20 month old not sleeping - help!

jmlundborg · February 2015

My daughter used to be decent sleeper. She would go down around 8:30 and sleep until 6:30 or 7. Lately, however, she's been really difficult. Now she goes to bed around 9, but doesn't usually fall asleep for about 15-30 minutes after I put her down. Then, usually between 2:30-4:00am, she wakes up and refuses to go back to sleep. We've tried CIO, but my limit is 45 minutes. So I typically bring her into bed with me. Oftentimes once she's in bed with me she will fall asleep quickly, but she wakes up for good around 5am. There's no getting her to 6:30 anymore. On rougher nights, she'll wake up around 3-4 and refuses to go back to sleep even in my bed. She's just up.

She only takes a two hour nap each day, so it doesn't seem like she's getting enough sleep to me. And my husband and I both work full time and I've been a zombie these last few weeks.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Has anyone else been through this? My husband and I had been planning to start trying for #2 next month, but my exhaustion is making me question that decision!

SharonB222 · February 2015

My DS is younger than your DD, so not there yet, but yesterday when DS woke up 1/2 hour early I was remembering when DD would wake up earlier and I would keep her in bed (it's not 7:00 yet): 30 more min, 20 more min, 10 more min. She also woke overnight we'd co-sleep until morning (now at 3 yrs old she joins us in bed on her own so it's not an interruption for us). I remember her waking and playing overnight but I'm not sure what we did or how long it lasted. That's not helpful now except that like everything this will pass and one day you won't remember.

Teething is really rough on us and I blame most sleep disruption on that, or new mental/physical stages - but clearly some of it is just "that age". DD is 3 and DS is 15 mo and I am just starting to get more sleep this time around (I have low expectations for "more sleep"

- DS still wakes up 3 times overnight). Good luck!

GracefulStar · February 2015

Is she teething or hungry? try a bit of water or milk when she wakes, see if that helps. Unless it's an attachment thing which my 20 month old is going through now...but mostly affects going down to sleep although two months ago he was getting up in the middle of the night and wouldn't sleep without us. Not sure if it's teething but that stopped, he also is going through something where he sleeps a lot less than normal, going to bed between 9 and 10 and waking up before 6. Last night he didn't nap at all yesterday so I put him down at 8:30 and he woke up at 8... Unheard of for him, will try it again as I want to shift his bedtime. Sorry if this is random ramblings, I'm on no sleep with an infant but try different things and see if you get a different result.

PrimRoseMama · February 2015

It's a phase. Ride it out. You might try pushing the nap to one hour so she will sleep at night. But really the 8-10 hour solid chunk of sleep is not every person's natural sleep pattern.