suddenly refuse to nap

[Lica]

hi, I have followed Tracy's method since DD was very little.
She has been a very good and independent napper and sleeper until recently.

When it's naptime, she always refuses to nap. she cries and screams for over 1 hour.
With me in her room, she is calm but doesn't fall asleep. The moment I walk out, she would get up crying.
I tried WI/WO, I tried not to rush in when she cried. She just wouldn't nap until she is very tired from crying.

Bedtime is still easy for us even though sometimes she would fuss a bit.

What can I do to solve this problem?

DD is 19 months old
She started this very confusing situation when daylight saving time ended a couple weeks ago.
Her bedtime remains the same but she sometimes wakes up an hour early
She used to sleep 12 hours at night, and 1.5 hour nap.
now she is sleeping 11 hours at night, but refuses to nap or only naps 1 hour.

her day is like this

7-8am wake up (inconsistent wake up time, but I can't get her back to sleep)

1pm-2pm naptime (but refuses to nap or delay till 230pm)

8pm bedtime

any input is highly appreciated

Lica

[Aly Mac]

HI there, I'm going to pop this over to the toddler sleep board, so you get some more age appropriate advice.

 

[Layla]

Lica, toddlers can go through a non-napping phase unfortunately...

She might not need as much sleep as she used to overall & 11hrs at night with a 1.5hr nap is fairly common (i know she's not doing a long nap for you at the moment though). I think the best thing to do is just keep trying for a nap at about the same time & at least she's having some quiet time if not napping. I would probably try a slighly earlier nap time though cause it could be that she is overtired by naptime... if she's up from 7-1am. Maybe try something like 12.30pm & you could even try a longer windown to help her relax. If she's not napped by say 2pm then rather than letting her sleep as late as 2.30pm I would probably not let her nap at all & do an earlier bedtime (beditme around 7pm rather than the usual 8pm).

Is she teeting at all? With us when we dealt with time change I usually push their nap & bedtime slowly (20mins every couple of days) rather than the full hour as I think it would otherwise get them into a cycle of overtiredness. Our bodies are used to falling asleep at about the same time every day so a gradual approach helped us in the past. So this is where bringing back her nap time might help as well.

hth a little
Layla

[Lica]

hi, Layla

thanks for the input.

I think I jinxed myself saying DD was easy to put down for bedtime.
Now she cries during naptime and bedtime.

HELP..
She wants me to stay with her in her room (she slept independently since 1 month old),but she doesn't doze off.
Could it be SA at such a not-so-young age?

Do I need to build trust again by using the gradual methods in BW?

what I do now is I move the bedtime to 730pm, and have a longer wind down routine. I put her in her crib, and I say good night, but I stand by the door for 5 minutes and leave. This is when she starts to cry. Since she is 19 months old now, she understands quite a lot. I think she is trying to manipulate me, so I let her cry and I count to 10. If she stops for 2 seconds and cry, I count to 10 again. If the cry is longer than 10, I tell her to sleep from outside the door. And then next I count to 20. I increase the time at each round until she falls asleep. Am I doing it right?

I am so confused why her sleep pattern suddenly changes..

Lica

[deb]

Might be teeth, might be a developmental leap, might be a latent ear infection, might be getting close to being 2 years old.

You may want to try giving some pain meds about 20 minutes before naptime and bedtime and see if it makes a difference. If so, you have a hint. It might be teeth, but might also be ear pain, so good idea to get checked out if this does make a difference.

I found and still find that my girls go thru sleep heck (and so do we! LOL) when they go through developmental leaps. Sleep goes to bits for maybe 4-7 days and then BOOM, a new skill emerges or a new bit of personality peeks through and things work back to normal.

One other thing it might possibly be: Josie gave up naps just past her 2nd birthday, but Natalie didn't wait that long; she was mostly done with them, barring an early wakeup in the morning or illness, around 18 months. You may be approaching that point as well. No guarantees, and one they get there they sometimes go back to napping again for a while, but it IS a possibility.

Keep us posted.