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SLEEP => Sleeping For Toddlers => Topic started by: willowonyx on December 03, 2008, 14:59:01 pm
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Two issues.
My DD is 29 months and has been sleeping against her closed door for the last 4 months. We converted her crib to a toddler bed w/guard rail when she was 2. She slept in it for maybe 2 weeks (which was after a few months of SA/OT). If we put her in the bed in the middle of the night, she just gets back out to her spot on the floor whenever she wakes up.
The other issue is that whenever she wakes up she constantly kicks the door until we go in or tell her to stop (can take a couple of times). Sometimes she is lightly crying (whining) or talking.
Is this just a phase? Do we just "ignore it" and wait for it to pass?
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Does she just not like the bed? Is it not very comfy? Have you tried to let her take ownership of the bed, like picking out bedding, what toys go on and in the bed with her, where it is in the room? Perhaps move it closer to the door?
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Maybe she is scared of sleeping in the bed? too high off the ground? could you try putting the mattress on the floor and see if she will sleep on it. Is there maybe a light shining in under the door which she likes to see but cant from her bed? DD liked to see the light coming from the night light on the landing at her age.
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Does she just not like the bed? Is it not very comfy? Have you tried to let her take ownership of the bed, like picking out bedding, what toys go on and in the bed with her, where it is in the room? Perhaps move it closer to the door?
That was one thing that we thought about too, but it is the same mattress that she has had since birth. I just made her some Tinkerbell sheets and pillow cover to see if that would entice her, since she LOVES TInkerbell. She has like 6 stuffed animals she insists on being in her bed with her, but she snuggles with two stuffed kitties and a blanket. We have thought about moving it closer to the door....that was our next attempt.
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Maybe she is scared of sleeping in the bed? too high off the ground? could you try putting the mattress on the floor and see if she will sleep on it. Is there maybe a light shining in under the door which she likes to see but cant from her bed? DD liked to see the light coming from the night light on the landing at her age.
It is the same bed she has had since birth and is only a foot off the ground. Yeah, I could try to put the mattress on the floor and see if that changes anything. There is a night light in the hall but she also has one in her room.
We have tried asking her why she doesn't sleep in her bed and she completely ignores us like she does hear us.
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We have tried asking her why she doesn't sleep in her bed and she completely ignores us like she does hear us.
FWIW, I still have only limited success getting James to tell me *why* about something.
No advice about your original questions, though. :-\
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Okay, so we have tried the mattress on the floor where she normally lays by the door, and she will just sleep on the floor next to it or move it out of the way.
We have tried moving her converted crib next to the door and now all she does is play with the light switch and still sleeps on the floor, right up on the door crack.
I have made special Tinker Bell sheets, we have talks about no sleeping on the floor, no kicking the door, no turning on the light (it is almost a song), but she just does not implement it.
And then last night, she took an hour to go to sleep between calling out for us, turning on the light, kicking the door, taking off her clothes (which she made us put on a 2 piece PJ's instead of her sleeper) and then after all of this, she woke up and starting yelling/kicking the door at 1:30, 2:30 etc....until it was time to get her up at 6:30.
What should I do? Move her bed back to where it was, so she can not get to the light? Just ignore her not sleeping in her bed?
I am getting a little desperate here. We went through 2 months of NO sleep right after she turned 2 due to SA issues and had about a month of peace and now we are back to getting no sleep again.
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Hmmmm
What would happen if you opened the door and put a gate up?
Perhaps a real twin bed? Maybe she is over sleeping in the toddler bed?
What happens when she is crying or yelling out for you and DH?
When she is kicking the door, what do you do?
What's her routine like? When exactly did this begin and can you think of ANYTHING the is different now about her room or her routine or things in the house, people ect?
When she was having SA and was OT what was her bedtime like then? How did you help her through that period?
:)
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We have the exact same problem!
Before we retire for the night, we go in her room and put her back into bed.
It's taken 6 mths of this but she now stays in bed.
Lisa
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Hmmmm
What would happen if you opened the door and put a gate up?
