17 month old still not sleeping through the night

[trishr]

Since about 4 months old my daughter has had sleep problems at night for various reasons. BW techniques for the most part work with her with sometimes just a little modification. At 17 months old we’ve had very few nights of sleeping through and saying we are exhausted doesn’t begin to describe our state of mind. This is truly impacting our whole life negatively in every aspect to go so many months without proper sleep. Both husband and I work full time& in October my daughter started at a daycare where she immediately caught every cold and flu around. So legitimately she has been sick for 5 months and the nighttime stuff made sense. We most of the time had to comfort vs stick to any techniques as she was pretty miserable night and day. So of course some habits and expectations have formed. Over this time the  wakings have been so sporadic but here is the last 6 week’s version that I am requesting help with. (Dr just verified today she is not at all sick so we need to do something as there is no reason for waking.) she wakes up anshere from 1 hour to 3 hour increments throughout the night crying. The moment we come in she lays down to sleep. Just wants you to put her blanket on her. Some nights like tonight that just don’t do and she don’t settle back asleep and cries for you to be in the room all night. I can’t try pu/pd as she stops crying when I enter and lays down. She knows to do that much from prior pu/pd sessions.  Her daytime routine is consistent. Eat at 8, snack at 9:39 (daycare timing) lunch at 11,39, nap at noon, snack at 3, bed st 7:20. Her naps range from 1-2.5 hours. These occur st daycare so I have little control over trying to work in this area. Any advice is appreciated!!!!

[Haribo2012]

Hi there you are heading into a huge sleep regression around 18 months so things could be off for a little while yet.

Has she ever fallen asleep independently? Do the NW vary depending on nap length?

[trishr]

she falls asleep independently for every nap and if anyone other I put her down at night time. There have been a few times at night she lets me put her down to fall asleep independently but very few. I can put her down for naps no problem independently. It is just nighttime. This is what makes me know she knows what she is asking for and I forgot to mention last night that she is extremely strong willed. Her wake times do not seem to correlate with the lengths of the nap or time of day she wakes. In fact a few weeks  ago she took two naps and still went down to sleep on time and slept through the night. I almost wonder if I had to transition her to quickly to one nap a day and we are still dealing with the aftermath effects of that. Her daycare required me to put her to one nap at 12 months old. I knew she wasn’t ready and they were flexible to some degree. They would give her second nap if needed worked really hard to transition her to one nap. That happened fully at about 13 months. I can definitely look closer at naps. Both with me wake up and the links of them to see if that helps to correlate night sleep.  I am just not sure if I should keep going back in and working with her to lay down or put her blanket on her whatever she is requesting all throughout the night. Thank you as well for replying and trying to work with me on this!! I feel like I’m a little too involved to be able to see clearly from the outside on this anymore.

[Haribo2012]

My DS2 went to one nap at daycare but still had a micro 15 mins nap when he was with me on the other days and normal nap at day 12.30. He carried on this until 20 months, you could perhaps try a little car nap on the way somewhere on days you have her and see if the catch up helps.
BT can be hard with strong willed ones my DS2” is very like this although he is 26 months now but often asks for me to sit near him at BT, but I explain it’s sleep time and will come back and check in few mins etc.
Can you try a bit of walk in walk out, lots of cuddles into bed then leave, come back straight away repeat it’s time to sleep or whatever u choose to say and leave again, sometimes reassurance from outside the door can help too.

At his age really she could prob use a good 2 hour nap and 13 hour day of course this isn’t true for all lo but maybe if naps are shortish she is OT by BT and too wound up to sleep if that makes sense x

[trishr]

Yes that does make sense and my gut was telling me she needs more sleep based off using ZbW techniques w my first daughter. Everyone else keeps telling to give her even less sleep but I swear I can see a huge personality difference when she is not extremely OT. I think I will try letting her catch some catnaps when I can. I just wish I could help her to stay asleep through the night but maybe if she the OT stuff gets resolved she will sleep better through the night?  Thank you for your advice!!!

[Haribo2012]

Yes often OT can cause NW. keep us posted x

[trishr]

Thank you