BabyWhispererForums.com
SLEEP => Sleeping For Toddlers => Topic started by: -Maya- on April 04, 2016, 10:07:19 am
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Hello wise and lovely ladies,
I have finally decided to do this post for DS sleeping habits. Probably I should just stop worrying and accept that DS is done that way. But every time I read of toddlers sleeping 12h non stop I strongly desire DS is one of them. Unfortunately he isn't.
For the first 9mo of his life he was an horrible sleeper. After introduction of solids he started to show some signs he could to better. He is sleeping with a pattern that I can survive with (with many help of DH, mainly DH doing nights actually) only since he is 16mo.
Now usual day is:
wu: 7 or 7:30 am
nap: 1-3pm
bt: 8pm
We are on a solid 1 nap routine since no longer than 1-2 months. So he lost his beloved am nap very late.
But we qualify a good night when there is one resettle at 5 or 6am. Bad nights have more than one resettle and usually happens when he is ill. Or teething. Or any other excuse you can imagine of. And he is prone to early wu.
Why, on the earth, he cannot sttn? From the beginning of this year he sttn 12 times. Yes, I count them, yes I am a FTM obsessed by DS sleep.
His nw are not so bad, great majority of times he just need a cuddle from daddy or a paci replug or drinking some water.
He usually goes to sleep like a charm, recently he started again to fall asleep instantly when in bed, both nap & BT. He actually asks to go to sleep when he is tired. He is not very prone to OT and he is able to self regulate himself quite well. But his sleeps goes in long waves, sometimes even 10 days long. So we have a negative wave in which he sleeps less than 10.5h at night and he does not recover in nap (less than 2h) then he moves into a positive wave, where he is recovering sleep and he does even 11.5h at night and he naps more than 2h.
Probably during weekend DH and I stimulate him too much and the fact that we both work full day may push him to want to stay with mommy and daddy as much as he can. In fact recovery days usually starts on Monday or on Tuesday when he is with his Granny. He has 4/5 deays of recovery and then if we're lucky he is back to 11h nights and 2h (or just less) naps. If we're unlucky a bad wave starts again.
What I am doing wrong? What I can do better for letting him sleep better? We have always responded to his cry, unless they are clearly just dreams or self chat. Now we can recognize almost instantly a cry that needs follow up and a cry that does not. I always dream of a 12h sleep baby, but at least uninterrupted 11h I would gladly accept. We blame a lot teething, and illness, but we run out of excuses many times. For example now he is in a bad wave, and yesterday he was a fantastic little boy, no illness that I can see. but he had 1 nw and an ew at 6:30.
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Honestly my DD3 was a lo that had loads of nw's from about her 4 month growth spurt until probably somewhere between 18-24 months. Teeth, illness, development leaps, you name it we had it, one thing after the next and for the most part similar to your DS in that a quick snuggle and her soother was all she needed (but man the interupted sleep for me!!). Now other than the odd bad dream she mostly sleeps 11/11.5 hours and the odd time 12/13 (no nap anymore) so it is totally possible for them to start sttn late in the game (was a total departure from DD2 who sttn from about 7 months old even through teething - what a kid!).
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Thank you for make me feel I am not alone. So there are kids whi start sttn later... I have something to hope.
Irl I know many mums with horrible sleepers, so I am always told I must not complain. But I did as much as I could with ds. I try to have good routine, maybe it is not good enough. I keep on thinking that if I gave him ff from the beginning he could have learned to sleep better from the beginning instead of starving him when he was not able to nurse.
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Reading your post, lots of positive things jump out:
He goes to bed quickly and easily
He knows when he is tired and accepts that he needs to sleep
He self regulates
All these are huge! Well done you!!!
Sleep disturbances until all the teeth are through is something that I think should be in every sleep book and all advice to ftms, so we expect it and see it as normal. That said I'm very jealous of those with sleepers!
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YK how mums are: when there are positives it is all due to DS attitude, when there are negatives, it is all mum's fault :)
Anyway, he had yesterday a catch up day, with an encouragin WU at 7am. Nap for 2,5h as well. But oh no, this morning again a 6:30 WU, with two resettle during night. Wow. For sure today he will have shorter nap than yesterday as he is with MIL and there is also his little cousin who he likes to play with. Or better he likes to have her around, because he still does not play with others.