Perhaps a real twin bed? Maybe she is over sleeping in the toddler bed?
What happens when she is crying or yelling out for you and DH?
When she is kicking the door, what do you do?
What's her routine like? When exactly did this begin and can you think of ANYTHING the is different now about her room or her routine or things in the house, people ect?
When she was having SA and was OT what was her bedtime like then? How did you help her through that period?
:)
I think that if we put up a gate, she would either try to climb out over it or stand there and yell for us. But it is worth a try.....
I was thinking about her possibly not likeing her toddler bed but was hoping to be able to wait on going shopping for a new one with her when we were sure a new one was coming......which will hopefully be this year.
When she cries out for either one of us, unless it is a cry that is real, we just "ignore it". If I go in at any point she gets worse if I try to leave. DH is the one who usually has to tend to her.
When she kicks the door, we either tell her to stop through the doorway and remind her that she is not to do that, or go in and tell her to stop. Again, DH has to do a majority of this, because if I even speak to her, she gets upset or more upset.
She has been on basically the same routine since she was born, with some changes along the way....
wake 6:30am
nap 12-2pm
bedtime (after bath & wind-down) 7pm (usually asleep by 7:30pm)
It is hard to pin point exactly when it started because she has been having issues one way or the other since she turned 2....that is when we took off the one side of the crib to make a toddler bed and put on the guard rail. The not wanting to sleep in the bed definitely came after the 2 months of SA and got gradually worse and then the kicking started 3 weeks ago. Nothing at all had changed in her room....until last week when I moved the bed closer to the door. Nothing has changed in the house at all through the last 5 months of her having issues. She is not cutting any molars, there are no signs of any of them, she is not sick.......
When she was having SA & OT, I did the gradual withdraw method and then had to go away for business for 5 days and when I came back, everything was "better".
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We have the exact same problem!
Before we retire for the night, we go in her room and put her back into bed.
It's taken 6 mths of this but she now stays in bed.
Lisa
Lisa,
We have tried that ourselves and then when she wakes up and finds herself in the bed, she starts crying and calling out for us. :(
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Do you think she is actually tired when she goes to bed. I only ask as my son dropped his naps just after he turned 2.5. I wonder if she still has bags of energy and is also testing her boundaries at the moment.
I also wonder if the mattress is the factor if she won't sleep on it even on the floor?
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We have the exact same problem!
Before we retire for the night, we go in her room and put her back into bed.
It's taken 6 mths of this but she now stays in bed.
Lisa
Lisa,
We have tried that ourselves and then when she wakes up and finds herself in the bed, she starts crying and calling out for us. :(
Yes Maddy does that too. She's getting better though. We are going to be buying her a double bed on boxing day in hopes that it is more cozy. I frankly think that her toddler bed is just too small and cramped feeling for her to enjoy staying in it.
Lisa
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Do you think she is actually tired when she goes to bed. I only ask as my son dropped his naps just after he turned 2.5. I wonder if she still has bags of energy and is also testing her boundaries at the moment.
I also wonder if the mattress is the factor if she won't sleep on it even on the floor?
I think she still needs her nap, even when she sleeps a good night, she usually tanks for her nap at daycare. One thought I have about her naps during the weekend is that she may not be as tired or wornout as she gets at daycare.
Yeah, the mattress may be too soft for her.
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We have the exact same problem!
Before we retire for the night, we go in her room and put her back into bed.
It's taken 6 mths of this but she now stays in bed.
Lisa
Lisa,
We have tried that ourselves and then when she wakes up and finds herself in the bed, she starts crying and calling out for us. :(
Yes Maddy does that too. She's getting better though. We are going to be buying her a double bed on boxing day in hopes that it is more cozy. I frankly think that her toddler bed is just too small and cramped feeling for her to enjoy staying in it.
Lisa
Yeah, I can see the toddler bed with the guard rail feeling too small for her now.
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Perhaps if you get her to help you choose her bed she may be more excitd to sleep in it.
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So, maybe last night was a fluke, but it was better.
