19 Month Old Still a Terrible Sleeper

I don't have any advice, unfortunately, but do want you to know you aren't alone. I have a 3 year old and 19 month old. The short story is my 3 year old sleeps beautifully, but my 19 month old has kept me up since the day she was born.... We are making slow progress, but at this point she still usually wakes me up around 2AM and again at 5AM. (That's an improvement from every 1-3 hours!) She just seems to be a very different personality from our 3 year old. She is a character, a doll. Sensitive and funny. She had colic and was breast fed until 10 months. She is terrible at self soothing and wants me. I have taken to sleeping with her after I get up just so that I can get sleep. I just started this a couple of months ago and it seems to have given me hope that I couldn't have when I was so sleep deprived. Prior to this I was teary and irritable beyond anything I've ever experienced. I'm still short on sleep, but it is better than it was. I can get her to go back to sleep after the first awakening, but it takes awhile....(I don't know exactly, because I'm in such a fog myself, but at times longer than a hour!)that's why I get so tired. I end up giving her warm milk in her sippy cup at 5 AM and then she goes back to sleep for another hour or so..... I've tried water, but she refuses it and just keeps me up all night. I'm assuming this is just her, and keep trying a little at a time. Next plan is to stretch out the time I give her the milk, that's how I progressed her so far. Also, next is for me not to go to sleep with her so I can work with her improving her self-soothing. I need to be a little better on sleep to do this, because I get so "out of it" in the middle of the night I'm not thinking clear and end up just doing whatever gets me sleep, because I'm so desperate. I believe there are solutions to this, but at least for me it won't be over night and I believe in part dependent on her continued maturity. Good luck.

I am not a fan of the Cry it out method at all but especially when kids are sick. I am also not a fan of co-sleeping either, partly on principle and partly because my son is like yours when we have tried it on desperate occassion. He kicks, turns sideways, snuggles with me then sits all the way up and then snuggles with my husband. At the end of the day none of us gets any restful sleep. My suggestion would be to try to resettle him in his room. Get him a drink of water, read him a story and put him back to bed. Or maybe sing him to sleep and then put him back in his bed (I used to sing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star to my son over and over and over until he fell asleep that way it was soothing but monotonous so it didn't stimulate him). The key is to stay in his room! Basically you could do a mini version of your nightime routine when he wakes up and signal to him that it is time to sleep again. It may keep you up for 10-15 minutes but hopefully he will then sleep for another few hours and you can too.

I don't know about his room but we have one of those fisher price aquarium toys that makes music and has muted lights and straps to the side of the crib. We turn it on every night for bed (even now and he is 2.5 years old although the crib is now converted to a toddler bed) and that is a signal to him that it is time for sleep. Often if he wakes up at night he will turn it on himself and go back to sleep without me getting up. On a bad night I can soothe him a little, tell him it is still sleeping time and turn the aquarium toy on and he will usually snuggle back in to sleep. Any type of blanket or special stuffed animal for sleeping might help too. Good luck, lack of sleep is the hardest part of parenthood for me so I can really relate.

i feel your pain M.. i know you will get great advice from other moms, but for us, we just had to wait it out. my daughter is 2 now, and finally is sleeping through the night (mostly). our daughter was sick so often, that i also felt bad sleep training her. but we did try, and she cried for 4+ hours and i couldn't take it. eventually, it gets better. i know you are tired and need your sleep, and it will eventually come. our son is 9 months old and thankfully is a great sleeper. i couldn't imagine 2 kids that just don't want to sleep. i think each kid is different. our son, loves to sleep, takes great naps, sleeps through the night and has since the get go. and we didn't do anything different with the 2 kids, he just likes to sleep. my daughter is "nosey" and wants to be up and about for everything. naps were difficult, night time was worse. you get the picture... but here is the good news... it gets better. no matter what you chose to do, sleep train or not, it will get better. good luck, and just try to remember that this is a short period of their long lives. embrace it and know that it will get better.

the only advice i would give is to keep your son in his room for sleeping. even if you have to get up and get him water, soothe him etc, but sleep in his room. we let our daughter occasionally sleep with us just so i could get some rest, and it would snow ball, and be so much harder to keep her in her room. now, she knows she can't come and "snuggle" with us, that she needs to sleep in her room. good luck, it's tough... but will get better!

Well, I think you can probably understand why so many moms (inlcuding me) have allowed their children to co-sleep with them for longer periods of time. When you "have a life", it is necessary to get as much sleep as you can, however you can get it, and whatever "rules" you break :O)

I never pressured my boys to sleep alone in their room, although I prayed for it alot of nights when they kicked me!

It's a personal choice for you, really. Either you "go with it" and allow you and your son a good night sleep together.....or you work hard to get him back in bed trying to sleep through the night. You're the only one who has to do the "work", so the choice is yours.

I took the easy way out and allowed my boys to sleep with me when they were young....today, they sleep all night through in their own beds, and it really didn't take much to get there when they were between 3-4 yrs old which is when it felt like the time was right.

Should you choose to let your son sleep with you....don't feel guilty. Just go with it....just know that when it's time to transition him into his own bed, you will have to "cross that bridge" when you get there with a different sort of stage of motherhood.

~N. :O)