PLEASE HELP! Hayden's sleep is a mess!

[marensmama]

Going back to ancient history to give you more information about this... We took Hayden's nap away after limiting it to 60 minutes, then 45 minutes last December because she was starting to have NWs of 2 hours in the middle of the night.  She started sleeping a solid 12 hr night and then 13 or 13.5 hours on the weekends (bliss!) and making it through the day without much tiredness.  This lasted for a month or two, then February hit and she ended up having three months of poor health due to terribly flaring acid reflux and undiagnosed seasonal allergies.  Her sleep was horribly erratic during this time and she was miserable due to the poor night sleep thanks to the reflux and chronic coughing/gagging she was going through.  Finally by the end of May she was feeling much better thanks to some new meds.  I spoke with our paed about her sleeping issues (ie tired ALL the time, waking at night etc.) and he reassured me that time would work it out and that sleep was always the last thing to fall back into place.

Our issue now is that she seems to need a nap but yet can't tolerate one.  She's exhausted, always.  (Read: crabby)  She falls asleep in the car if we're on a more than 5 minute ride anytime after 10 am, falls asleep the minute she sits down at daycare for circle time.  She wakes sometime between 4:30 and 5:30 every night, although most days she'll go back to sleep (I typically can't).  She will often wake up at one other time during the night.  If I give her a nap (minimum 30 mins, max 45 mins) she wakes earlier and is up for the day.  If I don't give her a nap, she's MISERABLE during dinner, falls asleep on the 5 min car ride from daycare and is too tired to eat.  Often she'll just go put herself to bed during dinner.  Which doesn't work for me, because then she'll wake at 5 am at the latest.

I'm exhausted, she's exhausted.  She's touchy/spirited, and when she's happy she's full of joy and love and so much fun to be around.  When she's OT like this, she is easily frustrated.  She hits, baits kids at daycare (and me too!), doesn't eat well, and is generally unpleasant to be around.  When I'm OT like this, I'm easily frustrated, prone to losing patience and generally unpleasant to be around. 

When we do give a nap things aren't really any better in terms of her sleep.  It's like we're robbing Peter to pay Paul.  And bedtime refusal with her drives me and DH round the bend.  But she's so tired and she loves her sleep and seems to need it.  What do I do?

[sianie]

{{Hugs}}, sounds like a tough situation!

Having just gone through nap dropping with my DD I can totally sympathise at how hard it is! My DD is now so used to not napping that on days when she wakes early & needs a nap to get through the day, she just can't switch off & go to sleep. Car rides are the only way to get her to sleep now.

What does your routine look like? Are you doing really early BT's to help with OT?

Is she totally refusing to nap? What have you tried?

[Roseii]

Brb xxx

[marensmama]

No, she doesn't refuse a nap, in fact quite the opposite, she begs for a nap or will sneak off in the middle of play and put herself down for a nap.  But in December, she started having long NWs where she'd wander the house and try to go outside or get into much mischief.  Once we took away the little nap that she had, she did great with 12 hr nights from 6:30 to 6:30 and then a sleep in on the weekends.

Without a nap, she'll sleep 12 hrs, but usually 5pm to 5 am and she's miserable.  Bedtime here is usually 6:30 for her and she used to sleep until 6:30 am but we've lost that routine from this OT mess.  I don't get home from work until 5:00, so by the time we do dinner and bath, it can't be any earlier than 6:30.  If she naps a bit she won't refuse bed because she's still so tired, but she is EWing all the time.

[Roseii]

Sorry can't stop for long, just wondering how you feel about later bedtimes? Only DD1 does quite well if we let her have a nap then do a later bt...eg
A 7am
S 12.30-2
S 8.30pm

This isn't the case every day by any means as she won't nap at nursery or my MIL's

[sianie]

Have you tried doing a short CN (around 30 mins) which is long enough to restore her energy a little but not long enough to get BT resistance?

Would alternating nap & no nap days be an option? These worked well for DD for a while before she dropped the nap completely.

[marensmama]

So today I decided that maybe she's just OT and maybe I need to try minimal daily naps until she refuses bedtime and then scale back on the napping.  I was thinking that Tracy's philosophy was that night sleep is affected by day sleep so maybe once we got her less OT during the day, she'd do better at night.  Today is day one of that, I'm trying not to get discouraged.  It looked like this:
5:30 wake
1ish-1:45ish nap (I dont' have control over the time of day this nap happens when she is at daycare 4 days a week)
7:00 bedtime (but she didn't actually fall asleep until almost 8:00)
Doesn't look like it worked today as she did resist bedtime.  However, her demeanour was much more pleasant and we didn't have what my friend calls the '5 o'clock sh!t show' that we've had on most days.  Let's hope she has a good sleep and sleeps until 6:00 at least.

