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Sep
23
I had a hard time falling asleep last night, thanks to a lingering mental image of our bedroom door sloowwwwwwwwwwly creaking open and a mysterious Shape creeping towards us underneath the covers (stupid Paranormal Activity trailer), and when I finally did drop off I found myself ensconced in a dream where I was carefully applying lipstick while peering at myself in a mirror. I suppose I should be glad it wasn’t a sweaty nightmare featuring supernatural attacks or that one deal where you’re naked and you forgot your homework, but still: lipstick? Really? You go off-leash and that’s the best you can do, brain?
Before I could even move on to a different, equally gripping scenario involving, I don’t know, undereye concealer or something, I was jolted awake by an unearthly howling coming from the hallway. I lay there for a minute staring into the dark while JB snored peacefully and obliviously beside me, thinking how I should NEVER have watched that goddamn movie preview because NOW look what’s happened, we’re being haunted, probably by the shambling, rotted occupants of the Indian burial ground our house had unknowingly been built upon.
A moment later the noise resolved itself: Dylan, blatting from his crib. Again. This marks the second or third week he’s been going off like a misguided rooster in the dead of night, and people, I don’t know what to do about it. I’m frustrated with the situation, mostly because I guess I truly believed sleep training was a one-time deal. Like, sure, there might be setbacks now and then, but not a total regression, right? WRONG.
The idea that we might have to do sleep training again makes me want to curl up in a ball and wait for the ghosts to eat my face off. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad we did it, it worked, I recommend it for anyone who’s losing their shit because of sleep deprivation, but oh my god please don’t send me back to the bad place. That was a phenomenally unpleasant bitch of a task and if it didn’t stick, well, I think that is colossally unfair and the parenting gods need to bend over and take one up the old poop-chute for designing certain children to be both sleep-resistant AND a picky-ass eater AND . . . well, adorable, but STILL.
Have any of you had to deal with sleep setbacks during toddlerhood (context: Dylan is 19 months)? What did you do? Go in and comfort until it resolves itself, even if that takes until high school, or haul the big guns out again?
PS: I think I’ve ruled out teething and temperature-related discomforts, although the jury’s out on whether or not he’s having upsetting dreams about lipstick or being naked.
PPS: He’s also going to bed later and waking up earlier. So maybe this is all part of his master plan to slowly kill us off so he can finally eat all the dog hair he wants?
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87 Responses to “Same as it ever was”
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Loving, Lately
JR Watkins Vanilla is my new favorite body lotion. Love the smell, love the way it feels, love the awesome label design.
I may have mentioned it once or twice, but Breaking Bad is the best thing that has ever happened to television EVER. You should watch it right now.
Bob Book Series
Riley has honestly learned to read as a result of these little box sets. Cannot recommend enough.
This applesauce bread from Allrecipes is superfast, supereasy, and the kids love it (I leave out the spices).
I have heard time and time again that sleep regression rears it’s ugly head around 18 months old and lasts a few months. Then ‘they’ tell me it all straightens itself out. I’m biting my fingernails waiting for that lovely milestone to smack us in the face for we are teetering on the edge.
I have no advice, just what I’ve been hearing around the ol’ internet from mamas who have kids older than mine. Brace yourself.
I have no advice on the sleep thing. My daughter is 8.5 years old and she still gets up throughout the night (please kill me).
But the Paranormal Activity trailer? I swore to myself that I wouldn’t watch it because I know I would be scared. Days later I tricked myself into thinking I could handle it, the part you talked about with the…thing…moving under the covers? NOT OK!
I don’t want to be the jerk to point out Daylight Savings Time is coming…but it’s coming. There. Am jerk.
Also, I have no assvice.
Sorry Linda. Hang in there!
Yes, I remember major regressions with both my kids right around the same age. (And actually, my 3.5 year old is having one now, yay him!) I can’t remember if it later proved to precede some big developmental milestone or if it was 2nd year molars or if we even figured it out at all. But I *am* pretty sure in both cases it took Sleep Training: The Sequel to resolve it.
BTW, my dream last night involved the sickening discovery that my eyebrows were long, as in THREE INCHES LONG, hanging in my eyes like bangs. I was COMBING them! Wondering how I’d never noticed and how the eff to trim them without making them look like twin, uh, landing strips. Geez.
Oh, the 18-ish month sleep regression. I was SO OVER these damned things by the time we hit that age. So.Bloody.Over.Them.
But it passed in a couple weeks, as they typical do, and then we were good until the two year molars started coming in about 5 months later. We also started, paradoxically, putting our patchy sleeper down earlier (based on some reading I did) and he MAGICALLY began sleeping later. I mean, he still did the night-waking thing until it just resolved itself, but the sleeping later started when we did the earlier bed time, and has blessedly stuck for lo, these last 7 months.
