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!

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. :(