18 month old waking up at night again

[pebbles_222]

So my son who turns 18 months in the next couple of days has started waking up at night and wants to sleep in bed with me. He has been technically sleep trained since he was 4 months old and falls asleep independently.

For context we got back from Thailand 3.5 weeks ago. Once we got back he would wake up every single night, wide awake and ready to play. I tried always waking him up at the same time and limiting his naps, that made no difference. Then I tried to let him sleep however long he wanted, that didn't work either. 10 days later we left for Cape Cod, MA which is only a 2 hour time difference but he still kept waking up, even though his bedtime didn't change. Finally 14 days after we got back from Thailand he slept through the night for 2 nights.

Then once we got home, he woke up in the middle of the night crying. I tried staying in the room and calming him down which is what used to work before but he was just getting hysterical and trying to climb out the crib so Ive been bringing him back into bed with me for the last 4-5 days.

Problem is he doesn't really sleep well with me, anytime I move a little bit away he wakes up and he tosses and turns a lot so he's frequently up.

I'm not sure what I should do now. He talks now so he cries and yells mama out , mama come, constantly. I don't want him to get into the habit of coming into bed with me, he;s been waking up at 6 am everyday because that's when i have to leave for work and not getting his full 11-12 hours at night.

[Scottishmummy]

Could it be the 18mo sleep regression?

I don't have personal experience as DS luckily didn't go through this and DD isn't there yet but I'll bump this post and hopefully someone will be along soon with some suggestions.

[pebbles_222]

It could be but i thought he already went through that for 2 weeks already? there's no way jet lag takes 14 days to get over does it? i assumed it must have been mixed up with the regression. also how do you get through the regression then?

[Scottishmummy]

Well, I don't know if 18mo regression is different but we had ax dreadful time with the 9mo regression with DD and I did same as you..slept on her floor to soothe her..but then it became a habit for us both and we got stuck with her not wanting to settle without me in her room but getting too distracted with me there to go back to sleep.

What worked for us in the end was doing WI/WO. I shared this jointly with my DH as DD would sometimes settle better for him than me (fewer associations as usually me who went in)

We would go in, comfort her, then go straight out, no edging out slowly, and wait by door. Often she cried but stopped after a minute or so...but if her cries didn't seem to be calming it were getting more distressed we went back in and repeated the process.

It took a couple of nights of awful sleep but did work pretty quickly and she starred STTN pretty soon after.

[Buntybear]

In our experience of regressions they could last a month either side of the 'event' - in our case it was birthdays, we didn't have a problem at half years. There isn't much you can do but be patient and try and keep props to a minimum unless you are prepared to wean them afterwards.

Could you post your EASY? Are you medicating for teeth?

[Buntybear]

This is quiet now but might give you some ideas? 18 month sleep regression support thread-part 3

[pebbles_222]

we did try WI/WO but he just screams bloody murder. The thing is when he wakes up at night nothing you do seems to work except picking him up, he just keeps crying and eventually switches to 'mama come', 'baba come' while balling.

when he went through a regression before at least patting would work but now as soon as we lay him down he gets right back up. Sometimes he'll even try to climb out of the crib.

[Scottishmummy]

I had a read of the sleep regression thread which Buntybear posted...it sounds like all the disrupted behaviour is part of the regression and only passes with reassurance to get through and time..it's a quiet thread at the moment but others might reply with BTDT experience if you try posting there?

[Buntybear]

Hi, sometimes they just need their mummies and through these stages you just have to be there for them instead of try to sleep training - that is probably why you are finding WI/WO is not helping. Does he settle if you stay in the room ? Could you try that for a few nights? There have been plenty of mums on here over the years that have ended up sleeping on their Los floors during regressions just for everyone to get some sleep!