I don’t mind telling you that I’m much happier about 7:30am than 6:30am on a Saturday morning.
Oh and, if you want worse than Paranormal Activity, try http://www.thefourthkind.net/
With all 3 of my kids they would have bad periods every now and then and we would have to sleep train again. (around that time) It never took as long as the first time though. Maybe try putting him to bed earlier?
Ditto on hearing about the 18 month thing…our doctor keeps saying “just wait, it’s coming.” She said when it happens to go back to however we sleep-trained her before. Grace started waking up in the middle of the night a few weeks ago (she’s only 15 months) and through process of elimination we figured out that putting a night-light in her room and a book in her bed solved our problem. For now.
My own sleep patterns tend to change around the Equinoxes, so… As far as what to do when he starts blatting? Clueless. Remember, we had the kid in our bed still at that age. In fact, he started coming back to our bed this week (he’d stopped entirely over the summer), bringing his new Cabbage Patch newborn baby boy with him. And the kid in question is going on seven this November. He wakes up. He’s lonely. His nose is plugged up. He climbs in with us. There are worse things… At least he’s been dry at night lately!
Yuck…just yuck. To sleep training (again) and scary ass dreams. (Ha). No advice, just feeling your pain dealing with the same thing on my side of the Cascades. A few good weeks of sleep and then for no reason at all backsliding. That, and arched back tantrums, also a new favorite at my house.
Oh, yeah. That happens around here too. I do think that sometimes it is related to molars coming in, or growing pains, so if it keeps happening, I am not afraid to give them a little motrin before bed. Plus I will turn their music back on (they get classical lullabyes in a cd player at bedtime), get them more water (they get sippys in their bed), make sure they have a board book and Elmo, and tell them it’s time to go back to sleep.
My kids both resisted that whole going to bed thing, and while my husband would go upstairs and check on them EVERY SIX SECONDS, I am at the point where if they didn’t have a good reason for fussing (i.e. need a diaper or whatever), after one warning, I spank their hand and say No Fussing, No Banging.
I know, I’m horrid. Also, I am not interested in the opinions of fellow commentors regarding sippys and books in bed, or spanks on the hand. So neener neener.
We sleep-trained my daughter at 1 year, then we moved to a new house (and state) when she was 18 months. So, yeah, the sleeping thing? Sort of shot to hell after that. We couldn’t let her cry it out by that point, she’d get herself so agitated that she’d make herself gag & throw up. So I basically did the “sit by her crib and rub her back through the slats until she falls asleep” thing (got some nice bruises on my forearms that way), then after a few nights of that, I just sat next to the crib, and then over the next few weeks I gradually moved closer & closer to the door at bedtime. It worked. It sucked, but it worked.
Good luck! Hopefully this is just a blip for a night or two and will correct itself quickly.
I have nothing of value to add here since I’m too lazy to sleep-train but I forwarded your post to a friend of mine who deals with sleep training regression every time her kid gets sick or they go away on vacation. Hopefully, she’ll weigh in with her two cents !
I have a 16 month old with whom we went through sleep training around 6 months. It took only a single night, and he was good until around 9 months. Then we he had some regression issues and we had to work through them, and that time it took a bit longer, with less long periods during the night. At around 13 months we had to deal with it again because we changed his environment. Now he’s 16 months and he hasn’t had any regression issues, except for the 5 days or so that he was sick. I’m hoping he doesn’t hit anymore really bad regressions, because like you, I can’t imagine having to go through it all over again. However, if it ever got to the point where he was waking two or three times a night again, I’d probably try sleep training again.
I guess it’s all up to you. How often does he wake now? Is it only once during the night? For how long does he stay awake? These are all factors that should be considered.
I wish I could help you more. I realy do know how you feel.
Yeesh that preview is scary.
Sorry, nothing to add on the sleep advice front:(
My daughter…19 months as well.
She goes to sleep very easy…kisses mama, kisses daddy, waves to mama. Done.
She takes spells…sleeps all night for weeks, wakes up between one and two for weeks. Pick one or the other.
I go get her and bring her to bed with us…back to sleep in under two minutes. Simple, honest.
Must say that we don’t mind co-sleeping. Must also say that I’ve slept on the couch the past two nights.
Sleep, however I get it, is what matters to me. No sleep for me = pure hell for us all!
Yes, we had setbacks after sleep training and no, don’t go in and comfort. When my son was 20 months I would go to the door and tell him he had to go back to sleep. He didn’t like it and we endured some crying but he finally got it. I fully recommend getting him back to being a sleeper before he gets out of the crib and into the bed. Having them getting in bed with you at night is pretty disruptive too.
