Hi there, I need some help!!!
My son just turned one this week. This mess all started from the daylight saving change, he started to wake up at 5:30am (used to be 6:30/7am), it does go back on track after a week and he started to sleep from 8pm - 7:30pm. Then his morning nap also started to stretch from 1.5 hours to 2 hours and occasionally skipping the afternoon nap. If I limited his morning nap to 1.5 hours, then he will be tired enough and want to sleep. A week later, he started to skip afternoon nap more often and would fight for 45 minutes and not going to sleep (he would sleep without too much struggle if I let him sleep in car. I parked in the garage and he can sleep in his car for over an hour). Bedtime was still pretty normal, the nap doesn't seem to affect the night sleep and he started to sleep 30 minutes longer.
Things went extreme since Sunday when he had his first birthday party. He refused to take his morning nap (fought from 10am til 11:15am, then finally I have my husband gave him a ride to sleep in car for 50 minutes). He was half asleep during the beginning of his afternoon nap, but cried awake when I tried to leave the room. After three unsuccessful attempts, he was just wide awake and so we let him play til bedtime. This time the bedtime didn't went smooth. Took almost an hour to settle and fell asleep. He also had multiple wakings that night and again, cried and got up and searched for me whenever I tried to leave the room. I tried everything, pu/pd, rocked, nursed, nothing works. I ended up lying on the floor beside his crib and pd him whenever he tried to get up, for more than 10 times until both of us fell asleep. This whole process last from 1:30 til 4am.
An hour long bedtime battle and multiple wakings(couple hours long comforting) begins since then. He is pretty much cried to sleep every night. Morning nap seems to be a little bit back on track when he will fell asleep in his crib in 20 minutes (with crying, of course), but afternoon naps are still a miss or hit. We believe this is all probably cause by separation anxiety and 2-1 nap transition. He is very attached to me during the day and would not let others beside my husband and I hold him.
We had a well established nap time and bedtime routine. He wasn't a great sleeper so we had these routine for since he was 3~4 months old. White noise, humidifier, lovey, room darkening blinds, we had all that.
This is his normal schedule:
7:30 Wake up, nurse
8:30 Breakfast
10:00 Nurse, morning nap
12:00 Wake up, nurse
1:30 Lunch
3:30 Nurse, afternoon nap
4:30 Wake up, nurse
5:45 Dinner
6:45 Bedtime routine, quiet time
7:00 Bath
7:20 Story, nurse
7:30 Bedtime
This is his schedule today:
8:00 Wake up, nurse
9:00 Breakfast
10:30 Nap time routine (quiet time, wash hands, story, nurse)
11:00 Asleep for morning nap (around 15 minutes to settle)
12:45 Woke up, nurse (half asleep while nursing)
2:00 Lunch
3:15 Nap time routine (same as above. He was fussing around 3:10, so we tried to put him to sleep)
4:25 Finally fell asleep
5:15 Woke up, nurse (Usually I won't let him sleep pass 4:30pm, but he was not sleeping well at night, so I just let him sleep)
6:00 Dinner
8:00 Bedtime
8:40 Cried til then and fell asleep
