17 Month Old Separation Anxiety at Night

[MrsC10]

Our LO is just shy of 17 months and has always been pretty good at sleeping. By the end of November she was FINALLY starting to sleep through the night....but then we visited DH's parents for 5 days (they live 250 miles away) and she had to share a room with us.

Since then, she has been awful at night and at nap time. Everything points to separation anxiety.

We used to be able to put her down and walk out the room and she would just drift off to sleep, but now if we so much as look at the escape route she screams! It's a real panic, terror sounding scream. The minute we walk back in the room she lies down and goes to sleep.

She isn't worked up before going to bed and is happy for us to leave her during the day. She is at nursery some days and my mum has her other days. She'll give us kisses, say 'bye bye' and that's it. But when it comes to sleep.....we've got to stay. She's the same when my mum has her too.

She wakes A LOT during the night too, to the point where I've camped out on her bedroom floor some nights just to get a sleep. That way, if she wakes, it's just a quick 'shhhh' and she goes back to sleep.

We've tried a number of things:
Cry it out/controlled crying - resulted in her just making herself sick
Paracetamol (in case it was teething or some other pain)
Reintroducing a night feed (she's not interested)

She already has a soft toy that she's attached to and nothing about her routine at bedtime or nap time has changed at all.

Our last two options are to try the gradual withdrawal from the room or to move her back into our room for a few weeks to see if that helps.

Has anyone tried the gradual withdrawal or has anyone moved their little one back into the room with them? If you did, how did it go?

Is there anything else we can try? I'm pretty desperate so would give anything a shot just to get some shut eye!

I should say that we've also tried lights on, no lights on, moving night lights about and it didn't make a bit of difference.

 

[sunnydee]

I just wanted to say I feel your pain! My 16 month old is the exact same right now due to travelling and staying in different places. I miss how he would fall asleep on his own and sleep through the night, I'm thinking of trying the same method I used the first time, gradual withdrawal, there was tears the first night but after 3 nights it worked. Hopefully it will work again!

 

[MrsC10]

I just wanted to say I feel your pain! My 16 month old is the exact same right now due to travelling and staying in different places. I miss how he would fall asleep on his own and sleep through the night, I'm thinking of trying the same method I used the first time, gradual withdrawal, there was tears the first night but after 3 nights it worked. Hopefully it will work again!

How did you go about gradual withdrawal? There seems to be a number of different versions that I've read about.

When she was going through her 4 month sleep regression we did the controlled crying and it worked a treat.....not this time!

 

[MrsC10]

I just wanted to say I feel your pain! My 16 month old is the exact same right now due to travelling and staying in different places. I miss how he would fall asleep on his own and sleep through the night, I'm thinking of trying the same method I used the first time, gradual withdrawal, there was tears the first night but after 3 nights it worked. Hopefully it will work again!

How did you go about gradual withdrawal? There seems to be a number of different versions that I've read about.

When she was going through her 4 month sleep regression we did the controlled crying and it worked a treat.....not this time!

Also....how did you deal with the night waking using this method?

 

[sunnydee]

We have a spare bed in his room and pushed it up beside the cot and I lay down with my hand in the cot the first night and pretended to be asleep. I still comforted him but eventually he fell asleep holding my hand. Then each nap and night I moved the bed further away until it was on the other side of the room. The 3rd night I just walked out and he went straight to sleep!
After he learned to fall asleep the night wakings were very rare and most of the time he would settle quickly but if he was upset I would pick him up until he calmed and then he would fall asleep again.

 

[SarahBear]

Kids by nature are meant to sleep with their parents. Some adjust the the "unnatural" arrangement of being separate without a problem while others are pretty persistent. I know my mom said that when I kept climbing out of my crib as a young toddler, she finally just moved me to my sisters' room so that I'd at least stay in there with them instead of going in to her room. I haven't moved a kid BACK in because I never really moved my kids out. Violet recently decided to have her own bedroom at 4 years 2 months. She spends the first part of the night in her own room and then joins us in our room when she wakes up in the middle of the night. As for gradual withdrawal, I still stay in the room with Violet as she's falling asleep and my husband stays in Leo's room with him while he falls asleep. Sometimes I have Violet fall asleep alone and sometimes I'm the one with Leo at the very end, but we generally take the "wait it out" approach to all this sleep stuff. The one thing I've sort of pushed for is Violet having her own room. I haven't been that pushy, but I talked for a while about why it would be a good idea. Then a while after mentioning it, Violet requested it. Since she's been in her own room, I've talked about why it would be good for her to stay there all night long, but I am not pushing it. She'll come to being comfortable with it in her own time.

 

[k4th]

How much sleep is she having in the day? There is an 18 month sleep regression - is she actually tired at bedtime?

 

[MrsC10]

She sleeps around 1.5 to 2 hours during the day. Sometimes 2.5 hours. She's definitely ready for her bed by the time it comes round Xx

 

[k4th]

She sleeps around 1.5 to 2 hours during the day. Sometimes 2.5 hours. She's definitely ready for her bed by the time it comes round Xx

Maybe it's all adding up & she's not tired enough to link sleep cycles all night long?? I've always been one for routine (which I totally get isn't for everyone!) but following the end of wonder week 10, ds wakes more frequently if he sleeps more than about an hour in the day - which I know is a little on the short side for his age & I do wake him up, he would naturally have a longer nap but much shorter nights.

It might just be worth thinking about whether you could manipulate her nap a little to make sure she's not under tired at night. That would be my first port of call.

However, if it's truly just a pure seperation anxiety then whatever you choose to do just needs to be consistent. Whether that's moving her or sleeping in her room etc. Personally - I think waiting for them to go to sleep and then sneaking out makes it harder for them if they wake in the night - they panic that you're gone. So hard when you're exhausted though! Have you tried sleeping with the reintroduced comforter so it smells like you? Maybe have two so you can rotate them each night?

If it is the sleep regression - hopefully it will pass soon

 

[MrsC10]

She only has the one nap and she always wakes up before 2.30pm. She's doesn't go for her bath until 6.30pm and is in bed roughly around an hour after that. Her routine (particularly bedtime) is always the same. She's definitely not under tired.

After six weeks we've kind of decided that whatever means we get the most sleep is what we're running with so she's moving into our room tomorrow night. We'll see how it goes.she'll still be in her room during the day for her nap so she's not completely out her room for sleep all the time. We hope that doing that will make it easier to transition her back to her own room for nighttime.

 

[k4th]

She only has the one nap and she always wakes up before 2.30pm. She's doesn't go for her bath until 6.30pm and is in bed roughly around an hour after that. Her routine (particularly bedtime) is always the same. She's definitely not under tired.

After six weeks we've kind of decided that whatever means we get the most sleep is what we're running with so she's moving into our room tomorrow night. We'll see how it goes.she'll still be in her room during the day for her nap so she's not completely out her room for sleep all the time. We hope that doing that will make it easier to transition her back to her own room for nighttime.

Glad you have a plan that you can have a go at. Hope you all get better sleep!!

 

[MrsC10]

Thanks. I miss sleep!