Hey! I dreamed last night I was applying moisturizer! No, seriously! A coincidence? …or paranormal??
ditto to anyone who already mentioned the dreaded 18 month (or thereabouts) sleep regression. it happened to us, but it passed. we resolved it by turning the volume down on the monitor. i know, parents of the year.
Oh, re sleep: I go in, get the little monster, give him a drink of water in the bathroom, and then tuck him back in. That GENERALLY does the trick. But for another child, that doesn’t work AT ALL and if she wakes in the night she spends the rest of the night with us. So, uh. No good advice, no.
We did sleep training very early and there are still occasions when Maggie wakes up crying at night. I USUALLY don’t go in (unless it’s the sick cry). Mine still cries EVERY NIGHT when we put her down. It’s only for a minute but really – after 2 years she KNOWS what bedtime is!
Ledger is just a couple weeks younger than Dylan and we are dealing with the exact same thing right now. We never sleep trained, he was just a naturally good sleeper, so besides when he has been sniffly, we haven’t had this many night wakings since he was 4 months old. I go in and do a gentle back rub and reinsert the pacifier, and that does the trick. We are waking up at an ungodly hour (5:00) but I can live with it if it doesn’t last too much longer. I generally do not remove him from his crib before 6 am, even if I have to go in 4 – 5 times between 5:00 and 6:00 am. Last Friday, I went in at 5:30 to tell him it was still sleepy time and he asked me for a hot dog. Needless to say, he did not recieve one.
We’re in the midst of something similar (mine is 18 months next week), only our flavor is taking FOREVER to get to sleep. Last night he kicked and rolled around and giggled for almost an hour. It sucked. I have to take deep breaths and chant “this too shall pass,” or I want to throw things. Ask Moxie says that there is a (temporary) sleep regression right around this time, and she’s a smart one.
Good thing they’re cute, huh?
No real advice here, but, if twins can be born more than 4 years apart (!!), I’ve got Dylan’s right here with me. Lydie’s now nearly 5 and a half and she sleeps OK and eats OK (not brilliantly, but OK) NOW. But at 19 months (and 29 months and 39 months and – possibly – 49 months) she really didn’t. It’s just that things sort of got progressively better. OK, she stopped napping at home when she was 2 (and was, of course, hideous as a result), but she’d sleep at school (a little – always the last to fall asleep and first to wake, but hey, 45 minutes is 45 minutes more than she’d do at home) and she has gradually started eating a wider variety of foods (going from bread and almost nothing else to – gasp!- some fruit and vegetables now).
As far as night-time bedtime is concerned, until less than a year ago I had to sit in the room with her, but managed to wean her down to “three minutes”. Then, one day, she said she didn’t need me to sit, and that was it.
She’s still more likely to wake up during the night than her sister (who’ll be 8 at Christmas and has always been a champion sleeper and eater, though also a nap-hater), but she’s now big enough to go to the bathroom on her own (thank God!).
So, although I said no advice, here’s a little just for the hell of it: HANG IN THERE! IT WILL GET BETTER (progressively, my guess, rather than all of sudden WOW-FANTASTIC).
But I feel your pain – Ldyie, when in full-blown “I don’t want to sleep” mode, was capable of screaming NON-STOP for 3 hours, for no (discernible) reason.
That said, like Dylan, she’s really pretty adorable most of the time…
Good luck and yes, I’m going to shut up now.
Last night I dreamt I was running a marathon. I-swear-cross-my-heart this is your fault, woman.
My 2.5 year old has had on and off sleep issues from 18 months on. First, waking up for the day at 4am. Then, the Blankie Problems. Now, she needs pitch black dark. She won’t let us close her door, and she yells from bed until we turn out all lights in our small-ish condo. For an hour after she goes to bed, we tiptoe around like prisoners in our own home. You know that hour? That awesome glorious hour when you still have a little bit of energy to do something before you fall on your face from exhaustion? Well we’re cowering in the bathroom.
Sorry, no help. Also: marathon running in my sleep. I’m looking at you, Linda.
That’s LYDIE at the end there, not LDYIE. I’m not really dyslexic and am perfectly aware of my own daughter’s name. But it’s late here (almost 10 pm) and I’ve had a long day in the company of my MIL from hell and my brain is FRIED.
Ummm when you get the answer please divulge… we have a 13 month old who has taken to NOT SLEEPY AT ALL ALL FUCKING NIGHT. Ah hem. Yeah I thought we were over it with the whole hellish sleep training right before we took a trip across the country and threw her world into a tail spin time wise but hey it has been three weeks, GET OVER IT KID. I will say in her “defense” (wha? 4:00a wake up times can bite me) I believe she is cutting 2, maybe three teeth but still STILL. Am bitter and need answers ;)
Im sorry your dealing with that.