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Honestly I'd say there are loads of babies out there who do sleep well, but there are also plenty that don't & I know I have 2 of them... neither of mine EVER slept more than 10hours straight & that really didn't happen until after 2yo. DS2 was LSN & a good night from 18mo was 8pm to 5am. DS1 was better & slept until 6/6.30 ( now he's almost a teen he regularly sleeps until 7.30 or later & he has to go to school at 8am LOL)
One thing I do know is that most of the people I know IRL with poor sleepers tend to have children who are pretty bright & I think a lot of it is that their brains are much more active & so it's harder to switch off.
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One thing I do know is that most of the people I know IRL with poor sleepers tend to have children who are pretty bright & I think a lot of it is that their brains are much more active & so it's harder to switch off.
My mum swears by this theory! :D She had 1 LSN & 1 HSN baby.... and the theory pans out there - although the intelligence hasn't translated to general success in life as my Brother has a crazy successful job - it's just creative not intellectual. I've never amounted to much on the career front.
I have a LSN 2.5yr old and he is noticeably ahead of his peers for verbal & motor skills and his memory & comprehension are sometimes a bit mind blowing.
I am currently pregnant again and wondering if I'll get a sleeper or not and will definitely be interested to see if it correlates to intelligence!
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I've never amounted to much on the career front.
I don't think that is a mark of being bright, I know what my IQ is & I've not amounted to much career wise either, but that doesn't mean I don't have other intellectual avenues, it's just choices I've made that for me travel & then family were higher priorities than what I do 9-5
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Hmm I suppose LSN = bright mind equation does not work around me. I am quick minded and I have always been hsl. One of my best friends is really bright, to me he is a genius and he is hsn as well.
About ds I think he is pretty average. He started speaking slightly early but to me is difficult to compare now because irl I have only unfortunate comparisons, all little girls that are very late speakers.
He is average imho also in sleep needs. It is difficult to get it as he is not so predictable in his habits.
This morning ew like crazy. He wu at 5.40. He wanted so much his bottle! At 6.10
Dh has given up and ds had his breakfast bottle. I wonder if ds is into a sort of gs. It has been long time since he needed food to go back to sleep. But be has been eating more or less same amount of food since long as well. Maybe he needs an increase. Yesterday he gulped down a maxed quantity of his dinner even if he was very tired.
Actually my best bet is that he is ot. Yesterday wu was 6.35 and I asked MIL to put him in bed earlier. And of course she did not. She said be was happy. Of course he was happy... He started crying the first step I did in MIL house when picking him up. And he took 40 min to fall asleep yesterday night.
I do not know how to cope with that. I have asked baby sitter to put him to nap at 9.30 today but I am not sure he will sleep. Or that he will sleep. How can I break this ot? Earlier bt helps just little cor us as it takes ages for him to fall asoeep and this means he goes to sleep at usual bt.
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I am quick minded and I have always been hsl. One of my best friends is really bright, to me he is a genius and he is hsn as well.
I didn't ever say it was LSN - it was "poor sleepers" There is a difference between a LSN child who only needs 10 hours at age 2 (my DS2) & a poor sleeper like my DS1 who slept for 14+ hours at 18mo but it was never as 12 hours + 2hour nap it was a 2 naps between 1.5 & 2 hours & 10 -11 hours (2-3 wake ups) at night.
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Ah sorry Katet, I read your post too quickly... Your distiction is correct imho!!
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I ended up logging all ds1's sleep for a while as I was so over the early wakes, and concluding that he didn't really need a nap any more. That was when he was on 11hrs total sleep in a 24hr period.
Might be interesting to do something similar?
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Logging would be good, but I am too out of my mind to be able to do it properly. Last Friday I forgot that there was a dinner with high school fellows for our 40th year :(
Anyway, yesterday DS had a 2 nap day, because he was not able to stay on 1 nap only. He got too stimulated on Saturday. I suppose he is a kind of developmental leap, as he is constantly talking and he talks much better than before. Then he is always moving: on Saturday we spent something like 45 minutes with him hopping on and off a toy car. He always wants to go out and he wants to walk everywhere. And he is always terribly hungry!
