Support for Mum's of LO's 16-19months with sleep issues

[kirsty_167]

I feel your frustration. I think the same thoughts too, especially when DS's sleep is bad. It's easy to forget the good stuff when you're so tired all the time. I know it sounds bad, but I take comfort knowing that millions of other moms are going through the same thing - makes me realize that my DS's normal and so am I! Hang in there!

Chrissy
[/quote]

Ditto!!!!! lol.......i have found myself seeking comfort from this too

may nights of sleep come soon!!!

Kirstyx

[aidenmc]

Urggh! I just need to post on my frustration. Aiden is 20.5 months old and has been waking 3 times a night for the past few nights. When will this ever end?? He falls asleep well on his own, he just won't stay asleep. He had a week of diarrhea but that seems to be better now. He also has a tooth that has been coming through for over a month. I think it is nearly there. I have heard that as long as they are putting themseves to sleep it is okay to do whatever to get them back down. I am back to patting his bum when he wakes, but I am getting so tired and sore and frustrated by this. Am I going in too quickly? I can usually tell in the first couple of minutes whether he is going to settle himself.

This morning, after falling asleep at 7:30, waking at 12:30, and 1:30 (for about 40 minutes -just kept fussing, though was tired) he woke at 4:55 and would not go back to sleep. His naps are getting worse too. I don't think  I can get him down earlier for bed as we used daylight saving to shift his schedule (which was too early). I fear it sliding back. Anyway, I really suspect there is no solution any more. Last night I was thinking that if this is because of teething (which seems to have been a problem since it started at 4 months) then we can't expect good sleep until the 2-year molars all come in and he is about 3!

Give me strength!

[grass_tiger]

Hi, I thought I'd post. Our LO did so well. From 6 weeks to 14 months she only woke up during the night less than a dozen times). Very nice. But then I hurt my back and things went crazy. I couldn't lift her and so we needed help taking care of her and so we had friends in and out helping, we hired an au pair who was really, really terrible, ok, maybe not that bad, but we got her out of here as soon as the agency would let us. Or LO, Eliana, has never been the same since. She was a peaceful child, happy, etc. After all that she became very unsettled, frustrated, demanding, etc. She went for three weeks without napping at all. She wouldn't have it for anything. Before this we could put her down and walk out and she would go to sleep. After this we finally worked out an arrangement where we would wi/wo until she laid down, the we would sit in the rocking chair in her room until she was asleep. Now we have a new au pair who is quite nice, though she lets Eliana have her way a bit too much. But these last few months Eliana (now 18 months) wakes up multiple times during the night. We thought perhaps going back to wi/wo till she fell asleep like we did when she was younger would work and perhaps she'd learn to put herself back to sleep during the night.

Well, we tried this and now she is unconsolable! Well, ok, she will calm down in our arms (thank G-d!), but she won't have her crib for anything. We weren't even doing a full wi/wo, when she laid down we would sit in the hallway with the door open instead of in her room in the rocking chair. At first it seemed to be working, but somehow in the last two days things have completely fallen appart and she only wants to be held. We can't even just stand next to the crib without her being terribly upset. Last night my husband climbed in with her since there was a thunderstorm and she seemed she was upset about it and so then she fell asleep, but today there was no nap because I'm just can do the climbing into her crib. I let her play with some toys instead during her naptime today just to help her self calm in her crib and be ok being in there, but she was very unsettled and would only play for a little while. I figured if I can get her happy in her crib again, that it is a first step.

Right now we are trying to just get back to where we were.