Levi, who is 21 months had a screechy p.m. as well, I let him cry it out and then did the consoling after 20 min of raising octaves.
I wonder if its a growth spurt, and forgive me if I am repeating something someone said above me, I don’t have time to pee at the second, let alone read the other comments, but I will.. ANYWAY, how long does Dylan nap during the day? Levi is an early riser as of this past month, which is like a stungun to my brain, but he seems to love it. So what I have been doing to get him to konk out and stay in his REM like state is, feed him a waffle or something before bed and milk ’cause I think he’s going thru a grow woe, and basically make sure hes nice and full. Considering he is OMG SO ACTIVE all day, I step up nutrition. It seems to work. When he has woke up I shower with kisses but let him know there is NO getting out of the crib. Pisses him right the hell off, but he gets over it, making his midnight pleas less and less.
I could be a thousand percent wrong, but if I were to guess, its a growth phase knocking around his whole routine.
Ask Moxie has a writeup on the 18 month sleep regression thing. The comments will make you feel better:
http://www.askmoxie.org/2006/04/qa_18month_slee.html
I have fraternal twin almost 3.5 year old boys. One boy made it through sleep training and has never once gotten up for 2+ years except for fevers.
The other one… well let’s just say he slept with us for an entire month bc of the 18 month sleep regression. He never started out there but he woke so much we were delirious. After a month, the sleep regression magically disappeared and BAM he could talk.
I wait a little bit to see if my 17 mo will calm down. I grew up in an old house that had strange things happen, so the thought of my little boy waking up scared shitless means it is not physically possible for me to just let him go on catterwalling. Not that theres ever been anything strange at the house we live in now. But at 2 a.m. when you’re half asleep and the sounds coming from your son’s room are a clear indication he’s being tormented within an inch of his life by things that go bump in the night…it’s just a little hard to have rational perspective.
My 16 month old is doing the same thing. At first I thought it was a growth spurt, because a glass of milk always got him back to sleep. But now I think I got him in the bad habit of waking up at 3am for a cup of milk every night. But also, he’s been cutting molars, so I’m sure that’s not helping. No one has any advice for me, they just say to not let him nap, but sometimes that seems cruel, like when he falls asleep with his face in the cookies on his high chair tray.
i didn’t read all comments to forgive me if i’m repeating but my almost 3 year old started that regression b.s. about the same age to cause a total upset in this house. after going batshit and wanting to get a child refund, i finally “fixed” the situation by having him nap earlier in the day which in turn helped him get “the sleepies” earlier in the night (the idea that sleep begets more sleep). just wanted to share in case it’s helpful, good luck!
Yep. Sleep train again. Except it wasn’t nearly as bad. And we trained bedtime back. To like 6:30. Slept better and later and I was kissing my copy of Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Baby an unhealthy amount…
Oooooh. I just read the comment above me. We’ve had to do that recently as well (right around birthday 3). Moved nap to 11 am and now bedtime (7) isn’t killer. The adjustment seems to be working.
I would say molars, but if you’ve ruled that out, I don’t know what it could be.
If you find something that works I’d love to hear it. My 18-month-old is an awful sleeper. I usually get up with him at least once every night and nothing seems to work. My only consolation is that he is not a picky eater. My older son is a picky eater and was a bad sleeper until about 2.5. Right about the time I had my second. I miss sleep.
In addition to new night wakings my little guy (just 2 weeks younger than Dylan) has started talking (and yelling) in his sleep. Fun stuff. I walk in the kids room expecting to see him standing in the crib pointing at the pacifier he chucked across the room (because of course now he wants it back) and find him sprawled out in the crib, paci hanging from his mouth, yelling “no, NO, NOOOOOO!” with his eyes closed and limp noodle arms (I had to check if he was really asleep).
After a couple of nights of this I just quit going in to check on him unless there was actual crying with sobs. It is too strange.
I agree with the earlier bed time to help eliminate middle of the night wakefulness. Had (having) to do it with both of my kids around 18 months.
“slowly kill us off to eat all the dog hair he wants”…..hahahah!!!
Either I don’t remember any sleep regression or I’ve blocked it so as not to go insane. Sorry I can’t be of any help so I’ll just be the smart ass: What color lipstick?
Yep, I’d try putting him to bed earlier, whatever it takes to do that. Maybe shorten his nap if that’s an option? And if that doesn’t work, give it a few days, rule out illness, and if it doesn’t resolve, maybe resort to more sleep training.
I know you would rather hear good and helpful advice or experience, but my son is FIVE, and yeah…I have no good news on that front for you.