As far as the later bedtime goes, I'm not in love with the idea because Maren needs her sleep too and she gets pretty upset if her little sis gets to stay up later than she does.  Also, when we originally dropped Hayden's nap, we did it as a last resort after trying CNs and later BTs, but she was having these ridiculous and IMO unsafe NWs (trying to go outside while we were sleeping in the dead of winter), and nothing made a difference but cutting the nap entirely.  Then it was bliss and now it's all gone. 

[sianie]

For us the later BT didn't work either. I personally think that a longer night & shorter nap is the way to go through this transition as night sleep is so much more restorative.

I would try (if possible & I know it's hard when LO's are at daycare) to stick to your plan for a few days to see if things start to even out.

[marensmama]

Up at 5:00 today, so later to fall asleep and up earlier.  *sigh*  I'll keep trying.

[sianie]

Stick to it for a few more days as it can take some time for LO's to adjust...FX & keep us posted! 

[marensmama]

So last night she went to bed easily at 7:00. Had nws at 10 and 1 but not up for the day until 6:30. Different but not necessarily better yet. Will persevere.

[marensmama]

Yesterday she had a car nap because we were out at a birthday party at noon.  So she had 20 minutes around 3pm, less than ideal.  She went to bed easily at 7:00, woke once at 9:00, then not again until 6:30.  This morning, she was put in her room for time out (not playing nicely with sister ) and when I went to see to her (literally a 3 minute time-out) she was asleep in her bed.  This was at 9:30. 

I'm starting to get worried that we dropped the nap successfully but now she needs so much sleep?  I don't understand it.  Her reflux is better, her breathing is better...    I guess that's a question for the paed, but we don't see him until September. 

[sianie]

It definitely takes a long time for LO's to adjust to dropping the nap, 12hr days are very long (for everyone!) & I do believe it can take months for them to fully adjust....

I think with this transition it's a case of trying to ride it out the best way you can!

[marensmama]

Last night she went to bed easily at 7:00, didn't have any NWs and was woken up by us at 6:30 am to get ready for work/daycare.  Pretty good, right?  Daycare gives her a 45 min nap as per new normal which seems to be working and she ends up resisting bed for a little over an hour tonight.  Arrggghhh!  I'm so frustrated.  It seems that her sleep is never the same, and I really can't keep up.  She looked tired tonight, had purple bags under her eyes and everything.  And I don't understand why this is happening, again, when we successfully dropped the nap for over 6 weeks before her reflux flared up in February. 

I guess my plan will be to keep napping her unless BT resistance happens for a few nights in a row.  Have I mentioned how much I hate BT resistance?? 

[KathrynK]

Hey Nicole
I think Hayden is the same age as my Alex? (his birthday is 18 Sept)

He is textbook but has always been a tricky combination of low sleep needs + loves to nap, which means we have always had to be careful with the amount of day sleep he has in order to prevent 2hr NWs and/ or stupidly EWs.

We 'officially' dropped his nap a few months ago, so he hasn't had a nap in his bed for ages. Since then he sleeps roughly 7pm till 6.30 am every day. But even now, if he is in his buggy or in the car for longer then 15mins any time between 9.30am and 4pm, he WILL nod off, guaranteed. Honestly, he just loves to nap (like his grandad, he can fall asleep anywhere- on 2 memorable occasions in the supermarket trolley, lol)

I laughed at Hayden taking herself for a nap at 9.30am, as that's just what he would do. At nursery 3 days per week I asked them to stop his nap. They have a handful of kids that don't nap so they take them into another room for some quiet time while the others are sleeping. At first he was tired but has always been good at catching up at night and copes well with OT. Last week he was shattered so I said if they thought he was struggling he could have a nap, but not more than 45 mins. Well guess what? Total bt refusal until 9pm, then up for the day at 5.30am. Sigh.

He can and does cope well day to day with no nap. He will probably fall asleep in the day once or perhaps twice in a week, usually at the weekend when we are out and about. When it does happen, I let him have about 30mins, and that is enough to revive him, whilst not causing bedtime drama.

It definitely got easier once I stopped him sleeping in his bed. They say that sleeping on the go is less restful and restorative, and certainly if he naps in his bed he is impossible to wake, and a total bear for the rest of the day, I guess he just goes into too deep a sleep. But a nap on the go is much much easier all round. Is that something you can try? Doing no naps at home but then letting her cat nap when you are out on non- daycare days?

Hugs, I know it is hard xxxxx