I'm sorry, it's me again, but am still at a loss

[Hester]

I know, I've posted before, but I still have NO IDEA what to do. I see that a lot of LO's go through this around 15-17 months or so, which is somewhat of a comfort, but honestly, I'm ashamed to say, I can't handle this very well...
Let me summarize:
DD is 15 months old, got very sick 4 weeks ago, nursed him through that and he seemed to be doing fine after that (got back on track fairly easy). Then a week later started to walk and talk. (a LOT of words). Then refused morning nap and went to only 1 nap in the afternoon. (which I think might be the culprit, OT?) So a lot of developmental things happened in just a couple of weeks. Since 3 weeks he's not going to sleep at night. As soon as I walk into the bedroom he starts whining and when I put him to bed he first "asks" with his hands up if he can come out. I tell him no it's bed time, and he starts screaming. Sometimes he does fall asleep after 10 min of crying, only to awaken 45 min later and scream again. Bedtimes have no been around 9 - 10 pm. Therefore I have put him back on 2 naps, hoping it would limit the OT and it would go better, to no avail. I thought of SA and treated it like that, but he's fine during nap time...just at night. I've thought it was a too short wind down routine, have tried changing that, nope doesn't work. I don't know what to do and by the end of the day (hubby is at work at nights, so it's me with 2 DD's under 3) I am reduced to the same age as my youngest and want to scream as well...
I've reread Tracy's book (the "solves all your problems one") and did the 12 questions and action steps, but I can't figure it out. I've read TONS of post here and tried most of them.

ANY tips would be great...because now I'm falling into the trap of trying too much at once and making things even more confusing for DD. (And myself) Where do I start? I am completely at a loss here...
DD used to be a textbook baby, but now I'm not sure. IF and when he falls asleep (if he sleeps past the 45 min mark) he does sleep till 7.30 or sometimes 8.

Thanks for reading my post again, I have a lot of people here giving me "advice" but it's all not BW advice. And I absolutely LOVE Tracy's approach and I don't want to do something else. (Besides, till now, BW worked like a charm with both boys)

So I need advice from other BW expert moms...

Hester

[andibig]

Hester
Is it possible to have a look at his routine? sounds like it may just need a bit of tweaking.

A lot of it could be developmental too as walking is a big milestone for them and disrupts sleep big time.

[Hester]

Our general routine is as follows (since about 5 days):

7.30 wake and get dressed right away (otherwise he leaks through his diaper)
8.00 Bottle with Milk
8.30 Breakfast
10.00 Nap (no special treatment here, just say goodnight to stuffed animals, pooh stickers on the wall and sing one last song (always the same))
11.00 Awake and juice + little snack
12.15 Lunch
14.00/14.30 Nap (put sleeping bag on, read book while drinking bottle of milk, walk to bedroom, say goodnight to stuffed animals, pooh stickers on the wall and sing one last song (always the same)
3.30/4.00 Awake and juice + snack
5.15 Dinner
6.00 Bath
6.15 Massage, PJ then read books, play while I clean kitchen
6.45 Bottle with milk, read book, sing song
7.00 Brush teeth walk towards bedroom of older sibling, say goodnight to him and walk to his own bedroom, (now the crying begins) say goodnight to stuffed animals, pooh stickers on the wall and sing one last song (always the same)
7.15 bed, (crying)

Obviously bath and everything after that happens with two boys, since I'm on my own, I've also tried sitting with just him after older brother went to bed, some extra attention, didn't work either...

Thanks for listening

Hester

[Katet]

I'm thinking at 15months old you are kind of stuck in the 1nap = overtired, 2 naps = not ready for bed at 7.15pm & so either way he gets upset & it has become a "habit"
Developmentally he has a lot going on & if you are "stressing" about it, then that adds to his confusion esp if you change the methods you use too often

Personally going to bed at 7.15 & waking at 7.30 the night time is pretty long esp with 2.5hours of naps. But at first when they go to 1 nap it seems to be they only have a short one... I remember having to put my ds to bed at 6pm (normal 7.30) many a time due to short day naps.

Depending on what works for you with your elder ds I'd look  at a couple of options.

Shorten the Am nap to 20mins & bring the 2nd nap an hour earlier & work towards 1 nap in  the next few weeks 1nap would need to be around noon with him waking at about 7.30am & then bed would need to be early too esp with a potentially shorter nap

Keep day naps the same but delay his bedtime so he has about 4+ hours A time, but keep the last hour calm.

My ds used to ask "out" at about the same age & I got into a kind of Pu/pd sort of routine, I'd pick him up & say 'oh you need an extra cuddle' then walk around for 10 seconds patting his shoulder & then (unless he was upset & I'd do it longer) I'd put him in his cot... worked really well, somedays he only asked once others 5-6 but rarely did it keep going

[Hester]

Ok, so I will try the 2-1 nap strategy for a while and see if it helps, in the meantime though, what do I do with the screaming at night? pu/pd with my 29 pounder is not the easiest.

Hester

[Katet]

You can't make a child sleep, but you can help them relax & so set the scene for sleep so a screaming child needs comforting & if you are all stressed & ready to have a tantrum that doesn't exactly help the cause of a calm environment... so what I used to do was 3 big long deep breaths, then "I can see you are upset, lets have a cuddle" & then work from there, with lots of big deep breaths to keep me calm... infact I do it naturally now because my 4yo has commented on it.

I know what you mean about big babies... I used to let mine stand up beside the cot & cuddle him that way & when I felt his body relax, I'd lay him down... I've always felt more comfortable using the feelings my children gave than a time frame, so sometimes we'd cuddle for 5mins others 10 seconds.