HELP! 15 month old suddenly stopped sleeping through the night

[MamaPhD]

Hi all,
My girl recently transitioned from 2 to 1 nap (reall smoothly!) and stopped
sleeping through the night around the same time, about 2 weeks ago. Before
that, she had been sleeping through the night for many many months. Now she wakes up twice at night, almost at exact same time ~1:30am and ~5:30am. She is not upset/crying when she wakes. She just sits up and kinda keeps
talking/yelling. I nurse her briefly (couple minutes), put her back in crib awake, then she goes back to sleep. If my husband goes, he can rock her back to sleep.

I'm puzzled why she stopped sleeping through the night suddenly! We have a good sleep time routine with books/songs/sleep sac/nursing/then one last book, then I put her to crib awake. She falls asleep by herself. She goes to bed ~8-8:15pm and wakes up ~7:30am. Her nap is ~12:30-2:30pm. I feel like the nap transition somehow messed up her schedule. Help me figure it out?

I cannot think of what it could be. She is not teething, not sick, etc. Also I
don't think she is hungry at night since I only nurse for a little bit. During
the day, she nurses maybe twice, once for nap and the other time at bedtime. When my husband puts her to bed, she doesn't ask me to nurse. I tried to offer her more nursing opportunities during the day thinking maybe she misses the boob but she doesn't want to nurse any more than the twice, which is good cuz I am thinking of completely weaning her pretty soon.

Is it separation anxiety?
Should I/hubby just stop going to her?
Does her sleep schedule need tweaking - too long a nap? too late a bed time?

[mommie3]

My dd is currently going through this. I no longer nurse her, and haven't for several months. She slept through the night just fine until last week. We are at a total loss as to what would help her sleep better, and I am becoming quite exhausted.

Hopefully some of these mommas will have good advice.

[elleystar]

My DS started something similar at 16 mo. I'm pretty sure it was the 18 mo sleep regression hitting a little early. Nothing we did made a bit of difference so we just had to wait it out. Is she teething at all? It could be her molars too and those are a real bear to get through.

[rozziemama]

We went through this last month with our DS (now 16.5 month old). I probably posted similar desperate posts somewhere. Our sleep regression, or whatever you want to call it, was a result of a few things that all sort of collided to make our little guy start doing the same thing you describe: waking up pretty consistently at 2:45, then at 3:45 then at 5. We were all strung out and exhausted. The things causing it, in retrospect were separation anxiety/routine changes, illness, teething, and a huge developmental milestone - lots of language development:
1- my DH traveled for work for a week and DS was kind of thrown off by his absence. He missed him.
2- the weekend after DH was gone we traveled as a family to NY to visit the grandparents. NO SLEEPING - he simply refused the pack in play and cried for his dadda. It was intense, and really bizarre behavior on his part.
3- We got back and he caught an awful stomach virus, threw up in the night for 4 days in a row. YUCK.
4- Cut a tooth in the middle of all of this
5- Massive language explosion, by the end of the 2 weeks of hell, he was also talking up a storm?!
ANYWAY. During this time I literally read every single theory on toddler/baby sleep that exists. Whether it was Elizabeth Pantley or Weissbluth or Ferber, frankly I learned one common lesson: he had gotten himself into a habit of waking at those times, and I had to break him of it. We chose to do so as gently as possible.
We didn't "CIO" - actually what I did was slowly push his bedtime back a few minutes every night to kind of reset his clock.
Ultimately, whether it was that strategy or just a natural end to this weird phase, it stopped!
It really did.
I thought we'd never sleep again, but he snapped out of the weird wake up routine, and now has been sleeping pretty well (although he did NOT sleep well last night?! ) - 8:30 til 7-ish in his own bed on many nights!
woo hoo
Another thing - I have learned that when he sleeps for a long nap at daycare, he sleeps less at night - as in, he wakes up too early in the morning.
That was part of the reason I pushed his bedtime back a little bit. It seems to be a good strategy?
Sorry to ramble on.
I think I'm starting to learn that baby/toddler sleep is almost always screwed up, by sickness, teething or the zillion milestones.
And just when you think you've figured it out, another one hits.
It's not a continuum.
But your DD will get back on track, I'm sure of it.
This 15 month sleep regression seems to be pretty common, to be honest.
At least feel better knowing that we're all here with you!

[LuminosaJane]

Thanks for posting, mamas. My "needs-improvement-in-the-sleep-department" daughter has been sleeping even more crappily than usual the last few days. Up every 1 to 1.5 hours all night. I'll chalk it up to sleep regression, hope we make it through and keep working on our sleep habits as I've been doing via Pantley and Sears' advice.

Was wondering if I need to night-wean, but maybe I should wait it out a little bit since a regression might make it harder?

In the end, just looking for some hope. Will it ever get better? Sigh.

[rozziemama]

There was a really interesting blog about child sleep in the NY Times:
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...20sleep&st=cse

My gut tells me that most baby/toddler sleep challenges DO pass. But nothing can top the desperation that sleep deprived parents feel, I really believe that.

My DS does the waking every hour crazy thing when he is cutting teeth.
Of course, we never put two and two together until after the fact - we're always up wondering what could possibly be wrong and then BINGO there's a new tooth a day or two later.
I think we have a molar situation going on right now, as I was up every hour or two last night -- after JUST saying last week how awesome our LO had become with sleep... Ay yay yay.

[barefootmama0709]

My ODS was a night-waker (and he didn't nurse) until the age of 18 months, when he suddenly started sleeping through the night without an issue. I just waited it out.

[MammaMia333]

We are going through the same thing. Our son slept beautifully with no issues. Would basically plop him into the crib and he would put himself to sleep and wake up the next morning. Now within the last week he is screaming like crazy when we go in to his crib he takes our hands and wants us to lift him up so we do and immediately he stops the screaming. If you leave him in crib and stand there and hold him......SCREAMS, we do not know what it is he has a good amount of his teeth but I am thinking maybe his back teeth are coming he keeps pushing on his right side of his bottom jaw. We rock him back to sleep most of the time but tonight it is absolutely horrible he sleeps in arms but not in crib. I feel so bad for him if he is in pain. He is 15 months and 2 weeks old. Your not alone ! So when she wakes up ....as hard as it is sometimes.... Take a deep breath and know that I am probably rocking right along with you. Haha good luck to everyone out there. (moms and pops that is!) sleep we miss you!

[jmacinboston]

Hi! So happy to hear I am not the only mother going threw this. I have a 15 month old son who has slept thru the night from 4months to about 3 or 4 weeks ago. It is awful. He will go to bed between 8-9pm. He use to go to sleep on his own but now recently its right when I hold him to snuggle as he watching a Lulluby video. He will sleep for about 3 hours then it is awful. He wakes up every 1 to 1/2 hours (After a REM cycle??) and I (or my husband but usually my son wants his mommy) have to hold him. Now he falls asleep in my arms but the minute I put him back in the crib, he wakes up crying! Finally I will get him back in just to get up again in an hour or so. I am so tired and fustrated.

Now in his defense, he has cut some molars (I try to look but hard to see in mouth or if I put my finger in to feel he will bite me). He also had strep throat 3 weeks ago and now is getting over pneumonia. So I am sure part is from this but last night he ended up sleeping in our bed (glued next to me) and I know he is feeling better.

Also we have his crib in our bedroom (we live in a one bed condo) so I can't just let him CIO. I let him wimper but I personally can not handle when he screams and cries.

when does it pass? Seperation anxiety? Teething? or is he now getting use to me holding him.

Thanks for listening and any advice, a very tired mom..