European Travel + 18-month-old = new nap/sleep issues! Help!

[alicialars]

Hi all,

Last month, our family traveled from our home in Arizona to Norway for two weeks' holiday. Unfortunately, our DD was the ONLY kiddo in the group, and her nap times got absolutely thrown to the wind. Even when we were at a cabin and supposedly "in one place," other family members (read: FIL) were unsympathetic to her nap and sleep needs. How do you stand up to your father-in-law? Another story... Aaaaaaanyway.

Before the trip, our day looked like this:
~7 awake
8 breakfast
8:30-10 play time
10:30ish snack
11:30 lunch
Noon stories and quiet time
12:30-3 (or even sometimes 4) nap
6 dinner
6:30-7:30 play and walk around neighborhood
7:30 bath
8 bed (usually settled to sleep within 15-20 min)

Within 4 days of our arrival back in the states, when I would go to put Sadie down for her nap, she would just scream bloody murder. Just... horrible. Climbing out of the crib, sobbing, shaking. Horrible. So, I started to rock her to sleep. I *had* to do it in order for her to settle. In the two weeks since then, she has settled for a nap on her own once. Also, her naps are now anywhere from 45-90 minutes, instead of the 2.5-3.5 hours they were a month ago. The naptime issues are starting to creep into nighttime, too. Tonight I put her down in her crib after a few minutes of singing and she started this plaintive, "mommy, mommy, mommy..." She did settle to sleep in about 20 minutes, but she whimpered longer than I like to hear.

So, my question is this: do most kiddos go through spurts of sleep issues around 19 months, or did her passing out in the stroller or backpack for 2 weeks while we were on holiday cause this? We've had months and months of perfect, ideal sleep at both nap and bed time so I guess this is karma catching up with us.

Any tips would be appreciated...
Thanks gals!

[Layla]

I would say its the holiday thats thrown her schedule off. So now that you are back at home, I would start sleep training & do some wi/wo to help her get back on track. You'll need to stop the rocking & do wi/wo for naps as well as bedtime & all the night wakings. It probably won't take her long to catch on, especially if she was a good sleeper before all this

Here's a link from FAQ's section.

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63896.0

If she wakes earlier from her nap & you can't extend it with wi/wo then do an earlier bedtime to let her make up for the lost sleep.

Good luck & let me know how it all goes
Layla

[alicialars]

She isn't waking at night, just won't go down for a nap on her own and is now having some trouble going to sleep at night on her own (a carry-over from the nap thing, I'm sure). I do think she has some separation anxiety right now too; we just started two mornings a week with a sitter and suddenly daddy isn't the amazing presence he once was.

So for wi/wo, just to be sure I have it right, I wait a few minutes, then go in and soothe her until she calms down and stops crying, then leave the room, and go in at increasing intervals until she goes to sleep? I will read up. Thanks.

[Layla]

With wi/wo you leave & count to 5 or 10 or 15 & then go in to reassure her & leave again to start your count. Don't increase the count in intervals... stay with the same count as you start with. If she's not crying at the end of the count then you don't go back. If she starts crying again you start counting again & go in at the end of the count

If she's going through SA, you can still do wi/wo but depending on how bad SA is, you might want to try GW instead

hth