15 month old still wakes every 2 hours- HELP!

bawags

Hello everyone. My DD is almost 15 months and still sleeps like a newborn (awake every 2 hours at least). She has NEVER STTN and doesn't even nap every day either. She is a very happy baby and has been walking well since 11 months. She has co-slept since almost the very beginning. She slept in her swing/bouncer for a couple weeks, but it was just too hard to get in and out of bed to get her after my c-section. She usually needs to nurse to fall asleep and fall back asleep in the middle of the night. I don't mind the co-sleeping or night nursing, but I wish she would sleep more than a 2 hour stretch before waking. Anyone have a suggestion?

=Lee=B

Sleep begets sleep.  If she is not getting naps in each day then it will make night sleep even harder.  I would focus on getting in solid daytime naps before tackling the night sleep.

My daughter (13months) woke every 2hrs to nurse all night until I moved her to her crib...she would wake, stir about and find me then want to feed.  Once she was in her own crib she had room to move around.  Now she wakes every 5-6hrs to feed and sleeps much better.

TiffanyBerry

It was around that age that I had to do partial night weaning for my daughter, because I *NEEDED* three consecutive hours of sleep.  It wasn't easy, but we made progress.  Working on daytime naps would also probably help, but my daughter did this despite daytime naps.

rae_dylanzmom

My DS didn't STTN for a long time either, and lots of people told me BFing was the reason. (LOs metabolize breast milk more quickly, so they are hungry sooner.) Does your DD eat much food or milk. My DS was a near-exclusive breast man for a long time, so the co-sleeping was really useful for us to actually sleep and get him fed as he needed.

The suggestions I received were to sleep train and to feed him more food, formula, or milk. I wasn't big on either of those suggestions and we just slept together until he outgrew the frequent night feedings. It will happen. Eventually.

Actually, a suggestion that I got and see value in is to create another association for sleep for your LO. A lovey, music, white noise, back rubs.... something besides your boobs. That way you don't become a human pacifier. You'll have to get advice from someone else about how to do this though, because I pretty-well failed at it.

pixieprincss

I went with partial night-weaning for both of my boys around that age. After being able to roll with waking every 2-3 hours for, well, forever things finally hit a head. With DS1, I was pregnant and needed to sleep more. With DS2 he would wake every 45 minutes some nights and be very vocal and demanding about nursing, even hitting me at times. Night-weaning to every 4 hours was very helpful in both cases. DH really took the lead in comforting since it was confusing to baby for me to do it. I was happy to still be there and snuggle, etc. but the loving arms of daddy were really great. For both boys, it took a few very hard nights of holding our ground and letting him cry about it in-arms and then about two weeks to let it settle in. Reading Nursies When the Sun Shines was nice for our family since it shows continued bedsharing and toddler nursing.

TiffanyBerry

For the record, partial night weaning, and eventual full night weaning, and even full weaning hasn't changed the fact that at a week and a half shy of four years old, she still wakes on average 1-2 times per night.

One of the reasons she does it, and even at that age?  Needing to pee.  From the time she was nearly one (as best I can determine), she would wake up every time she peed, and have trouble getting back to sleep unless I changed her diaper, even if it was a small pee.

bawags

Thanks for the suggestions! I'm glad to hear there is some hope of sleep out there! She didn't start eating any solids until she was 11 months and is still not a great eater. Perhaps figuring out how to get some more day time calories in her will help. Maybe tackling the napping would be a good place to start.

CamoBride2010

DD also doesn't sleep thru the night (16 months old). She used to wake every 2 hours, and we also breastfeed and co-sleep. Now on good nights she only wakes once. She still has many nights when she is up 2-4 times at night ( mostly when she's cutting teeth). What has helped us was making sure she was full before bedtime. I try to give her a small snack around 7 pm ( we go to bed around 8-8:30) I usually do air popped popcorn ( I pick off all the kernels), I started giving her this hoping that it would help her feel full longer. It seemed to help, not perfectly but hey when you need more  than 2 hours of sleep at time anything is worth a shot! I also quit responding to her right away. She starts the night in her crib by our bed then once she wakes I just stick her in bed with us. I realized that sometimes she would start fussing or crying and I would get her and put her in bed with us and maybe I didn't need to.  Often times she fusses/cries and her eyes are still closed, if I shush her and don't touch her about 50% of the time she goes back to sleep. Now I let her fuss until she stands up in her crib. We've been doing this for about 2 months and it's seemed to help. I'm also trying to help her find some comfort with a lovey but limited luck so far. DD loves to rub my arm as she nurses to sleep, so I have a silky lovey thing and I've been laying it over my arm for her to rub. Hopefully someday she'll be able to use it to comfort herself back to sleep. GL!

pixieprincss

TiffanyBerry said:

For the record, partial night weaning, and eventual full night weaning, and even full weaning hasn't changed the fact that at a week and a half shy of four years old, she still wakes on average 1-2 times per night.

One of the reasons she does it, and even at that age?  Needing to pee.  From the time she was nearly one (as best I can determine), she would wake up every time she peed, and have trouble getting back to sleep unless I changed her diaper, even if it was a small pee.

My 3 year old is the same way. Much of the time, he can use the potty by his bed and put himself back to sleep (though right now he's in a wetting phase). Pretty much since birth, he's been riled up by the act of urination. as a baby, he'd scream right before going (which was great for EC). But, I still think the 1-2 night- wakings is way easier than the 1-2 hour night-wakings!