The sun is set up for 7am. And yes, I always explain it's still night time, I show him the clock or the moon (if it's visible. somehow he has huge respect for the moon. If I say that the moon is looking through the window and checking on you and he cannot go to sleep until you are it's working). However he still cries,
At the mo we have huge (and I really mean HUGE) sleep regression. He used to be (yes, it's the "Used to be" time for us) an independent sleeper. I did WI/WO until he was able to fall asleep all by himself. At least at night. During the day I had to stay close or he wouldn't stay in the crib.
Suddenly everything changed. Maybe few facts first:
- this little man hates sleeping. From the start putting him to bed was a struggle. When he was little he had 15-30 min naps during the day. He's a preemie, and at night he would wake up often because of the gases or noises or teething (he has terrible time teething). Often he would wake up anytime between midnight and 4am and wouldn't go back to sleep for up to 2hrs. Once he transitioned himself to one nap, and after some routine tweaking, he settled into the following pattern:
WU 6-7am
Nap 11,30-12 (anything from 1,5 up to 4hrs, but usually it's about 2hrs)
BT 7,30-8
He would still wake up at night, always around 2-4am, until I discovered it was too much fiber in his dinner. Once I changed his dinner, and if he wasn't teething, he managed to sleep through the night.
Two weeks ago everything changed. He pushed his nap to 2pm. Without any warning. One day he's happy (well as happy about going to bed as he can be) to nap at 11,30, next day he won't settle until 2,15pm. Nothing has changed in his life. No illness. I know his lower canines are coming out but they've been doing it for ages so I can't really blame them. On one day he refused to have a nap altogether. Yesterday was the same situation. At 3pm I decided to let him be and wanted to do earlier BT. However he fell asleep in his feeding chair with his mouth full of pancake at 4,15pm.
I thought that maybe it's time to get him out of the crib and this was his way to fight the crib and bars so I removed the sidebar (he has a crib that can be changed into a grownup bed when sidebars removed). I got him involved in doing so so he would feel in control. Didn't help. It was even worse as climbing out of bed got extremely easy now. When asked about it he didn't want the sidebars to be put back (well, obviously) so I let it be.
What's more he doesn't want to fall asleep independently anymore. I have to stay in his room all the time. Wi/Wo just seems to aggravate the crying and even that we start our routine at 7pm he won't fall asleep until 9-9,30pm. Like he's having another separation anxiety. Sometimes he asks to go to my room and lay down on our bad (I try to ignore those pleas) or just climbs onto my laps and doesn't want to be moved.
Now, when he was NW and coming to our room I always walked him back to his room and repeated it until he fell asleep. Often it would take us up to 2hrs with him being OT and crying at the end of it. I was very consistent for weeks but nothing changed. So, on the nights when I was really exhausted I just let him sleep with us. He would fall asleep within seconds.
I really don't know how to move from there. I don't want to AP (which I feel I'm doing). I don;t think he's ready to ditch the nap yet. But having it at 2 (or not at all) completely disrupts our day.
This post is probably more appropriate for toddler sleeping than gro-clock