20 month old bedtime struggles and unexpected nightwakings

[melloyello]

Hi there,
My DS is 20 months and has been STTN since he has 8 months old. His day currently looks like this:

6:30-7 WU
12:30-3 Nap
7:30 BT (sometimes not asleep until 8pm)

Lately he has started crying a lot at bedtime. He has a lovey which he is quite attached to and sometimes he will throw it out of the crib and cry, other times he just stands there crying and as soon as we go in he will lie down and be quiet. It usually takes about 3x of us going in before he'll go to sleep (but still on his own). Also, he has woken up 2x in the night in the last week which NEVER happens. Two nights ago at 1:30am and then last night at 4am. The only way to get him to settle is to give him his paci, which he only has at naps, not at bedtime. I'm thinking maybe SA - does that sound right? Hopefully the night wakings don't continue, but any advice on how to settle him without the paci? We are slowly trying to wean this anyway.
I should add that he was in a sleepsack until last week (it ripped) and now is not. I cover him with a blanket but he often throws it out.

Thanks!

[*Becky*]

Hi there,
Ok so there are a few thoughts....
Firstly is he teething at all? Both my two go through SA when teething and also have NWings, particularly around 4/5am.

How long has he been on one nap? My other thought is that he may be ok with having the nap cut back to 2 hours as 4.5 hours A time after the nap is not all that much for his age tbh.

If it were me i would put him into another sleep sack - DS had his until he was 2.5 and it really helped with his sleep i.e. he would have been up and moving about so much more without it.

[melloyello]

Thanks for your thoughts.

Teething is a possibility, although he doesn't seem in pain during the day, but definitely a little "off" today - could just be tired from the NW though.

He has been on one nap since 15 months (20 months now) and has always loved his daytime sleep. He would go for 3 hours or more if I let him... but then bedtime gets too late. I agree though that his A time before bed might not be enough. He's taking longer to fall asleep these days, although on days he does take a shorter nap (2 hours) it doesn't seem to make much difference - still takes him 30 min or so to fall asleep.

Interesting about the sleepsack. I figured it might be a good time to try without it, but it's a strange coincidence that we've only had NWs since we stopped using it!

[*Becky*]

I would def put one on, DS found his very comforting, I think they feel more secure in it. I would also cap the nap at 2 hours now.

[clairebear79]

I'll second that about the sleeping bag, we tried DS without it at a similar age to yours, but he woke repeatedly at night, screaming & crying.  So we put it back on & he settled back down. x

[melloyello]

Thanks for the help. I put him back in a sleepsack last night and no NWs. Coincidence? Maybe not. My only concern is that he will be moving from a crib to bed in the next 5 months or so as we are expecting another baby. What do I do about the sleepsack then? I don't want to make the transition any harder than it might be already!

[*Becky*]

we kept DS in a sleepsack to begin with when he first transitioned to a BBB. He was fine and it helped with the transition tbh. Once a couple of months had gone by we put a duvet on him and he was fine...

[<Catherine>]

We had the same with the sleepsack too - I took it off him for a while and it definitely caused NWings not having it on, I put it back on and have only recently stopped using it - he's 3yrs4 mos now He had his on whilst in a BBB too. We've had some odd NWings recently too and the sleepsack is one of my theories on that for us - there are a few others too though