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SLEEP => Sleeping For Toddlers => Topic started by: olivetshka on April 29, 2006, 01:33:54 am
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I have wrote few days ago about my daughter Natalia. She's 2 and 3 months now and for 1,5 week she has been teaching how to sleep without me in her bed (she used to sleep with me for over 6 months). I try chair method and now she gets use to it - she goes down maybe not very easy but she can do it on her own - I only have to hug her from time to time.
At night, when she wakes up I go to a chair and stay there untill she falls asleep. She usually does it quite good - sometimes she wakes up and I have to tell her "it's ok, I'm here" and she's out again, but I have notice when she wakes up at 3 am she has big problems going down. Usually it takes an hour or - like last night - 2 hours (!) And I'm still on this chair - cold and sleepy...
Does anyone have an idea why is it this way?
She had this problems even before I started the chair method - why she's unable to fall asleep easily like she does when she's up at different time of the night?
How should I deal with it? Try Wake to Sleep method? And only for this one waking?
For last 2 days she's been up at:
- 9 pm (one hour after going to bed)
- 10.30 pm
- around midnight
- around 3 am (and up for hour(s)
And she starts her day at 6 am (!) - even when she falls asleep at 4 or 5 am.
Please, could anyone help me!
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Can you post your whole daily routine? There may be more going on than what we can 'see' overnight. How old is she? What is your wind-down routine like?
Let's see if we can help.
~Rachel
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Can you post your whole daily routine? There may be more going on than what we can 'see' overnight. How old is she? What is your wind-down routine like?
Let's see if we can help.
~Rachel
Natalia is 2 years and 3 months old. Her day mostly looks like this:
6-7 am wake up
around 8 breakfast
activities till 11 when we usually getting ready for a nap (I noticed that she is tired around this hour, so we go to a bed and read few books, talk little bit and cuddle. Then I sit on a chair and she has to fall asleep. But lately she's up for an hour or more untill finally asleep - it looks like she doesn't want to nap, even when she's tired).
12.30-1.30 falling asleep
usually around 2 she's up (sometimes later - it depends when she went down)
3 pm dinner
activities
6 pm bath and supper
7 pm in bed (reading, talking, cuddling)
8 pm asleep
Can you tell me what is wind down routine? Is it that what we're doing right before going to bed?
Thanks a lot!
Oh, and I have to tell that last night wasn't like 2 others before - she suddenly have changed her waking hours, but still were up for 1,5 hours at night.
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With nightwaking I found with Margot she would return to sleep easier in the first half of the night because toddlers are in a deeper sleep then. When she woke after 1 am she would take a couple of hours to return to sleep.
Regarding her schedule she probably is getting sleepy around 11 because of her night sleep being broken. Do you give her a snack around 10:30 or so. That can really help them get more energy to last them through until nap time. I think the 12:30 nap is also fine and the big issue is just getting her comfortable to sleep on her own. Have you tried moving the chair closer and closer to the door?.
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With nightwaking I found with Margot she would return to sleep easier in the first half of the night because toddlers are in a deeper sleep then. When she woke after 1 am she would take a couple of hours to return to sleep.
Regarding her schedule she probably is getting sleepy around 11 because of her night sleep being broken. Do you give her a snack around 10:30 or so. That can really help them get more energy to last them through until nap time. I think the 12:30 nap is also fine and the big issue is just getting her comfortable to sleep on her own. Have you tried moving the chair closer and closer to the door?.
Thanks for reply!
I think you're right about this night wakings - I'm observing her for a quite time now, and everything you said seems to be correct.
About snack - yes, she has one around 10-10.30. But do you think her nap time is too early? Maybe I should wait little bit longer...
And yes, I did the chair thing - I put the chair closer to the door 3 days ago. Today is day third and tomorrow I'm going to put it a foot closer. And she didn't scream :) Just asked me once for my hand while she was lying in her bed. I said "I know you can do it without my hand" and she did :)
I also thought about this night wakings - maybe it's too early to make Wake to Sleep method, maybe she just needs time to get use to it, maybe when I will be outside the room and after things get settled her sleeping will be better ? Or maybe not...
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Hopefully after you get outside the door and she's used to going to sleep completely on her own, the night wakings will resolve themselves. If not, you can deal with them at that time.
Its great that you're moving closer to the door and she's sleeping without holding your hand. Keep up the good work!
