Advice please: 31 mo sleep gone horribly wrong

[draxela]

Hi ladies

Hoping someone can help me out... I always get incredibly excellent and helpful advice here!

DD1 is 31 months and recently her sleep has turned into a nightmare of a battle. She's definitely doing the terrible twos thing, but she has always been an amazing sleeper. Her EASY was textbook but then around a month ago (at 2.5) she suddenly started fighting her nap and fighting BT.

With the nap I managed to convince her that she didn't have to sleep, she just had to have some 'quiet time' and read to her babies. She would invariably fall asleep after about 20 mins, but this pushed her nap back to 1/1.30 pm so she was getting up later.

At the same time, she suddenly started to fight BT (taking 2-3 hours to go to sleep) AND waking at 5 and coming in to our room.

We fell into some pretty typical AP with the 5 am wake up, letting her come into our bed because we were too exhausted to do anything else (we also have a 15 mo refluxer, so sleep is at a premium). Also, my DH convinced me that with bedtime we should just hold the door handle so she couldn't open the door and she would eventually give up and go to sleep. We never let her cry it out at all and if she did cry we would go and lie down next to her (she sleeps on a floor bed, Montessori-style).

The holding the door thing always felt wrong to me, so next I convinced DH to try the Supernanny trick of calmly taking her back to her bed every time she exits her room. It's been three nights so far and she has exited the room roughly 30 times each night.

With the EW we just bought a Gro Clock today (based on recommendations in this forum).

I'm just wondering, do you think it might be time to cut the nap? I really feel like she's still too young. We definitely have some kind of OT cycle happening. I'm not really sure what to do.

Here's her typical EAS:

W/u: 5/5.30
E: 6.30/7 (breakfast)
E: 9.30 (morning tea)
E: 11.30 (lunch)
Nap: 12.30 (at day care) or 1.30 (at home, after a mega battle)
W/u: 1.30 (at day care) or 3.30/4 (at home, grumpy)
E: 2.30 (arvo tea at day care) or 3.30/4 (small snack at home)
E: 5.30/6 (dinner)
Bath, books
BT:7/7.30 (but not asleep til 8.30/9)

So I'm hoping the Gro Clock will help with the EW but she's a spirited little thing so she may just ignore the sleepy little blue star and do her own thing. I'm also hoping the Supernanny thing will help with the long BT battles.

Any eyes/experience/advice/comments gratefully received.

Alex

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I don't think you necessarily need to drop the nap, but for sure start capping it to see if that helps. On daycare days with a shorter nap does she settle for bed better?

[draxela]

No, she's worse on day care days

The Gro Clock was a fail this morning. We set it for 6.15. She came into our room at 5.30.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I wonder if she is a bit ot/os on daycare days with a shorter nap and more going on and then tries to make up for it with a longer nap and gets ut?

[draxela]

Yes, I think that's entirely possible. So you're suggesting that the issue is an OT-UT cycle? Would capping the nap on at home days help with that? It's impossible to have an early BT on day care days because of the logistics of getting everyone home, fed and bathed...

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Yeah, I wonder if a consistent nap might help? I could totally be barking up the wrong tree but otherwise it is the only thing that jumps out.

[draxela]

Hi ladies

Just popping back in to say that three things worked:

1. Going ct and dropping the nap completely
2. Using a Gro-clock
3. Using the Supernanny technique of gently returning her to bed.

Took us a week but we're back on track. She still naps for an hour at day care but it is not affecting BT at all.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Great update, glad you found a solution!