Author Topic: 14mos old suddenly not sleep trained?  (Read 1180 times)

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Offline Sabby55

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14mos old suddenly not sleep trained?
« on: October 31, 2017, 02:47:41 am »
We are at our wits end.

Our little one is 14months old.  He has been sleep trained for a LONG time. Normal bedtime routine had bedtime at 7pm, we would read a story, sing a song, place him in his crib awake, and he’d go to sleep by himself. Would sleep until 7:15.  Cue starting daycare at 11ish months and a forced transition to 1nap a day, and having to be woken up at 6:30.  Things were rough for a bit, he started waking up many times in the night, but we switched him to a 6:30pm bedtime, he slowly adjusted to the one nap a day, which started to be longer and longer, and would now sleep 6:30-6:30.

Suddenly about 6 weeks ago, everything went to hell.  I have no idea what triggered it- at the time we thought maybe teething, maybe he was coming down with something, but suddenly the night time wake ups were back with a vengeance, accompanied by a 5am wake up in the morning that he wouldn’t go back to sleep from. Then bedtime started becoming a nightmare.  The minute he is placed in bed he starts screaming. 
We now fight him for almost 45 minutes each night trying to get him to sleep. The only thing that works is rocking/cuddling him, but now I’m terrified that’s just making things worse... At first I thought sleep regression, or sick, or whatever but now it’s veen 6 weeks straight and I’m terrified of the patterns that are forming.
TOnight we tried letting him cry a bit, I wanted to try the gradual cry it out.  We set our timer for 5 minutes.  4 minutes in and he was crying so hard he threw up. I’ve tried PU/PD but the second you put him down he starts screaming bloody murder, even when you’re still standing in the room with him. 
His night time wake ups are lessening a BIT, but we still struggle to get him to sleep past 5:30am. We tried slowly shifting bedtime back to 7, but nothing has changed.

Can anyone help us?! We are at our wits end. We’ve had a sleep trained baby so long, and I feel like I’ve tried everything from the book!

Offline Katet

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Re: 14mos old suddenly not sleep trained?
« Reply #1 on: October 31, 2017, 07:08:37 am »
I'm sorry you felt you had to use CIO as that will definitely have made it worse for both him and you, as his trust in you will be damaged.

I think a lot will be related to separation anxiety which will be greater with him being away from you at daycare.

Rather than thinking about it as sleep training, try to change your mindset to making bedtime a really special and bounding time. With all the events you describe he will be overtired so he will need extra help to get to sleep, so the cuddling is worth doing, once he feels safe and happy with his bed again, then it's likely he will settle more... but the time he is away from you at daycare will mean he needs attention to get his Mummy cup filled up.

Toddlers aren't manipulative, they 100% do what they do to get their needs met... their strongest need is for connection and trust, so when that is combined with Separation  anxiety, they struggle with bedtime, so it's about working with those needs.
dc1 July 03, dc2 May 05