5 hrs of nap during the day we also get night wakings.  I know it is hard b/c you can't control what happens at nursery. I agree that you should ask them about his napping and see if there is any way for them to attempt to legnthen his naps.  It will make your life easier at night!  We have followed BW from 5 months old and I am a FIRM believer that "sleep begets sleep".   Your son's schedule overall looks great accept for those short naps!   If you find that the short naps can't be fixed at nursery...maybe try putting him down even 15 or 20 minutes earlier at night to help stave off the night wakings. Sometimes 15 minutes can work wonders.

Good luck and hugs! 
Shelby