18 month sleep regression support thread

[*Jo*]

Wendy, I thought the same thing but we have had some good success with it. I say try it, what have you got to lose? He's already waking early as it is. If it doesn't work then try something else.

We are still having 5-5.30am wakings goo. To be honest he never woke this early for this long before he became sick and then hit the 18 month mark. He was always a 6.30-7.30 waked. If he did do EW they were usually go e within about a week, but this has been going on for 4 months! Although I do t even know if you can call it EW now that the sleep needs are so low

[babybarr]

Jo - has Caleb finished cuttin canines yet? Teeth often cause EWs here.

Wendy - are you going to try and get some lights??

[Tweakster]

Yeah gonna get the lights on the go.  We have lights on the timer - I guess we'll put them on at 5:45 for now.  Then eventually I'll get the Gro-clock or something similar.  I think the light coming on will wake him up the odd day he actually does make it until 6 - whenever that may be lol  I am so worried about reinforcing his EW with light!  Right now he plays in the dark most mornings until we get up.  Except when he's still really tired, then he just yells and cries.

[SpecialKiwi]

Wendy, from reading your other posts it sounds as though you and I have exactly the same sort of questions!

I have the Gro Clock on order, should be here early Sept and I can't wait. That said, we managed to get 11hrs out of her last night, with wakings only at 3am (resettled really quickly), then 4.40am (bit of persuading, white noise and music before she resettled) and 5.20am (resettled herself after a few minutes of very loud Uh-Ohs and turning her music on!) and up for the day at 5.45am.

I've only been averaging 5 hrs broken sleep a night though as I'm getting a bit stressed lying awake waiting for her to wake up, as well as the new baby using my bladder as a trampoline all night, so things aren't very pretty from a pregnant, hormonal, overtired mummy point of view.  I've actually called our local baby whisperer for an appointment on Thursday to see what she suggests.  A friend who was also having probs with her 18month old is having huge success since seeing her, so fingers crossed!

[Tweakster]

Wow you guys have a local BWer who does consultation?  Where are you living? hehe  Let me know what she says!

We are using the timer with lights, my thread is here for a long frustrating read hehe:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=177156.0

I might buy the Good Night Lite or get MIL to bring the Gro-clock over from UK - she might be coming in October for a visit.

But really can't say it's all due to an 18 mth regression because he's been doing it forever!

However, last 2 nights we had screaming NW, but we didn't have to go in, he resettled himself.  But something is waking him...?  It's not OT - I mean I guess it could be but don't see how?  He's typically getting as much sleep as he ever did.

5 hrs a night is not enough for you, (((hugs))) hope things improve soon.

[babybarr]

How's it all going girls?

[*Jo*]

Well I'm not sure if this is still related to the 18 month issues but we are still having short naps which lead to early bedtime which leads to early wakeups. Example is yesterday
Awake 6am
Nap 11.25-12.10
Bedtime 6.15pm

Awake 5.25, wi/wo, back to sleep and awake again at 5.40am
We just can't get out of this mess! I've done earlier bedtime, later bedtime but it's these short naps that don't get us through to a later bedtime! I can't cut nights shorter or we would be up at 4am!

Any ideas??

[Tweakster]

Oh no, Jo with all you have going on :-(  I thought things would be better now.  What was he like when you were away?  Are those teeth in yet?  (((hugs you poor darling)))

Well you know I'm a radical kind of gal and I would do a set time of 12 noon nap and 7 bedtime until he snaps out of this, period.  No A time shifting, no compensating for his weird nap structure, just continuing to be consistent until he gets himself in order.  That may not be that helpful since I don't live with Caleb or know what he's like during the day, but really, I think at his age consistency more than anything is probably going to help his body clock.

I think it might be time for the lights on a timer for you guys.  It really seems to be doing 'something' here.  So far it's been eerily good.  Waiting for the shoe to drop but while I'm waiting for that shoe I am getting good sleep!