Oh, her schedule:

6 am wake up (can't get her to sleep longer no matter what) and she gets a couple sippy cups of milk
7 am au pair takes over Mon-Sat
8 am breakfast
10 am small snack
Noon - I take over and feed her lunch and she watches Muzzy or some other educational language program (this is the only "TV" she ever sees - she watches on a computer).
1 pm Nap - If she falls asleep she was sleeping till three or four pm, but never past four
4pm Snack
6:30 supper - her father takes over
7:30 bath -
8:00 pm story time and then bedtime

How we tried to change things was to slowly move to the door when she was finally read to lay down and then sit just outside the door with the door open till she fell asleep thinking it was just a step from sitting inside the room. This worked a few times, but then she didn't like it and now she isn't comforted even if we stand next to her crib. I don't really know why she took it so badly. We were trying to be gentle with the change, but obviously something is wrong. After we gave up trying to get her down for a nap today. She stood in the living room and just cried for a while. She wouldn't even come to me. I had to go, pick her up, and hold her - which finally calmed her. I logged onto this forum and started reading. It took quite a while for her to be interested in even trying to play at all. Again, she hadn't seemed like she was that upset, but obviously she must have been.

I'm sorry this post is all confused. I'm so tried I'm having trouble thinking straight. We have an au pair because I have a chronic illness and so I don't have a lot of energy. We aren't really sure what to do about Eliana's sleep, but are thinking of trying to get her back to being ok with how things used to be because at least then she would fall asleep in a decent amount of time and wasn't so upset. Sometimes she just seems like she is just being bratty, but when she gets this upset, I know there is more to it. It is so hard to sort out and know what to do. I think the thunderstorms yesterday really didn't help matters.

I'm going to go finish reading the posts in this thread and see what I can learn from you all. Oh yes, we've done baby whisperer stuff since about two weeks. It does seem things change a lot once they hit the toddler years. I wish it were easier to know what to do.

[JoC]

We were kinda doing ok this last week, wakeings had got to 5 or later and on several occasions ds actually went back to sleep til past 6.30 after a few 4 ish wake ups, then ANOTHER virus. "HAND, FOOT and MOUTH VIRUS", I was shocked at the doctors today, but she told me it is a normal thing for kids under 5 to get, he must have caught it at nursery (along with every other bug know to man). Good thing is that this time I cannot catch it, that will be a first!!!
So we were up last night at 11.30- 12.30- 1 am etc, and i knew there was something wrong, so took him to docs this morning and here we are. He has eaten nothing all day, so will feed him in night as poor lamb will be starving by 11 i shouldn't wonder.
Off to Centre Parks over Easter, and half glad half not, cos it will be ANOTHER disruption to his routine, still, it brings us a few weeks closer to him being 2 and who knows he may sleep by then...surely!!!

Jo

[thedavies]

Hi
our 18mth old is stuck in a pattern of overtiredness (we think) yet again - having struggled with this many times before. She is waking around 4.30 - 5 am, unhappy and yelling loudly. Mostly we are unable to get her back to sleep. On bad nights she can wake up four or five times - sometimes she goes back by herself sometimes she needs just laying back down and is back within ten minutes, sometimes it takes 40 mins...
She transitioned to one nap 3.5 months ago but she is getting up so early that we have been putting her down for a nap about 5 hours after she wakes - so that's sometimes as early as 10.30am. Generally she sleeps for a couple of hours except sometimes at nursery where she might have only an hour or sometimes less, though sometimes she can do two there. They understand what we are trying to do with curbing the overtiredness and do try to get her down at the right time but it doesn't always happen...so we are trying early bedtimes - eg 5.45pm one day this week, so that her day isn't so long. Is this the right tack? Do we then start re-extending her day to get a later bedtime and hopefully later wake time when we get more consistent unbroken nights?
Also, we have had terrible bedtimes and naptimes - using WIWO with a lot of frustrated yelling and distress..until we remembered that the last time we had developmental/accumulated overtiredness, she hated WIWO and gradual withdrawal worked much better, so we switched to this and had instant results - we lay her down, reassure her a bit and then gradually edge to the door whilst she is self-soothing and by the time she is closing her eyes finally we are out of sight at the door - this has been a great boost as we hope more settled bedtimes will mean better sleep ultimately.
during the day we are seeing full-on toddler emotions - meltdowns all over the place and the biggest leap in toddlerness so far, which we are putting down to a mixture of her age and the overtiredness.
Please can someone suggest what else we can do - we are trying to deal with the problem at its root causes rather than its symptoms as trying to get her back to sleep at 4.30am/4.50am is provoking exactly the kind of runaway emotions we are dealing with elsewhere in the day, so trying not to start the day with a full scale battle.
Are the very early bedtimes the right thing to do?
What other techniques should we try in the early am? What has worked at bedtime and naps doesn't seem to work here. We end up getting up with her, then BFing around 5.30am, a bit of play til 6ish then breakfast so we more or less start the day at that time. On top of the full scale daytime toddlerness we are exhausted.
Sorry to ramble hope someone can help.
hope the success we've had at bedtime/naps might help someone else too. commiserations to anyone else in the same boat, this is the toughest so far all round

