18 month sleep regression support thread - Part 2

[brummum]

Ugh, so after a bad night and really fussy morning little man just asked me (well pulled me over to his cot and patted the mattress) to go back to bed at 9am!!! And has gone straight to sleep. He has never asked to go in his cot! 30min cap and then offer another one pm or let him sleep?! This regression is crazy.

[jessmum46]

Ugh!  What did you decide? Think at that time I'd have capped at 20 mins then pd for nap at normal time, something like that. But doubtless whatever I'd done would have been wrong!!  Still battling on here, hols this week so expecting some crazy.....

[brummum]

Eugh. So I capped at 30 mins and then put him down at half 1 and he is still sleeping (3:00) now I don't know whether to cap to preserve bedtime?! He had a awful OT night last night, lost count of the pre midnight wakings, so part of me wants to let him catch up. Think that's going to bite me on the backside though. Just can't win!

[jessmum46]

I'd wake him at 2h and then do normal BT I think x

[brummum]

So I capped at 2hrs and then bed at 7:30 (usually 7) because I was convinced we would have bedtime shennanigans otherwise and he went straight to sleep, haven't heard a peep from him since. He had a lot of catching up to do to be fair. Now just crossing my fingers that we don't have a long early hrs UT cot party! His sleep needs seem to be different everyday at the moment and I always seem to be one step behind, or more likely half a mile down the road stumbling along in a sleep deprived haze!

[jessmum46]

LOL yes sounds familiar!!

[Cluckylollie]

Hello
We had our first completely nap free day yesterday. I tried multiple times to put him down but he just wasn't having it.
So our day started at 8am and ended at 630pm after a long major meltdown at bedtime. Poor little guy. Hoping today is different. We'll be going for a drive if he's no asleep by 1230. Up at 6am today.

[ZiggyPie]

Hi everyone. I'm new here, and not happy about it, as tha means we are having loads of issues. I started a thread about it but thought I would also post here to get more eyes on this. DS has just turned 17 months and and has for the past almost 2 weeks has been waking 1-3 times per night and we are unable to leave the room for naps or BT unless he is asleep. He's been STTN pretty much since about 10 weeks and we've always been able to just lay him down in his crib awake and he will snuggle his lovey and drift off on his own. We're in the midst of 2-1, teething (canines), and have just returned from a weeklong vacation. He now also wakes up upset, immediatley standing and tosses his lovey. Previously he would wake very happy and would stay in his crib until i  got him up.Does this sound like regression or any/all of the above? And what do I do about it??

[katie80]

(((Hugs))) hon, it does sound like a combination of all of the above to me.  I'll let the main advice stay on your thread, but I'd say the best thing you can do is to be consistent.  Some meds may help with the teething, also.

[amateursuch]

Oh I've just read this thread (all through!) and its made me feel so much better that others have gone through this, and some have even come out the other end.

Its gone a bit quiet though so perhaps I'm the only one in the deep throws of 18 month regression (although its come early as we're only at 17 months). Anyone else want a bit of handholding?

[Buttonbobs]

Don't worry that it's quiet - sometimes others are there in the wings waiting for someone else to step out first
We've come out the other side, but happy to stay here with you for a bit. How're things at the moment?

[amateursuch]

Hi Naomi - thanks for responding and well done for being out the other side! How long did it take, and what form...?!

Things are pretty all over the shop. All started about 6 weeks ago (she is 18 mo in a few days) when she got bad chicken pox, we went on holiday and we finally (after several months of back and forth) committed to 1 nap only.

The last few weeks have been totally lacking in routine (however hard I try), EWUs, patchy naps and for several weeks taking over an hour to settle at bedtime, and now we've extended her last A, she's settling in 10 minutes but with lots of crying and protesting. Sigh. She's also quite SA (and she's always been clingy) and frankly in the day, she is just manic. Non stop whirlwind. And with 3.5 yo DS, who is a chronic 5.30/6am riser, I'm knackered...  Does it sound 18 mo SR-y to you?

[jessmum46]

Just joining in to support you too   Sound like she could be a bit OT with all that's gone on, what routine are you aiming for?

[amateursuch]

She's definitely OT, although she's good at hiding it!

Aiming for a kind of 5/5.25 - 5/5.5 kind of day but with early wakes and short naps the first WT is often a bit longer - I can't really bear to put her down much before 11! Much less than 5.5, even with a 1hr 20 nap, just ends up with a looong bedtime settle which pushes us way over the 5.5. Tonight, we had big screaming on PD - 5 hrs 20 after WU from 1 hr 30 nap, but it lasted 2 minutes. This is actually a huge improvement on 1 and a half hours of messing around and whinging which were pushing us towards 6 hrs from WU.

I did try to go back to 2 naps on v EW days but that was a disaster - with nap refusals all over the place. So I think I'm stuck with 1. I also tried much shorter WTs at the end of the day - i.e. 4 hr jobs - in case that helped with some of the OT, but just got 2 hours of messing around instead, with lots of crying towards the end!

She just seems utterly inconsistent at the moment. What works one day doesn't work the next. To some extent I know all kids are like that but right now, she takes all the biscuits!

[Buttonbobs]

We had a lot of fussing at BT and nap refusals and I think a lot of it seemed like teething behavior. It took a couple of months or so to really get through it but we had some illness too which made things a bit worse. Having come out the other side, I feel like it was most as if she was really testing our boundaries so staying consistent really helped.
I coped in the brain by sticking to set times for nap and BT really. Sometimes she took a nap, sometimes she didnmt so well, but I felt like I knew what was going on and when and consistency came from me even if she was all over the place iyswim.