[*Jo*]

DH thinks the same as you Wendy, set naps and set bedtime. All three canines are through, though he could be teething the fourth, he was awful cranky yesterday, I put him to bed early cos I just couldn't deal with it anymore, I have an awful ear infection for which I'm heavily doped up on pain mess so I can't deal with much from Caleb at the mo and of course he's wanting my attention all the time cos I've been gone for so long! I didn't want to start the light timer just yet because we are moving house in about a week (if we can find anyplace by then week!) and I thought it's gonna be tough implementing the light as well as shifting house. One thing I have noticed with Caleb though is that he LOVES order. If he builds blocks they have to be stacked in a line, if he plays with his trains they have to be lined up in a straight line etc, so maybe he's like me and needs his day in a certain order too? Or maybe he's OCD??? Or maybe I'm just going nuts!! Lol!

Here's the weird thing though, while I was away he was sleeping till 6.30/7am doing 12-13 hour nights on a one hour nap or even a 1.5 hour nap if he was in the car. I come back and it's back to 5am-6am starts and 45min naps, what's with that?

[*Jo*]

just an update to let you all know, weve got no NW's and no EW's however we are still stuck on short naps but we are doing set naptimes and bedtimes now so this is what our days currently look like:

awake anywhere between 6.30-7am but we dont get him up until 7am
naptime 12/12.30 for 40-60mins (GRRRR)
bedtime 7/7.30

and thats what we have so all that horrid stuff we were going through with the Nw and Ew i think were 18 month issues, we solved it with the lights on a timer. we had an oopsie the other night because I accidentally left him in a cloth nappy (that happened to be one of the thinnest ones weve got) overnight and he woke at 5.15am soaked through and of course wouldnt go back to sleep, took three days of gradually pushing wakeup and bedtime back using once again teh lights on a timer but we are back to 7am wakeups which we are happy with

[Tweakster]

Great news Jo!

Everything sucks here so I hope we can post the same kind of good news soon.

[marlowsmom]

Hello club I hoped I would never have to join.   

Well Marlow is full on nap resistant.   Every single nap is a battle that can take no less than an hour to win.   
Sucks.   
I've tried two naps for weeks now in an attempt to get her to catch up on her OT but it rarely works.    If I get her down for one then I can't get her down for another.   It's only worked one time in all these weeks.    Yesterday it took me an hour to get her down for a morning nap and I foolishly woke her thinking that I could get her to take a PM nap.   Nope.
She refused and went to bed at 630 but fell asleep at 650pm. 

I tried for 45 min to get her to sleep this morning and she was tired but refused.   All APOP is out the window too.   The car may be my only hope at this point.   She's in the crib now doing head stands and crying/whining.   I had to remove all her lovies because she was jacking with them so much it was preventing her from sleeping.

I feel like we are in a boat that has a small leak.   For every bucket of water that I scoop out another two leak in.

[Tweakster]

Sharon I see you a 45 min nap trial and raise you a 1 hr 10 mins.  Yep he has been fighting his nap for 1 hr 10 mins now.  We are back in some kind of weird EW/OT cycle here.  Not sure how we got here. 

He has stamina, I have to give him that much.

Is Marlow still EW too?

[marlowsmom]

She has her good days and bad days.   I think if this is all still happening after our vacation then I'm going to lock her down on a set nap time and bed time and ride the wave of EW/NW that will surly follow until she sorts herself out.    I've heard of other moms doing that and they said it can take about 2 weeks until it all clears up. 

[consmummy]

I'm not there yet with DS2 but I can clearly recall going through this with DS1. We ended up doing a lot of naps on the sofa as he would no longer go down in his cot. Can't remember how long this lasted thought, sorry.

Re nighttimes I can recall it was like a switch going off. Boxing day (26th Dec for non Brits!) he went to sleep fine, 27th Dec he screamed like someone was doing something awful to him. I didn't know then what i know now so cue 2 weeks of me laying on the floor next to the cot. Till I realised he was playing me, messing about and giggling at me on the floor. So I found out about WIWO and within 3-4 days it was problem solved.

Not that he went to bed without a peep, he had his moments but because he knew what was going to happen eith WIWO it was relatively painless after those first few nights.

Good luck and stay strong everyone.