16 month old. Sttn but now having short nights.

[Jem88]

Hi, she turned 16 months 2 days ago. I was thinking it must be her nap because she's been doing so well. Her naps haven't been any earlier than 12.00pm as she's been getting up between 7-7.30am (7.00am being the earliest) for the whole month until 2 days ago.

I'm not sure what to do today as i've had to put her back to bed as she was crying, getting upset and falling asleep and it's only 8.30am! we're stopping overnight at OHs parents tomorrow night too so i'm not sure how she'll sleep and nap until monday as she goes to my mums on sundays. But i'll try moving her nap forward and putting her to bed a little earlier and see how we go. x

[Jem88]

We are currently in an awful sleep/nap situation We stopped over at OHs parents friday night and LO woke alot during the night she was restless in the travel cot from around 8.00pm - 2.30am when she came in with us and then slept til 8.00am. - She then only napped 20mins and was in bed at 7.30pm the sat night. She had a snuffly nose sat and then sunday afternoon she had the full on cold and cough - since then we've had awful nights of waking every hour and awful short naps, yesterday she had 2 naps so ended up in bed at 8.20pm (she was up at 6.00am so a long day.)

Last night she was awake every hour again but she wasn't coughing much. She was up at 6.20am and just cried and was grumpy all morning and was falling asleep on my bed at 8.45am.

I've no idea what to do now. There's no way i could of kept her awake this morning - do i just ride it out with the bad nights and days until her cough and cold has gone then try to get our routine back? xx

[Kay Dee]

Oh no! Sorry she's poorly. You may have to just ride it out until she's better

In that situation I probably would have done a 30 - 45min nap in the morning and then a longer nap later in the day to keep things kind of on track but you'll probably have to play it by ear 

Hope she feels better soon x

[Jem88]

She actually woke up after an hour and was crying and really upset so i brought her into our bed and she fell back to sleep for another 1.5hr and woke at 11.30am. I'm now hoping she'll stay awake and i can have her in bed for 6.00pm.

She woke at 5.50am yesterday and fell asleep about 10.30am for 30mins then she fell asleep again at 1.30pm but i woke her after an hour and then was in bed for 8.20pm, she woke every hour and was up for the day at 6.20am - probably due to the long day? x

[Kay Dee]

That ended up being a great nap! Hope she got caught up and was in better form in the afternoon. A long nap and an early bed sound like the best plan. How did it go?

[Jem88]

She was asleep for 5.40pm and slept until 11.50pm which was great considering she's been up every hour since sun night lol. But she then chatted and played for nearly an hour & half! she then woke every hour standing up with her blanket and dummy like she does when it's morning.. she woke every hour until 4.20am but then slept until 7.20am. I'm thinking she was then UT after the nearly 6hr stretch when she first went to bed as she had a 2.5hr nap?

She seems alot better this morning, so far she doesn't seem grumpy and tired like yesterday morning so i'm hoping to just do a 1.5hr nap today and see if she sleeps better tonight. x

[Kay Dee]

Yep, best to get back to the routine you had working once she's better to get things back to normal. Great that she eventually settled back until 7.20am. What time will you do the nap? I'm thinking a later nap may work better at this age if she's able for it, so something like 1-2.30pm. What do you think?

x

[Jem88]

Yeah i could try her with a nap at 1 til 2.30. And then maybe bedtime maybe 7.45pm? x

[Jem88]

Last night she sttn with 2 wake ups but i think the 2nd was because she was cold as i went in and she had no blankets on. But the night before we she sttn with just 1 wake up. Today i did her nap a 5.5hr as she was playing fine and wasn't grumpy, she was then asleep for 5hrs before bed.

But so far she's woke after an hour and then 20mins later, i've just been and gave her some nurofen incase it's her teeth but i'm not sure if she is teething. She's currently been "asleep" for 15mins but has made a few little moans, and she sounds really unsettled.

She woke at 7.00am, i did nap at 12.30 - 2pm and then she was asleep in bed for 7.00pm, and was asleep within 10mins. Should i have maybe put her to bed for 7.30pm? maybe she's abit UT? x

[clairebear79]

Early evening wakeups were always OT for us.  Usually unsettled, cryouts rather than full on wakings.  Jem are you waking her after 1.5hrs at her nap or is this all she's sleeping?  Is she fully recovered from her illness now?

[Jem88]

Hi yeah i'm waking her after 1.5hr. She's not 100% but she's alot better, still has a little runny nose and is sometimes still coughing but i don't think this was waking her. She woke every 30-60mins from 7.00pm - 11.30pm i then gave her some milk as she hadn't really eaten much all day (she normally stands up and points to the door if she's wanting milk which she wasn't.) She drank some milk and then slept 5hrs until 4.50am where she wanted up for the day, i had to go in again and lay her down at 5.20am, 6.20am and she then slept until 8.00am.

Abit of a random night and i've no idea what was up lol.. She's been sleeping really well with just 1 wake up for the past 2 months until a week ago when she got her cold but apart from lastnight the past 2 previous nights she slept well. x

[clairebear79]

Sounds like OT hun, esp with all the WU's before 11.30pm & the restlessness in the early morning.  Glad she actually did go back to sleep & lie in til 8am though - nice!  Perhaps log a few more days of her EASY & then post them all for us to see, if you feel things are still 'off'.  These little tinkers do like to throw us by changing their routine/sleep needs every so often!

I know with my DS when he was around that age he started waking early & I was convinced he must need his nap capping shorter than 2hrs, but with hindsight, I didn't need to do it.  All I needed to do was push his nap later.  So we went from doing 5hrs AM / 2hr nap / 5.5hrs PM to 5.5hr AM / 2hr nap / 5hr PM.  Then at around 18 months same thing happened & I started capping again but he got very OT & it turned out I hadn't needed to, all he needed was a longer morning again, so we went to 6hr AM / 2hr nap / 5hr PM.  I only had to start capping at around 20 months (just to 1h 45) & I wouldn't say he is high sleep needs, in fact he's on the lower side of average.  In fact in the last couple of weeks I've been capping his nap to 1h 15 & we're all overtired again so I'm back to the longer nap.  He is soooo much happier with it, & I think I just have to accept we're not going to get 11-12hr nights now until he's ready to manage the days without his nap.

Of course, your DD may well be low sleep needs & only need a short nap in order to sleep well at night, some LO's are like this (KayDee's DD is testament to this!), but many need that longer nap in order to sustain them through the day.  I found it out the hard way.

HTH.x

[Jem88]

Yesterday me & my mum took LO to see a mickey mouse show and it was suppost to finish at 1.00pm right when LO would of been due her nap but it didn't finish until 1.45pm and LO didn't get back to my mums until 2ish but my mum then managed to get LO to sleep around 2.15pm but she only slept an hour - prob due to being very OT.

I then put LO to bed for 8.30pm she fell asleep within 5mins - woke at 9.00pm but then slept a full 10.5hrs and woke for the day at 7.30am

[Kay Dee]

Good night!! She does seem to do better with shorter naps but then has those OT evening WUs. It can be tough to balance low sleep needs with OT. I wonder are you better off starting a new thread with your current issues as this one's getting pretty long. You may get more eyes that way.

x

[Jem88]

I was thinking of doing a new thread I put her down at 5.5hr A before nap today as she did a long stretch of sleep lastnight. Will see how the next few nights go and if we still have problems i'll make a new thread. xx