18 month sleep regression

[Anonymous]

Our child an amazing sleeper is going through the 18 month sleep regression.

She goes down at 730ish and generally sleeps 12 hours. We do rock her to sleep but that is fast, usually falls asleep in 10 min.


The past three nights she has woken up around 11 or midnight. One night she was up for four hours, with random spurts of sleep in the middle while we rocked her.


Last night I tried rocking for a few. Then I put her back in bed. She cried for ten min. I went in and gave her the pacis she had tossed. Then she cried for 12 min and she went to bed. I had planned to go back in after 15 min to reassure and give pacis again, but didn’t have to.

Where am I going wrong? I am upping protein foods, larger bedtime snack and putting a stuffed animal in the crib now to hopefully help. We already have the white noise monitor.

Hoping this passes soon. We are also having problems getting her to nap in crib now, and wants to be held instead.

[Anonymous]

You’re doing nothing wrong. The 18th month regression is horrible because they are now aware and smart enough to manipulate you. We finally just had to let them cry/ scream it out. The fist kid took much longer to resolve because I tried fixing the problem. Once I realized what was happening with my second kid (not a random night/ sick) we let her scream it out. It resolved much faster and she was back to being a great sleeper. She even shares a room with her older sibling and she slept through the scream fest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You’re doing nothing wrong. The 18th month regression is horrible because they are now aware and smart enough to manipulate you. We finally just had to let them cry/ scream it out. The fist kid took much longer to resolve because I tried fixing the problem. Once I realized what was happening with my second kid (not a random night/ sick) we let her scream it out. It resolved much faster and she was back to being a great sleeper. She even shares a room with her older sibling and she slept through the scream fest.

Thanks! How many weeks did it last?

We have only had the 8 and 12 month regression both only lasting about 7-10 nights. Hoping no more than that with this one.

[Anonymous]

How much day sleep? Might be time to cap that nap to keep some sleep pressure for nighttime.

[Anonymous]

No advice, but I’m 9 nights into the same sleep regression (although DC is 21 months. I take it age is a little more variable in this one).

DC has been up for about a 90 minute stretch every night, screaming if left alone. Calms down quickly if we come in, but stays awake to make sure we don’t leave. We’ve finally just started camping out in the nursery until we’re positive DC is really asleep before leaving. Since we started curling up with our own pillow and blankets in the glider, DC has started falling asleep more quickly, not seeing any signs that we were trying to leave like at bedtime.

We’ve always put DC down awake and let them put themself to sleep 10-45 minutes later after playing with a stuffed animal for however long.

[Anonymous]

We just had one at 15 months and it lasted about four weeks. Not every night, but off and on for four weeks. Didn’t seem like anything I did or didn’t do made a difference, and then one day he was just back to sleeping all night like normal. Hope it doesn’t go on too long for you!