How is it that your kid was born way WAY before mine was, and now all of a sudden yours is 19 months and mine is 16 months? This kind of freaks me out. And reading these comments frightens me about how soon we’ll reach 18 months around here. As for the 5 year old, well, at least SHE sleeps through the night every night except when she has nightmares about putting on nail polish. Or whatever. I wish I had more (any!) helpful advice.
I have no advice but snorted tea when I read
“all part of his master plan to slowly kill us off so he can finally eat all the dog hair he wants?”
I swear to your Almighty Whatever that Dylan is a 6 month younger version of our kid. Do you want me to start sending you regular email updates on what he has been up to and Dylan will be shortly?
18 months. Well, we were moving in the middle of that, so we could never tell if it was regression or a milestone or new house or what, but we found that leaving a sippy cup (one of those fat bottomed ones) of water in his crib every night has done the trick. Turns out he was just really thirsty in the middle of the night. That sippy has almost become a second lovey. He will be in diapers until he is 10, but at least I can get some sleep. Also, we turned down the monitors and now don’t hear every sigh fart and chirp. That has helped my sanity a LOT.
You might try an earlier nap or an earlier bedtime – something ridiculous like 7:00 or 7:30. We’ve found the more sleep deprived our guy is, the more he tends to chirp and make noise in the night and possibly wake up. Dude goes down for a nap before 1pm 99% of the time and sleeps for 1.5 – 3 hours depending. If he likes baths we’ve found those help a lot. Every night is a bit of a PITA but really helps relax him after a hard day of toddler-hood.
Oh, and no WAY am I watching that trailer. I don’t care how awesome it is (you are the 3rd to share the link) I have the most vivid imagination and will be awake and terrified for days if I do. Urk.
Good luck on the sleep thing! Oh, and hitting is right around the corner if it isn’t already here. Just a heads up!
When our now-21-month-old went through this — especially the go to bed late/wake up early business — a few months back we reverted to old sleep training methods including putting her to bed extra early. We never in the history of time thought this would work, but it did in the beginning and did again this time. She evened out by sleeping all night and going down around 7, and sleeping until 7. Good luck to you!
I have NEVER thought the going to bed early thing would work, because he always protests if it’s even one minute before 8, but what the hell. I’ma give this a try.
Yes, with the toddler sleep regression. Ultimately, we pseudo-re-sleep-trained. We would go in, check on him to make sure he was okay and not feverish or drowning in his own pee. If everything was okay, we would kiss him goodnight and go back to bed. He would inevitably complain for a bit and then finally did got back to sleep. We might do the sleep training thing of going in every x number of minutes to reassure him, but we didn’t really need to after the first night. We had tried the rocking and the soothing back to sleep and he would just freak right the hell out as soon as he would hit the crib mattress so we abandoned that quickly.
ditto to the earlier bedtime routine….it totally worked for us — i also highly recommend white noise-makers in their rooms….the white noise helped my kids sleep through disturbances in the house – mostly those caused by The One who kept waking up at all hours…..good luck….
No clues…both my 4 and 7 year olds are crappy sleepers….STILL! Whatever I did obviously didn’t work. Not all the time, but damn it don’t kids NEED sleep. I want to watch inappropiate television sometimes! Sorry, rant over. I did read something once about milestones/new skills creating sleep disruption. Dylan learn to do anything new, eating his own hair instead of dog hair maybe?
No advice, I have one of each. My non-sleeper is 7 and still is a bitch to get to sleep. She “usually” stays asleep once she’s there, but sigh. No advice has worked…we have just ridden it out for 7 years.
My other one is a perfect sleeper. He is 20 months. At 7:30pm I say “Ready to go night night?” He says “Night Night!” and goes to his crib. I put him in there, give him ‘Wormie’ (the Gloworm) and kiss him. I leave and close the door. All done. He pushes the worm a few times, chatters maybe 10 minutes, and I don’t hear a peep till morning. No advice has worked with him, cause I don’t need any.
Sorry to be of no help. :(
21 month old Ryan has regressed as well, we decided to try the sleep sack again. He’s totally going to be wearing the effing zebra Snuggie as-seen-on-TV!! He was getting up 5 times a night and crying about his “bantie” (blanket) which he would throw out of the crib. I think my sweaty little sleeper was just getting cold in the night. Last night–no sound, but also warm enough in Seattle for no Snuggies.
Gah! Why oh why did I watch that trailer?
Almost everyone had great advice! We sleep trained both of our boys around 4 or 5 months old. They both are usually great sleepers. My oldest (now almost 6) napped until he was about 4, but my youngest (just turned 4) only napped until he was about 18 months old. Also, at that age he was routinely climbing out of his crib (for over 2 weeks) and we had to move him into a toddler bed. So, excuse the rambling, but it could be a ~quirky~ 18 mo. olds have odd, anti-routine behavior thing or maybe (based on my youngest) he is sleeping lightly due to too long or late of a nap? Good luck and sweet dreams!
