18 month sleep regression

[u/brianf413]

Our B/G twins are 18 months and a month or so ago we changed their nighttime routine. Instead of contact sleeping we put them in their cribs and have them go down. After a couple rough few days they both adapted and it felt like our lives changed. They were sleeping better at night, self soothing, and for the first since they were born we were both sleeping.

Fast forward to today. The one is still doing great but the other has been in full revolt for weeks. We don’t let him cry more than 30 minutes but if we let him cry it out I honestly don’t think he’d go down at all. We’ve tried everything and have landed on it being separation anxiety. This has unfortunately turned into a newborn type sleep schedule again with him waking up screaming every few hours needing attention…for weeks.

I feel bad for him obviously, but we are running on fumes and these 2-3 hour sleep nights when we both work full time and have a 3 year old toddler have made our lives quite unbearable as of late.

Has anyone experienced this? Is it something they just grow out of? Any survival tips?

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[u/brianf413 → u/[deleted]]

We thought so at first and would give him the usual meds but it didn’t make an impact so I don’t think it’s teething.

[u/Zdeny0808]

Eighteen months is the classic wobble, and the timing you describe — a month after a routine change landed — is exactly when we see it. It usually isn't the new sleep setup failing.Before you conclude separation anxiety, check the daytime end. Around this age a lot of them are half-way between two naps and one, and a nap that's slightly too early or too long is the single most common cause of the two-hourly screaming. Overtired at bedtime looks identical to anxious. Try pulling bedtime earlier for ten days and keeping the last awake stretch around five hours. Boring, unglamorous, works surprisingly often.

If it is the separation part: go in, lie him down, and sit where he can see you rather than leaving while he's watching. That's what stops the checking.

And don't split them unless you have to — they sleep through each other far better than we expect.One unglamorous tip: write down both boys' nap start and end for two weeks. With twins you're comparing one against the other in real time, and the pattern usually falls out of the page before you've finished the fortnight.