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18 mo old sleep issues - need help!

valeivegasvaleivegas member
in Toddlers: 12 - 24 Months
My DD is 18 mos old and admittedly we've established some bad sleep habits that need to be broken.  Dh & I are so utterly exhausted we can't take it anymore.  She goes to sleep quickly at night - bath, bottle, rock her for a few minutes & she's out.  Then she usually wakes up around 1-2am.  I started a bad habit a few months back of giving her a bottle in the middle of the night - she would drink it & go back to sleep right away - we were only up for maybe 15 min.  But now after the bottle, she just screams, throws herself around, etc.  We try to rock her, soothe her, but nothing works.  So we put her back in her crib, let her cry a few min, then go back to check on her.  This will go on for an hour, sometimes longer.  We get so desperate at times we just give her another bottle & then she calms down & will sleep until morning. (Crazy, I know...)

Well, the time has come to stop these bottles. I know this is a major part of why she's waking up - & looking for us to soothe her, although she really doesn't even want to be held.  We really don't want to do a complete CIO - it's just not our style - and I would get worried she would try to climb out of her crib & get hurt (my DS did this & it really scared me). 

Our pediatrician recommended focusing on getting her to initially fall asleep on her own - not rocking her to sleep.  Then continue doing what we've been doing during the night - in hopes that she initially falls asleep on her own, she will go back to sleep during the night.  I think we could try this, but also stop the middle of the night bottles too. I just don't know how long it's going to take for her to go back to sleep...

Any tips from anyone who's had similar issues & resolved them without doing a full CIO? Any advice is appreciated!!  We need some sleep - thanks!
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Re: 18 mo old sleep issues - need help!

  • bibby32714bibby32714 member

    We are in the midst of this issue as well.  She lays down fine on her own for bed and puts herself to sleep. But then comes the wakings in the middle of the night.  We had started a bad habit of letting her come in to our bed during these times. This was when I thought it might only be a night or two of this phase. Now that we are on week 3 or 4 of this phase, not such a good idea. 

     I have stopped bringing her out of her room when she wakes up. She crys and whines to leave and I wont let her.  We have stopped letting her have a sippy of milk in the middle of the night as well.  I have started a type of CIO, I only let her go a few minutes (I set a timer or time seems to go really slow when listening to screaming) and go check and soothe every five minutes until she stops.  We are only on day two of this process so I don't know how this is going to work.  We had to sleep train before to get her to put herself to sleep so I am trying to follow those same ideas now.

     

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  • valeivegasvaleivegas member
    Thanks so much for all the input!  It's reassuring to hear that other methods besides CIO do work - sometimes it seems that is the only answer you get..  When she wakes up I think she is still tired - she just doesn't know how to go back to sleep.  She'll point towards the door & want to get out of her room.  She just flails herself around - it's tough to even hold her.

    We never had these issues with DS - we co-slept for half the night with him until he was about 2 & I was a few months pg - he had to get out of our bed & he did well on his own.  He actually slept better once he was in a big bed - but for DD that won't be for another 8 mos if not longer...

    I think she is definitely going thru some type of sleep regression since this has been going on for a couple weeks now..
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  • rspalding001rspalding001 member
    There has been a lot of great advice already, I just want to second that letting them fall asleep on their own with no rocking or holding helps a lot. Once we started doign this with our daughter she got much better at sleeping through the night and not needing our help to fall back asleep if she wakes up in the middle of the night. Good Luck!
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  • SpeshulSpeshul member
    I would start with modifying the evening routine to get her to fall asleep on her own, that might help with the night time wake ups if they are comfort related.

    Then if she still wakes up at night, try to see if she will go back down without a bottle. The bottle might be her comfort object so you could try replacing that with something else. DD has been going to sleep on her own, but she had decided the sippy cup is her comfort object and kept trying to take it to bed. We replaced the sippy with a monkey. There were tears at first but now she takes a drink and hands it back to me, then grabs her monkey.

    If that's not the case, her body might be used to getting something at night so you may try weening her slowly. 

    Depending on the stubbornness of your child, there may be some tears during the transition. If you decide to do some kind CIO, read a book about it first. There are dos & don'ts and things to watch for to decide if your kid is ready.


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