We did try to put a gate up at her door, but it came down really quickly after she FREAKED out. Her being able to see out her room seems to be worse than the door being closed.
After DH put her down and turned out the light, she did start crying out for me, then freaked out because of the gate and once we took that down, I just went in and applied the GW method to get her to go to sleep. It took 40 minutes for her to get into a deep sleep. I can't leave until I know she is *out*. She woke up around 11:20 and realized I was not there and the door was closed and cried/called out a few times but went back to sleep. Then at some point between then and 6am she turned on the light and took off her PJ's to greet my DH, naked. ::)
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Perhaps if you get her to help you choose her bed she may be more excitd to sleep in it.
That was the plan when we were pregnant with #2.
I am just afraid that if we introduce too many changes at once, it will make her more upset.
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Perhaps but only you can tell that. Maybe casually take her to a furniture store pretending you do not know the kids beds are there and she if she warms to any.
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Perhaps but only you can tell that. Maybe casually take her to a furniture store pretending you do not know the kids beds are there and she if she warms to any.
Good IDEA!!!!!
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She woke up around 11:20 and realized I was not there and the door was closed and cried/called out a few times but went back to sleep.
So, maybe last night was a fluke, but it was better.
Well that sounds like a great improvement. Was she in her bed then? Do you think she might not have even bothered to call out if the door was open even a tiny bit?
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I do not know if she was in her bed after she called out because we did not go in to check...we learned a long time ago to give her a minute or two before going in because we may wake her up more and cause her to not want to go back to sleep on her own. ::)
We also learned a while ago that if there is any indication to her that the door is "open" she will come out of her room, roam around the house and then wake us up. By that point, she is WIDE awake.
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So, last night was about the same.
DH put her down, she called out for me, he went in and comforted her, she quieted down, but as soon as he left, she turned on the light and laid by the door and fell asleep.
I went around 9:30 and put her in her bed and turned off the light. Around 1:30am she called out for us....for a minute or two and then turned back on her light and laid down by the door. She was still by the door with the light on at 4:30 this morning so I just left it that way so I would not make her have an EW.
I guess this is just going to be a cycle until something else comes along. ::)
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For some reason this situation makes me a little sad :( But like everything with this little people, it will pass. I wish I had more advice but I'm really at a loss. I will be thinking about you guys.
Hugs.
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Yes I have to agree it seems sad. Just a last thought, do you think she feels lonely in her bed? Could you guys go together and buy her some special bed friends? Dd had a small rag doll when she was young, as she got older she would lose it in the cot so I gave her my bigger pooh bear. As she moved to her big bed we gradually added another bear, small one, then when she was sick she added her small elephant. 3 is our cut off point, big one in 1 arm 2 small ones in the other. On the rare occasion she is sick or having a bad night we add her cuddly dog but after 3 nights it goes back to the shelf. Little cutie gave me one of her bears when dh was on a trip so I wouldnt be lonely, then insisted I keep it.
I really wish we could figure something out for you, meantime I guess you can just make her comfy as possible, put her in nice warm soft pjs and do you have a rug inside the door? Could you put a duller light bulb in her room so it doesnt seem so bright maybe when she is sleeping, I would hate to be sleeping under a bright light.
Hugs
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I have been reading along and have a possible idea. I am a full time working mom and I am guessing you are too? You said that you had to go away on business for 5 days and things in the SA dept got better. Maybe they didn't. What I'm saying is that this really looks like hard core SA to me.
My daughter does the same when I do my 7 day stretch of work (happens 2x per month). 3 of those days are afternoon shifts and 1 is a 12hr shift so I rarely see her for a few days. It sucks. It's my industry. She feels it, I can tell.
The sleeping on the floor might be a comfort issue, but I doubt it based on the fact that she slept in that bed for 2weeks without any problems. The kicking at the door screams SA to me. She is trying to get your attention there. She gets crazy upset at you when you try to tend to her because it's you that she's needing the attention from, not your DH. My LO does the same for me. It's almost like she'd testing me.
I don't know much about what you do with your daughter during waking hours, but my suggestion is to spend more "quality" time with her. Just you and her maybe? I'm just trying to share what's worked with me. I mean no offence, just my 2c.