My son was (is) one of the worst sleepers. We also got to the point of desperation and had to undergo what felt like a century of sleep-training. When he was around 18 months or so he totally regressed. Horribly. I actually had to call in sick to work a few times because I had been up for HOURS with him. Hours and hours and hours. Like 2am to never sleeping again. It lasted a few weeks and then it got better. In the end I did have to get tough and I would peek in – say you’re alright – and then leave. I wouldn’t let him into the bed and I didn’t hang around in his room. It sucked. But it stopped after awhile. Of course now he’s almost 3 and he’s doing it again. Yeah. Awesome.
Please tell me what works for you. We have a 2.5 year old who won’t sleep through the night…until she’s in our bed. And we’ve got another due in a month. Pretty sure I’m going to go bat-shit CRAZY rather quickly from lack of sleep…especially when I return to work next year. We’ve tried the sleep training and it works for going to bed, but so far, nothing is working (bribes included!) for STAYING in bed the whole night through.
Oh yeah, I know this well. We are in the middle of undoing our (stupid!) kindness we lent our sick 2 year old last week. If we even give him an inch, he takes a mile and punishes us by starting the wake-n-cry shit all over again. And all that just for being kind to him…you know, waking up with him to wipe his snot, snuggle him back to sleep, or give him another dose of tylenol.
So yah, as much as it sucks BAD, we do have to do the whole sleep-training thing over and over again because he just doesn’t get it. In my boys defense, it must be confusing to him because suddenly heartless parents who let him cry until he falls asleep are now wiping snot and comforting him back to sleep. It’s just how it goes I guess. We now know that a bout of sickness will follow with a bout of sleep training. Every time.
I hope Dylan remembers not to wake up soon. If it makes you feel better, the training stage of the whole he’s-been-crying-for-45-min get’s much shorter, like only a week.
Thanks for taking my call, Linda. Long time listener, first time caller:
My daughter is 20 months exactly and we are just exhaustedly pulling out of the Sleep Regression station. (Speak of the devil, she just woke as I typed those words!) It was pretty awful, some nights were spent sleeping on her floor and for some reason we combined it with ditching her pacifier as well – which actually worked like magic. A few really awful nights – and it seems to be over, just like they said it would be.
The going to bed earlier thing – it seems to work too! She had been 7 pm bedtime forever – then we moved it to 8 because she didn’t seem to be sleepy at 7 – and uh, she was waking up at 5:30 am. No. So the last week we’ve been putting her to bed at 7 pm again – and we make it to 6:30, which is an improvement. It doesn’t make sense, at all.
All hail collective internet wisdom.
OH and since I got to pee I totally forgot to come back and say, hi Talking Heads, kissy kissy, bewbbbbie flash. :)
and to think, 4 of my friends chastised me for my “this must be the place’ ringback tone. saying ‘um, like.. who IS that?”
yeah, looking for a new group of friends…
which brings me back to, nice bloggy title your hotness.
My daughter is a week or two older than Dylan I think? and yeah, the same thing.
She was teething and I would go in and settle her down. But after that I just did a bit of sleep training and it’s back to normal (of course by the rules of the internet she will wake up ten times tonight). If it is ANY comfort, the sleep training was fast and much less painful. Like 1000% easier.
I don’t have any advice because our kids were notoriously bad sleepers many moons ago (so sounds like nothing ever changes), but damn, this was a wonderfully written humorous entry. I laughed. Sorry. :)
Health Sleep Habits, Happy Child–as mentioned before saved our everlovin’ lives–put them to bed 15 minutes earlier every night until you find the “magic” time where they blessedly sleep for 12 hours straight–it works–we are alive b/c of it! Also, we use a fan (white noise) just because I can’t sleep without it, so I figured, why not.
Weissbluth (Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child) IS a bit of a sadist, but I love it anyway. Also, Ferber. The book is FANTASTIC, and I recommend both even if you don’t plan to sleep-train (not so much mentioned for you as for The Lurkers).
I’ve got no idea if their shit works on 19-month-olds, but the wisdom I gained from those bad boys, plus some Ferber-for-Hippies shit I pulled from my pediatrician saved my kid from getting up every 45 minutes to sleeping fairly well at 6 months. Sure, we have setbacks, but it’s not so PANIC INDUCING as it used to be.
I can’t believe I’m on here hawking books, like I’m Oprah or something, but really, they’re worth picking up, even for a kid his age.
Oh and you know, just to ALSO mention that I thought the early bed thing was bullshit, too. Now, I know Sam’s younger than Dylan, but so help me God, she’s a SHITTEH sleeper, as you know. Anyway. The earlier she goes to bed, the later she sleeps. No one believes me, but you can ask Adam how deadly serious about it I am when I am all FREEEEKING OUT because I get her to bed ONE MINUTE past 7:15. Seriously. Even when she doesn’t seem sleepy, it’s changed our world.
