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Hello everyone..

Our daughter (AJ) who is almost 21 months has since 19mo been waking several hours after bedtime crying. She then continues to cry out, rarely really properly settling properly, for the remainder of the night. Previously she was napping very well, and sleeping perfectly through the night. She never cried when going down for nap or bedtime, even if slightly UT. Now... she screams (mum, mum, mum, mum, mum, as soon as I put her in bed) and then when I leave she screams blue murder. She does settle relatively quickly and at nap time she's usually asleep in 5 minutes - sleeping for usually 2 hours. At bedtime, she's always taken approximately 40 minutes to fall asleep.

I tried pushing the nap from 1pm to 1.30pm and cutting it 30 minutes so a 1.5hr nap but I ended up with more night wakings and an absolutely miserable child who then one day crashed out on the floor at 10.30am and slept for 3 hours!

We are continually at the doctors and there is no sign of ear infections, virus, throat infections or anything else.

She sucks her thumb, but no dummy/paci or any other APOP associations. She's been an independent sleeper and sleeping through the night since about 8 months old.

This behaviour has coincided with an absolute defiance to leave me - especially at our local creche and church which (after some climatisation, was running into very happily.

I've had to put her in a big bed with a side rail because of personal back issues and bending into the cot. It's made no difference to the wakings.

My husband has had to take a second job and is now exhausted because we're awake most of the night, each night. Is this just a very very very long phase!?

Previously amazing routine:
WU: 7/7.30
Nap: 1.00 - 3.00
BT: 7.00; asleep 7.30.

Current Routine:
WU: 7.30/7.45 ish (having usually woken crying at 5.30)'
Nap: 1.00 (but is so exhausted she wants to sleep well before this and it's a struggle to keep her happy, awake and occupied). Usually 2 hours but lately has been wanting to compensate and I have on a copule of occasions let her go to 2.5/3hrs but I do cap at 2hr mark.
BT: 7.30; asleep by 8.10.
NW: 10.30/11
NW: every 1/2 hour - 1 hour until say 2 or 3
NW: 4.30/5.30 etc then dozing or goes back to sleep..

Then, from 10.30/11 she wakes crying. She's usually kicks off all her blankets when she wakes at this time so if she doesn't settle within 10 minutes, I go in and tuck her back in say goodnight and then let her whinge and fuss the rest of the night unless she's upside down or really not settling... She doesn't want to get up though, she's genuinely tired versus my son who had happy NW's and I knew it was time to cut the nap...

We've recently changed bedtime to 7.30pm (asleep by 8.10 usually) but no change, in fact i think it's worse.

Could anyone suggest anything I could try or any indications on what could be going wrong? Today she fell asleep in minutes at 12.30pm and I had to wake her to go to a function at 1.15.My 4yo said he'd sleep in her room and see if that helps tonight but she's already woken at 9.20 and 10pm having fallen asleep at 8.10pm!

Thank you,
Laura.

Sometimes just getting them in bed 15 mins early helps with OT a bit x

Yes, I plan to  pick her up from daycare earlier from next week, thank you hun!

So I've posted on here a couple of times, first for help with the 2-1 nap transition and then again for advice on separation anxiety.. and I'm pleased to say we've managed to get past both stages, our son now has one solid nap a day and goes to bed beautifully, self settling really well.. hurrah!

However we still have an issue with very early morning wakening, today it was 4.50am  . I'm not sure if there is anything we can do about it, or do I just have to resign myself to going to bed at 9pm every night for the foreseeable future?!  I don't want to complain as apart from the EW he goes down for his nap really well, goes to bed easily and sleeps soundly all night.  I just wonder if he's getting enough total sleep and it would be bliss if he could just get to say, 6am! 

Currently his routine looks like this -

Wake up - between 4.50/5.15 am (wakes up screaming and gets very angry until you get him up)
Nap - approx 11am (1.5-2 hours - usually pretty tired by this time as he's awake so early)
Bedtime - 7pm (again usually quite tired but awake when I put him down and he goes to sleep himself)

He does have quite long awake periods during the day but I don't really want to go back to 2 naps as I was struggling to fit them in and he didn't have any consistency in his routine.  We've tried leaving him the morning but he will scream loudly for ages and I don't want to risk waking his brother, I've tried giving him milk but whilst that might settle him for 10 mins or so he's then awake again screaming to her out..  I've tried sitting with him and patting to try and re-settle him.. but nothing seems to work.  Today I even thought I'd try 'wake to sleep' and I went in at 4.15am and roused him slightly so he moved and went back into a deep sleep.. didn't work, he was awake again at 4.50!

He's happy and awake when we get him out of bed.. so do I just resign myself to the fact that he's had enough sleep and this is just his awake time?? Or are there any tweaks I could make to his routine to try and push him a little later in the morning?

Thanks!
Pam

Major TYPO that should have said 19.25 - 02.20 *sad face*

You mean 20:20? 1 hr then...'

Is there a big difference between transitioning from one cycle to the next at night and in the day then?!

Yes, day and night sleep are different.

I worked really hard to get her to have an almost 2hr nap this afternoon, lots of patting and resettling twice.

SO a 1:30 nap at this age is as good as a 2hr nap. Try not to get too hung up on the 2hr length of nap with a 2hr A time in the 4hr EASY - its really just to make the clock work easier I think, can't recall many babies who magically sleep 2hr instead of 1.5 when they go to 2hr A times.

This may seem an odd question given the heat there at the moment is making news here... are you cooling her room too much and she's cold in the middle of the night?

I don't have any advice to offer but just wanted to say, I've been following your thread since the beginning even though it's really hard I totally appreciate your sharing everything you're going through because it is helping me work through the similar things. I'm a FTM too and my dd is I think, a week or so younger than yours. Also spirited. Although no two babies are the same, I really to empathise with you.

Sigh maybe this is the 4mo regression. Got her down at bt at 8:30 last night - wasn't even difficult. But she woke at 9:10 and we couldn't get her down until almost midnight. Every time we bounced her to sleep she'd wake up on transfer or a few minutes later.

This was me last night almost to the minute D: I know that doesn't help you at all but I just wanted to say thank you for your sharing and of course to becj86! I'm keeping everything crossed that we'll both get through the 4mths ok.

Working on trying to observe her tired cues better so I don't miss them.

I know you said ages ago on my thread that yawning was not a reliable sleepy cue - you were right! But just thought I'd say that I think you wrote a few posts ago that dd had started a new high pitched shriek? For my dd this is a (new) sign that she's really ready for sleep. Tonight she was beyond hyper in the bath, despite only being up for 45mins, and doing that lovely shriek so we only read one book and it was still tougher than normal to get her down to sleep.