26 month old sleep

[Ziplar]

Basically, since my lo turned 2 his sleep has been all over the place. Some nights he sleeps brilliantly, other nights he'll wake up once but go back off once I've settled him, and we've had a few nights where he has woken at 1am and won't go back off all night!!!
He's not ill, teething, hungry, thirsty, too hot, too cold. He's still in his cot, and isn't distressed when he wakes. He just calls for mummy and daddy.
I just do not know what is causing this. He's always been quite a good sleeper and even when he was newborn we got more sleep!!
Any advice/ ideas are appreciated!

Thank you!

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, could you post your average day in EAS format so I can see if any tweaking needed. Does your LO still take a nap? Wakings in the night in the early hours of the morning are usually UT for us. How is your LO when you put him down for sleep either at a nap or at bedtime (BT).

Has anything changed in your lives recently? E.g. Change in childcare arrangements or something else that impact upon routine.

Have you read the Bw books?

Sorry for all the questions, I hope you will come back and then hopefully I and the wonderful members of this forum will be able to help you. Welcome

[Ziplar]

Hello, a typical day is as follows:

7am milk
9am breakfast
9.30 activity- shopping, playtime, helping mummy with chores
11.00am ish- nap. He asks to go to bed. We try to keep
Him up as long as possible but can be asking to go to sleep from 10am onwards
He will sleep for anything from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours.
1.00pm lunch
2.00pm normally spend afternoon at playground, in garden or with friends
3.30pm snack followed by more activity
6.00pm tea time
7.00pm bath and bed by 7.30

The distrupted sleep has been going on since the end of may. Normally we could put him in his cot and he would go straight to sleep for both nap and bedtime. Some nights he will take 8 attempts to settle him to sleep then he will wake many times in the night. Last night he was awake from 20pm until 11.30. He is obviously shattered but has only napped for 50 minutes today.

When these problems started we had just got back from
Holiday but surely that still can't be the problem now? He is a tall boy and I wonder if I need to
Put him in a bed rather than his cot?

My partner works away a lot and I wonder if he is having some seperation anxiety? He had also just started going to a childminder (who he has known all his life) in the past 2 weeks so cannot imagine that is a cause.

Please help me, I'm at my wits end!!!

[HenaV]

Hi there,

First of all big big hugs. It's just the puts isnt it when LO who usually sleep so well go off kilter. IME there's a couple of things that could be causing your disrupted nights. It could be developmental. I know my DDs was hugely dispruted from 23m on for a fair while due to what seemed to be language development, any sign of that?

Also, on a practical note, you may want to push out the nap. 11am with a 7am WU seems a tad early at your LOs age. It maybe your stuck in an UT/OT loop - your LO has a very short morning with a very long afternoon. It may be worth trying to push the morning out. If you don't think your LO can handle a big jump, then try just 15m increments over a few days. I would suggest you aim for at least 12.30 nap time and see how that pans out. What do you think?

Also, just a last thought. Any teething going on? 2y molars here cause havoc?

Hena

[Ziplar]

Thank you do much for your reply.
His speech is excellent but my oh does say that when he gets back from his work trips his speech is even better.

I probably didn't make myself very clear with his routine. He normally wakes around 6ish but we manage to get him to doze for 30-45 mins, then he comes in with us for a cuddle before milk time.

It could be teeth, we are just waiting for the back 4 molars to come through. I've had a look and tried to feel for them but can't see it feel anything.
 With regards to his nap, he always used to go to sleep at around 11.46, but has been asking to go to bed earlier and earlier since his sleeping has been bad. Ill definitely try to delay nap for a while to try and get him to sleep longer in the day.

Do you think it would be worth bringing bedtime forward?

[Buttonbobs]

Just came on and was going to say the same as henaV 

It may be that because he is Ot he wants his nap earlier but that this is leading to more Ot in the long run. I def agree that it might help to keep him from napping too early. I don't think you should be Bt earlier at this point, if you put the nap later then the A time between nap and BT will shorten naturally.

You could also try giving meds before nap and BT to see if this makes a difference.

[Ziplar]

We did try meds before bed a few weeks ago but made no difference but willing to try again to see.

Thank you so much for replies. Will definitely try your suggestions.