Sleep. I miss sleep. There always seems to be something. We were finally going good with both kids sleeping through the night for several months. Then, my little one decided to potty train herself. We deemed her a genius and were feeling pretty good about ourselves until we realized the nightly 2am call from her toddler bed, “Mommy, I have to go potty,” wasn’t going away. Good luck figuring out this latest sleep issue — sounds like some folks had good advice.
I agree about the putting to bed earlier solution – who knows why the hell it works (and at this point, who cares why!)
I secretly think it’s your PPS and this is all part of his master plan to RULE THE WORLD WHILE EATING DOG HAIR!
My now 3 year old didn’t sleep through the night consistently until sometime after her second birthday. We just brought her into bed with us when she woke up (after I night weaned her at 14 months and I couldn’t use the boob to put her down again). Now she has a full bed, so when she wakes up upset (only occasionally now) one of us goes and sleeps next to her.
I couldn’t leave you at 66 comments, because that’s kind of a creepy number. Especially with all of the crazy dreams you’ve been having.
ANYWAY.
Dude. DUUUUUDE. Hate that stage. Hate. Which is why I will NEVER DO IT AGAIN.
My kids regressed. Many times over. (Comforting, I know.)
We would usually do the whole “cuddle in the rocking chair”/Sleep on a mattress in their room” thing.
Then the exhaustion would turn me into the Devil Woman and I would let them cry it out.
Because seriously? They need to grow some balls and learn how to sleep.
I’m with Angella. My kids regressed many times over. Now, my 8 and 6 year old hardly ever wake up in the middle of the night. That’s good news, right? My 16 month old goes back and forth between her crib and our bed. Whatever I have the energy for in the middle of the night. Maybe I’m too sleep deprived to devise a plan.
Every time ours has sleep issues after a nice stretch of GOOD SLEEPING, we finally conclude, after a post like this and then some guilt about ignoring her in the hopes she’ll just GO back to SLEEP… “Oh, DUH. Teething.”
Poor little monkeys. Ow.
I have no advice but I’m going through the same thing. My daughter is 18 months old and pretty much slept through the night for about 12 hours since she was 2 months old. Now she’s waking up at around 4 a.m. and SCREAMING over and over. If I go in there, she requests a bottle, I tell her no, and she continues to scream for about 15 minutes. If I don’t go in there, it’s the same deal without the denied request.
Then, she’s up at around 6 a.m. for the day, a full hour earlier than normal.
What gives?
My twins haven’t slept through the night for 2.5 years now, so I’m obviously no expert, but are there any other reasons to suspect he has any food allergies? My girls have a lot of food allergies (we found that out a few months ago when we had to rush one to the ER). We have subsequently found out that kids with food allergies, even mild ones, often have bad sleeping habits. Things we noticed (in hindsight) that were symptoms in the girls: on and off bad diaper rash, eczema, occasionally tiny red splotches around their mouths when they ate certain foods.
Might be worth a conversation with the pediatrician.
Good luck!
I didn’t read all of the comments, so I don’t know if everyone already said this, but yeah, sometimes you have to do sleep training again, and again, and again. My almost three year old seems to have 6 month cycles of good sleep followed by bad sleep. We’ve been through some variation of training 3 or 4 times. Of course now it sucks more then ever because he’s in a bed, not a crib, so it’s putting a gate up across the door and it’s just not very effective.
But what sucks the most about it is that he was doing great until we had a baby 7 weeks ago. Then it all went to shit. Now I have the most ironic and annoying situation ever…a newborn baby who miraculously sleeps 7 or 8 hours at night (I didn’t know this could actually happen) and a 3 year old who wakes up every two hours. I was obviously very, very bad in another life.
I agree with the put him to bed earlier advice. Like an HOUR earlier. See what happens. I love the “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child” book too. I always reference it for my two kiddies. If it’s not illness, it’s usually some over tired issue.
Moxie says 18 months is a common sleep regression time. So does my 32 month old. She LOVED not sleeping at 18 months-ish. And like you, I thought we were done with the sleep crap and it about killed my soul. I don’t remember doing anything to “fix” it though. Just waited it out and it finally went away. Good luck!
As much as I hate to be a parrot, my kid was the same. 19 months came and with it the “I feel like jabbering and I want YOU to witness it” all night long. We totally went the route of earlier to bed. It pissed him off for a week or so but then he got over it and slept well. We also had to put foil on his windows to keep out the aliens (I mean the LIGHT) but keeping his room darker helped too.
BTW, every single time I see the trailer for Zombieland I think of you.
