2yo overtired

[Emma1]

Hello!
My 2 year old dd has becoming a very poor sleeper over the past couple of months.  She's been BW'd since birth (lucky girl!), and until this recent poor sleeping was an angel baby.

The past two months she rarely naps (previously she was sleeping for an hour), and is having lots of trouble settling to sleep at night and is often up, fully awake for two hours plus in the middle of the night - eekk!!  I'm sure she is overtired, but I'm not sure how to break this cycle.

Her schedule is as follows, except the nap is now spent with her singing/counting in her cot instead of napping!

6.15am awake, 7oz milk
7.30am breakfast
11am lunch
11.30am - 12.30pm nap
4pm -dinner
6pm 6oz milk
6.30pm bed

I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts!
Emma

[Layla]

Emma, you might want to try a nap at 12pm instead as she may not be tired enough at nap time. What time do you put her down for the night if she's not napped? Is she teething at all?

[Emma1]

She's due her back four molars... it could be down to teething.. but 2 months of no naps from teething..??

If she's not napped, then still put her to bed at the same time. Would you put her to bed much earlier?

I'll have a go at 12pm nap tomorrow and let you know how she gets on.

Thanks for your help! Really appreciate it!

[Layla]

2 months does seem like a long time without naps. Try taking her out in the morning & lots of stimulation to tire her out & then just before nap spend about 20mins winding her down (read books, sing songs etc....)

How does she normally fall asleep? Do you rock her at all?

With us if there is no nap I put them down earlier .... like 6pm

[dkjokisch]

When dd doesn't nap or takes a shorter than usual nap, we put her down half as early as the sleep she missed.  She normally naps about 2hrs, so if she doesn't nap at all, we put her down about an hour early.