Hi lovely people!
Just after a little advice please! Im not sure whether a routine tweak or sleep training is the way forward here.
Ottilie is now 14 months. As some of you know, she's had pretty bad reflux so sleep training hasn't been possible before. I'm posting on here rather than the reflux board as we've taken her off the losec (it just happened by accident on holiday as we were out of routine and missed a couple of doses. She's been fine without it apart from a couple of nights after having spicy food. Avoiding that now.) so I think this is more of a normal toddler sleep issue!
So basically her normal routine at home is (roughly):
Morning nap 1.5-2hrs
Afternoon nap 1.5-2hrs
bed at 7.
Up repeatedly any random time from 11 onwards.
Wake up anytime between 5-7am
Be really energetic and demanding to help poor mummy get over her sleep deprivation. 😉
She's been on this routine for a while now. It can vary a bit due to fitting in around her busy big brother. She settles herself in her own cot quite well, I don't need to stay with her.
She has been in her cot by our bed since birth but we just went away for 3 weeks road tripping in the states. During the trip she had two much shorter naps in the car every day. Usually less than an hour each nap. She was then going to bed much later (sometimes 9pm!) every night due to being in strange places and the distraction of having her big brother in the room too! She sleep through every single night on holiday, with just a short feed at 5am then back to sleep til 8.
When we got home 10 days ago I put her straight into her own room as she was already used to sleeping in strange places. She's over the jet lag now but back to her old routine and waking up all night like the pre-holiday days. I'm still feeding her at night which obviously doesn't help. She's ending up in our bed a lot in the early hours as I can't stick any more hours sitting in her room trying to get her settled again.
I was all set to do some sleep training and stop the night feeds is week but then yesterday we did a food fair with our business and she stayed awake all day. She finally crashed at 5pm but I only let her have a little catnap of 20 mins as didn't want to spoil bedtime. After dinner she fell asleep in the buggy at 8:30 ish as we were out and slept through (with a couple of transfers into car and cot) she is still asleep now at 8:30am.
So now I'm wondering if the secret sleep recipe on holiday was the shorter naps? Do you think I should try this first before sleep training? on the short nap days she didn't even want night feeds so could I save us both the trauma of stopping them cold turkey with just a routine tweak?
I really don't want to shorten her naps as I have so much work on, we have two businesses and I get it all done during nap time! If I shorten her naps I might have to think about nursery and I don't want her away from me just yet.
I'm used to our big boy who at 3.5 still likes a 2-3 hr nap and a full nights sleep!!
What does everyone think? Sorry for the long essay! Xx