Reading the comments here was a real eye-opener. It sounds like if the parenting gods started taking one up the poop chute now for each of those kids, they’ll be real sore by the end of the millenia – which is about when they’ll be done.
Ok, you’ve gotten a lot of good suggestions but I’m just going to chime in with the earlier to bed idea. Start in small increments…so if 8 is his current, try 20 – 30 minutes earlier for a full week (this courtesy of HSH,HC). I actually started moving bedtime a bit later because he just didn’t seem tired (but his bedtime used to be 6:30…now it is b/t 7 or 7:30).
Also, I’ve found that sometimes even the loudest of midnight callings doesn’t necessarily mean he is awake. So I always try to wait a few minutes unless I know he is sick and I try to go in quietly so if he is not really awake, I won’t wake him but can just rub his back and shush him to calm down.
I read somewhere to that you have to be very cool, calm and collected when approaching the night wakings too (which I am totally bad at because if he is actually crying hard enough that I get out of bed, I am usually concerned). Try to be matter of fact, no playing, etc.? Gosh, I don’t know, kids are so hard to read wtf is going on.
You did not say how many times he wakes up or how long he stays awake. Does he cry out and then go back to sleep? Do you go in to him or does he go back to sleep?
My son (at age 6) still sometimes cries out but he is still asleep. Sometimes I get up to check on him but usually he goes right back to sleep (if indeed he ever woke up).
I was just thinking about this when my 12-month-old woke up at 4:30 this morning and I had to give him a bottle before he’d go back to sleep. It’s so much worse now that he can talk! Letting him cry it out is one thing, but when he just moans, “Ba ba! Ba baaaaaa!” it’s pretty soul-crushing. Can’t wait for more of this to come. Ugh.
Gracie started waking up in the night at around 21 months, but it turned out that she was just getting her 2-year-old molars. It lasted about a month, and then she went back to normal.
Ahh! So, I said, DONT LOOK! DONT LOOK! But what did I do? I looked. Now I am sure I will have dreams as well.
I have crazy dreams too!
This may be too old for Dylan, but my almost-three year old started regressing this summer after our second child was born. I did a classic “positive reinforcement” thingamabob with her. Namely, I told her that if she would put herself back to sleep if she woke in the night (with the exception of going to the bathroom, since she still needs help with that) for two nights in a row, I would take her out for ice cream. The girl loves ice cream. It worked. Then, I increased the nights she would have to sleep to three. Now we’re up to four nights, and it’s still going pretty well.
Now if I could just teach her to go potty by herself and night, we would be in the clear…
Also: “brain off-leash”? LOVE it! :-)
The good news? We are nearing the end of Daylight Savings Time. It will be dark earlier in the evening so it might be easier to get them to go down. The bad news? It will be light earlier, so they might wake a whole hour earlier than they do now.
My daughter will be four in December and we still have sleep issues. I had finally gotten her to sleep in her own bed, had a meeting one night and was out of the house at bedtime, and the husband let her back into our bed. So now I end up with knees in the ribs and feet in the kidneys and I’m having a devil of a time sleeping. I’ve put him on notice: I did it the first time, if he wants her in her own bed it’s on him.
I hear ya, Sundry, sigh. My 1st slept through the night (apart from the occasional blip when sick/teething) from 11 weeks. My 2nd only started sleeping through regularly a few months ago.
She’s 4 and a half.
She’s pretty good at night now, but last night she only slept for 7 hours, and spent 20 minutes calling out cheerfully, “Mummy! Mummy! Mummy!” at long enough intervals that I thought/prayed/sacrificed a chicken each time that she would be ASLEEP already. I’m pregnant with number three, and I’m not sure if it’s good that I’m used to no sleep or bad because I’ll just crumble like a cheese in the first week of having a newborn.
I LOVE Theresa’s post…Sept. 23, between Amy and Briana…
Just goes to show you…how much we dont know a thing, and how much all kids are just different…and how much we’ll just have to live with the sleepless nights if that’s what is in our cards -ha ha- sorry to be so cynical…
or
it just may be that he’s on to his master plan,like you think…aren’t we all?
p.s. mine is 20 months, sleeps same bedroom -necesary under circumstances-, different bed -not crib- 1/2 of night, wakes up twice, comes to our bed, asks for milk -bubbie milk still, mind you- gets it, goes back to sleep, and so do i -for the most part. We did do sleep training and it only worked until he could stand up, at which point he would ANGRILY cry until I would come in and take him out of his crib and give him some milk…Very VERY -did i say very?- strong willed boy
Oh! I hope its gotten better and you are now on the sleep side of the turn. Thank you for your AMAZINGLY fun and smar writing…forgot to say that in my other post :)
I maent to say SMART