19 month old sleep problems: early wake-time + nursing

[Apple001]

Hi all,

It's been a while since I've been here. But we're having sleep problems again.

My daughter (19.5 mo) transitioned to 1 nap 3 weeks ago. She didn't drop any naps on her own, but she had an early wake time in the morning (4-5am). So we decided that it is time to have just one nap. Then two weeks ago there was a time-change, a change of care-giver (my father in law left and my mom came) and in addition vaccines/teething, etc. She was extra fussy and nursing constantly. So now we're in situation that she wakes up at 4:15am, nurses for an hour and falls asleep in our bed till 7:15-7:30. I tried to move her back to her crib but she starts crying and I pick her up again.
She has been an independent sleeper for a while. She goes to sleep without nursing sessions during the nap, however during pre-BT routine I nurse her, but she is awake when I put her down into the crib.

Currently our day looks like this:
7:15-7:30am - wake up
12 - 2pm - nap
6:30pm - pre-BT routine starts
7-7:15pm - BT

Ideally I would like her to sleep at least till 6am in the morning. However I'm not sure how to accomplish this. If I start soothing her, she will want to nurse. If I break the nursing session, she will be crying.
My husband did successfully shush-pat and a light PU/PD (mostly PD) when she was 9mo, but now she will be demanding me, not him.
My husband suggests to stop BFing her at all, however I don't want to do that.

Also does her schedule looks right? How long is awake time for a 19-month-old? I try to keep it under 5hours before the BT.

[Scottishmummy]

Hi
I understand that you don't want to stop BF and that is absolutely fine.  I do wonder whether you need to stop the 4am BF to get a full night sleep. It sounds to me like she's started treating it as a NF and waking for it out of habit and needing it to go back to sleep.

My DD (13mo)  doing something similar...waking early (around 5) and only resettling after a BF, sometimes not resettling. We tried getting only DH to go in and resettle but she still woke early.  Only thing that worked for us was just refusing to feed until 7/7.30 in the morning. The first time she cried and I stayed with her and soothed her and eventually she fell back to sleep herself without the feed. After that she started settling more easily without feeding and after a week she would sleep 7pm-6/6.30am. 

Her daytime routine looks pretty typical for her age.  I think the issue is the night feed has become a habit.  It's your choice of course whether you want to try dropping it but honestly I don't think she will sleep an unbroken night until you only feed her in daytime hours.

[Apple001]

Scottishmummy, thank you for response!

We tried it last might, but I gave in at 5:40am. She actually first woke up around 1am (instead of 4am) and cried to an hour. My hubby was settling her. Next, she was crying through the sleep around 5am for a couple of minutes (we usually wait for a couple of minutes before coming in). At 5:40am I went to get her and she breastfed for 40 minutes and started her day afterwards.
Her nap extended to 2h 50m!!! She was definitely catching up on her lost sleep.

Tonight we will try to push her till 6:15am.

[Scottishmummy]

Good luck.

I know it's tough with the longer NW and crying but honestly it often gets worse then gets better when they get used to going all night without the feed

Xxx