[JoC]

Hi,
we too have had limited success with wi/wo, ds just gets so wound up. The early 4-5 am wakings are a killer, as you often don't get back to sleep before its time to get up, then you are functioning on being up since 4, I know that feeling well!
To be honest, we have never overcome the 4-5 am waking, I tried gradual withdrawl for 3 weeks but no effect, very strong willed is ds. I actually give hime 3-4 oz of milk and he (used to, now we are in another weird wake up at any time phase) and he woul;d go back to sleep, but i don't advocate that as i think it compounded our problem.
I think an earlier bedtime may help, you could try it for a few days.
Sorry I can really only tell you what has not worked!!!

Tired Hugs,
 Jo x

[Gippie]

the davies - sorry about the early wakes.  We went through that at about 14 months and the ups and downs lasted for 60 days.....I documented it all and I DO think it can pass - it is just a long long process.  I truly believe it is the sleep adjustment from baby to toddler.   Quinn did that EXACT same thing and we rode that same roller coaster.  I posted a monster post about it.   

I will see if I can find it.

Stacey

[vickymeek]

Thank heavens I'm not the only one going through this. I just thought I'd gone way off track! My LO is 17 months and has been a beautiful sleeper since she was six weeks (with the occasional blip when ill, teething, milestones, etc). She has always needed a lot more sleep than other babies - until now!

Yet now, she is refusing to go to sleep at night, even when I know she's tired, waking up at between 1am and 2am and i can't get her back to sleep for between one and two hours. She wakes up crying and saying, mummy, mummy, mummy. Sometimes just talking to her over the monitor settles her back down, but more often than not I have to go in. I take her out of the cot and calm her and, although up to now I've been pretty strict about not letting her fall asleep on me, I'm finding it's the only way to get her back off. At first I thought she was teething, but it's been going on for a couple of months now and it's driving me crazy.

When I'm trying to get her to sleep both at bed time and in the middle of the night, it's as if she's wired. Her eyes stay wide open and she waves her arm about and fidgets - no-one else I've spoken to has ever heard of this.

I'm really worried because I'm due with no 2 in eight weeks and I really need to get this sorted. The other problem is that she won't be settled by daddy - it has to be me. How on earth will I be able to breastfeed one and settle the other at the same time? Any suggestions more than welcome.

Her routine at home (nursery is slightly different but not much):

7.30 Wake
8.00 Breakfast, then play time
10.30 Snack
12.00 lunch
12.30ish nap time (2 hrs usually)
2.30 wake
3.00 snack and play time
5.30 supper
6.30 bath
7.00 stories and general wind down
7.30 bed time (although at the moment she sometimes won't go down until 8.30)

[tinachris]

I am so glad that I found that post - it helps to know that there are more with the same problems
Also our LO was a great night sleeper - until we went home to our parents place for a few days - afterwards it was all over and he started to wake up at least once a night - sometimes 2-3 times. And as the time is usually between 2-4am it's really frustrating.
Right after the short holidays he started to walk and talk - so I think that was just too much for him and he struggles to handle all that.
As a few of my friends have the same problems I think it has really something to do with the age (16mths) - as we a lacking sleep now since 1 month I hope this period is over soon...

It's not the problem with him going to bed - it's just his night wakings. Most of the time it's also enough for him when I go in for a second calmly whisper that it's sleep time and give him teddy back in his arms then he is sleeping again - but I am awake for 1 hour...

