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Please help re: 17 month old not sleeping

878 views 4 replies 4 participants last post by  boobyfeeder 
#1 ·
Ok, bear with me, b/c this is going to be long.

DD1 is 3.5, a very independent child, but always nursed to sleep. I got pg with DD2 when she was 15 months old, and nursing hurt so much that I decided to nightwean her with the help of DH. It worked, and she started sleeping through the night fairly consistently around 18 months old.

DD2 is very attached...to ME. If she wakes in the night and DH goes in to soothe her, she cries hysterically until I come "rescue" her. She loves DH, don't get me wrong, but for whatever reason it has to be me at night. She doesn't nurse to sleep, never has, but always wants to nurse when she wakes. I have been nightweaning her with Dr. Gordon's technique (even though we don't cosleep, as I can't sleep with her kicking me), and I tell her "na-na" is sleeping when she asks. Most of the time she accepts this with no argument, and I tell her to lay down and I will rub her back, which I do for a few minutes. We do not pick her up anymore either, as she was beginning to rely on that to get back to sleep. Just to clarify, if she was hysterical about not getting picked up or not nursing, I would do those things, but she accepts that I won't without much fuss.

The problem is that when I try to leave the room before she's asleep, she cries. So I have to sit in the rocking chair until she's asleep. If she only woke once or twice a night, this wouldn't be a big problem. But after she goes to bed initially (I have to sit in with her then, too), she will sleep for 4.5-5 hours, waking at 12:15 or 12:30am. She then wakes every 1.5-2 hours, sometimes twice in one hour. I don't give in and nurse her, b/c I know that would just set the whole thing back to the beginning, and she seems to be fine with not nursing. But I just have to be in the room until she's asleep or she flips out.

She's doing the same thing for naptimes lately, it is taking me 30 minutes just get her down for a nap, not counting 5-10 minutes of nursing. I am thankful that she doesn't have to nurse to sleep like DD1 did, as that was a nightmare (PPO worked wonders for me). But I don't know what else to do. I have tried offering a cup of water or milk (she gets pissed). I made a weighted blanket (sometimes used for autistic children to get them to calm down) and that seems to make her cozy. She has a pillow with her, and she loves it. She has a small minky blanket with herbs in a sachet on it (lavender, chamomile) as a lovey, but doesn't seem too attached to it. She uses a pacifier (DD1 gave hers up at 6 months), but when she wakes in the night she tosses it out of her crib. If I don't go to her fast enough, she tosses everything out of her crib.

I have started her on probiotics (she is prone to yeast rashes), and I've heard that may help her sleep (she's only been on them for a week). We make sure she eats a good dinner and she is offered a snack before bed. We have a consistent bedtime routine. I feel like I've tried everything. I recently found out I am pregnant with #3, so I am extra tired and really need my sleep. DH wants to help, but she will get so mad if he goes in to her.

I don't know what else to do. I feel like she's between NCSS and NCSS for Toddlers, and neither book will work. She doesn't understand enough for the toddler book and she's too old for the original techniques. Does anyone have any suggestions I haven't tried to get her to sleep longer stretches at night? I'm at the end of my rope here.
 
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#2 ·
I am so sorry you're going through this frustrating situation! I have little advice, but a lot of commiseration, to offer.

Our 17 month-old is also in a mommy-only stage at night. We actually night weaned her about 6 or 7 weeks ago (with very little incident), but then illness and travel set us back to nursing 3 times/night. And now she's entered into a screaming hysterical tantrum phase, so when we tried to start the night weaning again, it was basically impossible and we gave up. (It's so funny--she is crazy about her dad. He was home with her for a year while I went back to work, and now that I'm home with her, she asks about him all day. They have a great relationship. But at night, she flails and screams bloody murder if it's not me who comes in! It's really hard on all of us.) She also throws everything out of the crib all the time, too!

Sometimes I have calmed her down, she's lying down with her lovey, still and quiet, and then when I start to leave, she stands up and starts crying. Almost always if I just leave, she stops crying in, like, 30 seconds and falls asleep. If it lasts longer, then I go back in. It's really hard to walk out of the room while she's crying, don't get me wrong, but I've found that staying in there with her makes her want to be more active--and, obviously, it keeps me up, too. At a certain point I realized that I wasn't doing anyone any favors by prolonging the time until she fell asleep, and even if she drifted off with me in the room, she would wake as soon as I left anyway. Of course, you may be against doing this yourself, which is fine. But I just wanted to let you know that for me, it has worked. (I've tried bringing her back in the bed with us in moments of exhausted desperation, but she won't sleep with us in the bed unless she's sick--she just wants to talk and play.)

Good luck finding some more rest and congrats on your pregnancy! I hope there's someone out there who will tell us that this crazed, hysterical, sleepless phase will end soon!
 
#4 ·
No real advice
. My ds is seventeen months old too (his birthday is 8-19) and he has been going through a rough sleeping phase lately too.

I understand about the no co-sleeping because of the kicking. My first son was like that... i just couldn't handle it. Perhaps you could put a bed or crib in your room so that whe she wakes at night, she could see you laying in bed and it would soothe her to sleep without you having to go to the other room and hang out?
 
#5 ·
milkydoula, I was actually considering putting her in the same room as her sister to see if it helped if someone was with her. Each time she woke last night, all she wanted was her pacifier, and I was actually able to leave the room after I gave it to her, until later when she was waking several times in one hour. She's very much a people-person, and I think that may be part of her problem, she always wants to be with someone. I'm hoping maybe that being with her sister would help that, as she adores her.

Thank you for the responses, it's nice to know I'm not alone!
 
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