I have a wonderful dd who is twenty months old. She is an angel/textbook baby and has never had much in the way of sleep issues. She slept through the night at 12 weeks and we've only ever had trouble with naps when transitioning from 3 to 2 and 3 to 1. Her day used to look like this:
6:45 wake-up
7:00 breakfast
10:00 snack
12:00 lunch
1:00 nap
2:30 or 3:00 wake-up
3:00 snack
5:00 dinner
bedtime 6:30 or 7:00
sigh, life was so good...
BTW, DD is in daycare 4 days a week in a quiet, loving environment with 2 other 2yo girls. We have a bedtime ritual of three songs, kisses from mommy and daddy, and she went to sleep at night and for naps without any trouble.
now, as of 2 weeks ago, our days look like this:
4:45-5:30 wake up
not encouraged with any activity or extra attention, just into bed with mom and dad, which she normally hates.
7:00 breakfast
10:00 snack
12:00 lunch
1:00 nap or try to, she is suddenly screaming when I try to put her down, if I leave her to cry - which I've never done for more than a few minutes she just escalates until I have to get her because it sounds as though she's truly upset. She screams, "Mommy, Where are you!?" and "Open the door, open the door Mommy!" During those times, I pick her up and take her to the couch where she immediately falls asleep on my shoulder. Some days she'll go down easily, but will wake up after 45 minutes upset and then continues her nap as soon as I pick her up and take her to the couch. She's slept on me for over an hour each time she's done this. Again, if I leave her to cry a few minutes to see if she'll settle herself, she just escalates.
3:00 snack
5:00 dinner
6:30-7:00 bedtime - goes down fine, but talks some nights for 20 minutes (not upset, thank goodness!)
She has cut 2 of her 4 eye teeth, and I know that's been giving her grief because her nose runs constantly when she's teething. I give her ibuprofen when I think it's appropriate. We also started potty training yesterday (just really introductory, relaxed stuff, I'm not into pressuring her to perform. The potty has been there for a couple months and she decided on her own to give it a go.) She's gone in the potty three times and is awfully proud of herself (I know milestones can be sleep disruptors too).
Needless to say, from a selfish perspective, I need more sleep than the 5 am wake-up allows. I am almost 7 wks pregnant with darling number two, and I could really use the sleep. My biggest concern though is that she's got herself into an overtired cycle that she can't break out of because there's so much going on and by coping with it the way I have, I'm enforcing these bad habits. Or is it that she is in so much pain from her darn teeth that she can't sleep well or be alone, and she'll snap out of it as soon as those teeth come through (then come the 2 year molars
).
She is such a routine child that when she is not behaving in her usual way there's a reason for it. I'm paranoid about making mistakes that will cause those new behaviors to become bad habits, especially when she's such a good girl.
Any advice at all would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance!