But I am still hoping every night that this will be the first quiet night again...

Martina

[vickymeek]

Hello, me again. Just thought I'd add a post-script to my last post about night wakings. I haven't solved them entirely, but we're getting there. I just wanted to let anyone who's having a tough time know, it can get better......

I re-read some of Tracy's advice on put down, gradual withdrawal and bed times and it seems we're making progress. We're putting her to bed a little earlier (closer to 7 than 7.30) as I think that on nursery days especially, she was just getting overtired.

I now put her in her cot when she goes to bed as she's getting sleepy and she goes down within ten to 15 minutes. If she's pretending not to be sleepy, I simply hold her tight and ensure she is sucking her thumb, put her in her cot and put my hand on her for a few minutes and then leave. It works!

As for night wakings, we had a couple of tough nights last week, when I did put down with her. On both nights, it took a good couple of hours to get her to go to sleep, and she did get pretty agitated, but she now knows the score. If she gets up while I'm still in the room, I go towards her and she'll lie back down again even before I've got to her. Those two nights were followed by four whole nights of unbroken sleep. Hurrah!

She woke several times last night, but I know that that was teething and that's just something I have to deal with. Once I've calmed her and given her medicine, I can put her back in her cot, settle her, stay in the room for maybe 20 mins and she'll go right back to sleep. No more holding till she's asleep.

Keep with it. There will be ups and downs but you can get your independent sleeper back!

[scotpiper]

Help!! I have a 17 month old daughter. We have always had sleep problems with her. She has been on EASY since she was 6 months old, but has been very resistant to it. She had finally been sleeping about 12 hours a night with no wake ups and had been napping 1.5-2 hours a day. Usually only 1.5 hour naps. Naps continued to be a bit erratic no matter what we tried. Everything was thrown for a loop when she started on her first molar. A month ago, she woke up hysterical in the wee hours of the morning and was hysterical for several hours. She then started getting hysterical if we tried to leave her room at bedtime while she was still awake. Her doc said it was probably tooth pain and it scared her. We started giving her Motrin at bedtime as well as orajel and spent 2 weeks staying with her until she fell asleep. We only had to stand inside her room, by the door and talk to her when necessary. After 2 weeks, she was back to falling asleep after we left the room. 2 weeks ago, it started again. She just started getting hysterical one night when we tried to leave her room while awake....while still getting the pain meds. Nothing changed. No new teeth, just the usual swollen spots that are taking forever to appear. It now effects both naps and nights. She's now waking several times a night and we have to go in every time. Naps are short: 30 min to 1 hour. Early wakings have reappeared: 5 am is a favorite. She has always woken early (6-7am), but we're morning people, so it wasn't a big deal. We have no idea what's causing this or how to begin to stop it. She's clearly sleep deprived again and is having the typical toddler meltdowns during the day as well as whining and refusing to use the words she had been speaking before. Her Easy is (was):

6-6:30am - wake & BF
7am - breakfast
10:45 - snack
11am - nap (1-1.5 hrs...we haven't seen a 1.5 hr nap in a while!)
2pm - lunch
5pm - BF, dinner
6pm - start bedtime routine(read books, sponge bath, diaper change, pj's, then put her in crib and head for the door)
6:30 -  bedtime
What exactly is WI/WO and "gradual withdrawl?"

[Gippie]

For all of you in early wake and NW hell.....here was my LOOONG post that was what I did to deal with our DD going from perfect sleeper to NW Queen.   

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=86026.msg772071#msg772071 

It was a LONG 60 days  - yes 60 days from start to finish to get it to change and I type that cause I think it is easy to give up....without results it is SO hard to stay motivated.    Hope some of what happened to us can help you all.  PM me if you want.

Stacey

[Layla]

SCOTPIPER - here is the link to the sleep training methods for toddlers (GW & wi/wo included)

If you have any further q's, post a new topic in this forum so that more people get exposure to your post & will hopefully be able to help you get through this

hth
Layla

[scotpiper]

Layla,
There was no link in your message.

Scotpiper

[Layla]

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63896.0