I wonder if there is such a leap around 2yo.
This morning we had the first WU after 7am of I think 10/15 days. Unfortunately we had also a 30min NW, where he wanted a bottle. Luckily DH put him back to sleep.
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Sounds like he is in the middle of a growth spurt and development leap (they generally happen around birthdays and half birthdays). So in saying that it may be a case of just riding it out as there is not much you can do until he is done the leap.
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Well, I agree it was (it is?) a sort of growth spurt. He is now back to his one-time-resettle-in-best-nights. And of course now he has running nose that it is a very good excuse to wake up many times a night.
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Hi Maya,
So glad to hear he is re-settling better. Not so good news about his runny nose. I read there is a huge leap around 24mo. Lot of language and even movement... running better, etc...
Any considerations as to weaning him off night milk?
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He does not drink milk at night or even in the evening unless he explicitly requests it. He wanted milk before sleep during this leap, but it is unusual. Why night milk can be an issue in your opinion?
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Oh, I may have misunderstood. I thought he was waking in motn for milk... then possibly causing a habitual hunger around then. For us (when M was younger though) it was that 5:00am hour that was hard to break.
Hugs for the many night wakes. So exhausting isn't it? Hope you get many cuddles from it.
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I just saw your post about the mask next to this on my feed.... Didn't put the 2 together but children with asthma and poor breathing issues like bronciolitis are generally poor sleepers because ther is poorer oxygen to the body.
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Katet, that's an interesting correlation you do! Can you link me articles on that? I wonder if there is something that can be done
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No articles that I read just what the respiratory Specialist I knew told me which was backed up by an ENT Dr that we saw with DS and the fact every time he has Asthma he coughs lots in his sleep and I he's more restless... Also when DS1 had his adenoids out his sleep improved so much too.
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Rethinking to your suggestion, Katet, I remember now that DS actually sleeps more and longer when he has bronchitis. It is one of the sign that I use to understand he is unwell. I do not know if this is a false cause-effect...
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Most children sleep longer when they are sick, but the irregular sleep when DS1 was "well" was a sign that he had underlying issues of glue ear and enlarged adenoids & the illnesses like bronchitis are when things get really bad but treatment can help with the problem.
If I had my time over with DS1 I'd certainly have put more effort into seeing if there was a ear/adenoid problem earlier on as his sleep only became good after he had grommits for his ears & he'd NEVER had an ear infection in his life, yet had really bad glue ear & there is a big link between respiratory issues & build up of fluid in other parts of the respiratory system.
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Ds is again in a bad sleep and I do not know what to blame now. He could be teething 2y molars, but I doubt it. He has just put canines and upper canines are still not all out.
Now he has a pattern of drinking between 2 and 3 am and then a couple of resettle later on. This morning 2nd resettle was a full blown cry. He clearly had pain somewhere but wanted to go to sleep.
This 2am waking + milk request at bt and at some nws puzzling me. He has never wanted milk at bt since solids are in place. I wonder if it is mild reflux again. I think that I can try to give him reflux medi to test this idea but I am not a doctor and giving medi without prescription is anyway scaring. Especially reflux medi.
We have not had a sttn tillI think more than 2 months. It is disheartening and my mood is very low again. Will he ever sttn again?
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Oh yes of course he will xx With the reflux perhaps a trip to the dr is in order to help you decide if he needs meds (from what I understand from reading here they often have relapses during growth spurts so perhaps that is the case as gs usually happen around the birthday/half birthday point).
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I don't think there is any harm in taking him to the Dr I wish I had, get the Dr to have a REALLY good look at his ears for any fluid & also the reflux, they are 2 reasons why a child can be unsettled at night. Also teeth under the gumps putting pressure can be worse than when they actually break through. I know around 22 mo (with a new born) DS1 had a horrid time with teething even though no teeth.
With the Bronchitis side (which could be an asthma side but hard to know in young children) & the reflux, don't give neurofen or asprin based pain meds if you can avoid it & only on a full stomach. the Paracetamol based ones are far better. We found with DS1 that even with a drink of milk at night neurofen made him sleep worse than if we didn't give him anything at all & I think that was because of the after effects of undiagnosed refux.