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You know Margot's nap times became a bit longer when her nap moved a bit later so you may want to try just pushing the nap back 15 minutes for a few days to see how that goes. It really depends on how Natalia is. Some kids seem more sensitive to the interval between wakeup and bedtime ie. if they don't nap within a certain period of waking up in the morning then they won't nap at all! From what you have said I suspect that Natalia is the other way and may not be able to tolerate a super long time between nap wakeup and bedtime. With Margot she was very sensitive to the length of time between waking up from her nap and the time she fell asleep at night. If this was any longer than 5 to 5.5 hours she would wake during the night so I would calculate naptime by going backwards from bedtime For example if she was falling asleep at night at 7:30 and she was taking a 1.5 hour nap that meant she needed to go down for her nap at between 12:30 and 1. But given Natalia is overtired I wouldn't push her nap back too quickly, she probably will get overtired and not nap well either. So if you want to push the nap back do it slowly! Good luck and I'm so glad that you are seeing improvement!
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Hi! Anna!!
Dana has the exact problem too. She wakes every night at 3 am....and it takes us a long time to get her back to sleep.
I canīt believe how sharp is her internal clock...i hear her, open my eyes and the clock shows 2.30 or 3.00 am....INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! and this is happening for about a month now.
Please! Anna, could you explain me what exactly do you do and how do you do the chair and hand thing????
Perhaps i would do the same with Dana.
Thanks, Nadia.
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Hopefully after you get outside the door and she's used to going to sleep completely on her own, the night wakings will resolve themselves. If not, you can deal with them at that time.
Its great that you're moving closer to the door and she's sleeping without holding your hand. Keep up the good work!
You know, I try to imagine this moment when I finally get outside - and I'm afraid...
Right now, when I sit on a chair and she's lying in her bed, I can't do anything, but look at her. Not all the times, but I can't read or do anything else, for example. While she's falling asleep she asks me to look at her - and I say: "I'm looking at you, go to sleep". She keeps checking if it's true - lift her head and look at me. When I'm not looking, she asks me again, and again I look at her ::)
It's not big deal for me, cause I'm so happy she can finally sleep without me and settle on her own, but I'm afraid what I will do when I take away th chair?... Technically I'm not able to look at her anymore... But maybe I'll figure it out later.
If you can tell me - after I get to the door, should I take the chair away and stand beside her bed and repeat the procedure, or maybe put the chair somewhere nearby, but outside the room and pretend that I still sit on it?
And one more thing - is it correct that I should go and sit on the chair every time she wakes up at night? I do it for 2 weeks now and I'm exhausted when I have to sit there 2 or 3 hours, because she's having problems settling down...
Tonight, when I spent there almost 3 hours, I said that chair was broken and now mommy have to lie down in her bed (we share the bedroom). She was ok with that only if I SIT on my bed. And that's probably another part to fix...
I'm really, really very tired...
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Hi! Anna!!
Dana has the exact problem too. She wakes every night at 3 am....and it takes us a long time to get her back to sleep.
I canīt believe how sharp is her internal clock...i hear her, open my eyes and the clock shows 2.30 or 3.00 am....INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!!! and this is happening for about a month now.
Please! Anna, could you explain me what exactly do you do and how do you do the chair and hand thing????
Perhaps i would do the same with Dana.
Thanks, Nadia.
Hi Nadia.
I'm not sure if I can help here, cause Natalia is changing her mind every few days - once, for 2 nights she's like this, then suddenly everything change for another few nights :)
The problem is when she wakes up in the middle of the night - right now it can be 1 am or 3 am - she has huge problem settling down. She doesn't cry usually, she looks like she tries to sleep, keep her eyes closed and not moving for 10 minutes - and when I only reach my bed and lie down, she's up again and ask me to sit on a chair.
We also share bedroom, so it's not very easy for either of us, but I keep trying.
I did the chair method, cause I wanted her to separate from me at night - we used to sleep in the same bed. I was tired and so was she, so I decided to take a chair and put it next to her bed while she was falling asleep. First week was a nightmare, but later she got use to it and now she falls asleep on her own , in her own bed, with me sitting on a chair. The thing is every 3 days I put the chair little bit closer to the door - she's still comfortable with it, even when she doesn't see me very well. When I reach the door, I should tell her: "tonight I'm going to take the chair away" and maybe MAYBE (I hope so) she will be ok with falling asleep on her own, without me in the room.
For me it's a huge step (for her, too) that only I sit on this chair and she's in her bed without me. She always seemed so stressed out when I wasn't beside her at night. We'll see if this method work for us.
I don't know your situation besides the fact your daughter wakes at 3 am every night. I don't know if this will help you - but here you are :)
And I still have no idea what to do when Natalia is up for 2 or 3 hours every night. I sit on this chair and wait for her to asleep. I'm cold and sleepy, and totally exhausted... Hope that maybe when this whole situation settle down little bit and she get use to it better, she will finally let me sleep, cause right now, from more than 2 years, I'm not sleeping. I think I forgot how to do that...
Best,
Anna