Lyndsy
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For some reason this situation makes me a little sad :( But like everything with this little people, it will pass. I wish I had more advice but I'm really at a loss. I will be thinking about you guys.
Hugs.
Yeah, my DH are very concerned and heart broken by this.
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Yes I have to agree it seems sad. Just a last thought, do you think she feels lonely in her bed? Could you guys go together and buy her some special bed friends? Dd had a small rag doll when she was young, as she got older she would lose it in the cot so I gave her my bigger pooh bear. As she moved to her big bed we gradually added another bear, small one, then when she was sick she added her small elephant. 3 is our cut off point, big one in 1 arm 2 small ones in the other. On the rare occasion she is sick or having a bad night we add her cuddly dog but after 3 nights it goes back to the shelf. Little cutie gave me one of her bears when dh was on a trip so I wouldnt be lonely, then insisted I keep it.
I really wish we could figure something out for you, meantime I guess you can just make her comfy as possible, put her in nice warm soft pjs and do you have a rug inside the door? Could you put a duller light bulb in her room so it doesnt seem so bright maybe when she is sleeping, I would hate to be sleeping under a bright light.
Hugs
She sleeps with two soft kitties and a fleece blanket in her arms every night. She has 5 other animals in her room as well, but loves these things in particular.
A softer bulb is definitely a good suggestion! :)
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I have been reading along and have a possible idea. I am a full time working mom and I am guessing you are too? You said that you had to go away on business for 5 days and things in the SA dept got better. Maybe they didn't. What I'm saying is that this really looks like hard core SA to me.
My daughter does the same when I do my 7 day stretch of work (happens 2x per month). 3 of those days are afternoon shifts and 1 is a 12hr shift so I rarely see her for a few days. It sucks. It's my industry. She feels it, I can tell.
The sleeping on the floor might be a comfort issue, but I doubt it based on the fact that she slept in that bed for 2weeks without any problems. The kicking at the door screams SA to me. She is trying to get your attention there. She gets crazy upset at you when you try to tend to her because it's you that she's needing the attention from, not your DH. My LO does the same for me. It's almost like she'd testing me.
I don't know much about what you do with your daughter during waking hours, but my suggestion is to spend more "quality" time with her. Just you and her maybe? I'm just trying to share what's worked with me. I mean no offence, just my 2c.
Lyndsy
I appreciate all ideas, no offense taken. Yes, I am a FT working mom, I drop-off and pick-up my daughter everyday from daycare. I also am alone with her for 1 hour once we get home everynight, and then my DH gets about 15 minutes with her before we start the bedtime routine. She has always been attached to me and really only wants to play with daddy if I am not around.
I know she is this way with me becuase she loves me and I am her mommy but it gets exhausting. I can not even imagine how it is going to be once a #2 comes along.
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Question, what time does she wake in the morning?
The reason I ask is that if you can stretch her bedtime out a bit you may have more time with her in the evening. As a result you will have a later wake up (a bonus on the weekends) and you may have to wake her in the AM before daycare. My LO used to be a 730 bedtime kinda gal, until I slowly pushed bedtime later 15mins at a time, slowly over the course of a week.
My LO's routine is this (she's 20mo)
745/8am wake
130/2 nap for 1.5-2hrs
815/830 asleep
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Well now she wakes between 6am and 6:30 which is fine for weekdays because my DH goes in at 6:20 to get her ready for her day. It is rather painful on the weekends were she used to sometimes sleep until 8:30, but as soon as she turned 2 that stopped. But these days we can sometimes get her to fall back asleep on the weekends until 7 or so, and those days, the after lunch nap is impossible.
She is very used to a schedule, so even though last night we were 15 minutes behind schedule on lights out, she still was fast asleep in 30 minutes. And she was wide awake when I got in the shower at 6:10.
Maybe in a few months we will try to move back her bedtime 15 minutes, but right now if she is awake past her normal lights out time of 7pm, she starts to be a terror.
Thanks!! ;)