17 mo taking > 1hr to fall asleep at nap time

[carla_s]

Hello,

For the past few weeks, our 17mo DD has started taking longer and longer to fall asleep for her naps. Some days, she takes over an hour to fall asleep. She talks, sings and natters about during this time, and may only whine once or twice (very rare) a few seconds prior to actually falling asleep. She never cries, nor calls for me during this time. She will then often sleep for her usual 1.5 hours, sometimes 2 hours if she hasn't taken too long to fall asleep.

I'm just wondering if this is an indication of something wonky with her schedule, or just that she needs this quiet alone time. Or, heaven forbid, that she's starting to not need her nap!! I hope not, as I'm not ready for that yet Since she seems to still sleep up to 2 hours for her nap some days, I don't think she's close to dropping it yet, but I don't know.

To get ready for her nap, I change her, we'll sing some quiet lullaby songs, and I'll put her in her crib. She'll usually sit up, smile at me, wave goodbye and I leave. Then she'll start talking or singing to her teddy bear, move around quite a bit, and will eventually toss everything (her 2 sleep teddies and a blanket) out of her crib before settling down to sleep. Since she went to her single nap around 10 months of age, this has been our nap time routine and she hasn't needed any more wind down than that.

Her daily schedule is like this:

7:00am - wake up; usually likes some homo milk upon waking
8:00am - breakfast and homo milk in a sippy cup
9:30am - snack sometimes (if she eats breakfast later, she'll not usually have a snack)
11:30 or 12:00 - lunch and milk
12:30 - nap time (usually falling asleep between 1 and 1:30, sometimes later)
3:00 or 3:30 - wake up (this varies with the time it takes her to fall asleep)
3:30 - snack
5:00 - dinner and milk
~6:30 - bath & pjs
7:00 - milk and sometimes fruit snack with daddy
7:15 - brush teeth, read stories, etc.
7:30 - bed time (asleep usually by 8:00pm)


Any thoughts? Does taking this long to fall asleep sound normal? Or is there something that I might be able to tweak in her schedule? I've been thinking that, since it is getting nicer here now, we may have to start running around the block a few times prior to her nap to get a bit more fresh air and exercise and that might help (: (:

Thanks for any suggestions!
Carla

[PeepersMom]

Does it interfere with her bed asleep time?

If you put her down for her nap at 1 would it still take her up to an hour to fall asleep?

DS does this at bedtime - takes sometimes up to 1.5 hours to fall asleep but usually 45-1hour.  He still sleeps a decent night though. There is nothing I have done in the past year to shorten this time.  There have been periods of time where it has shortened to just 30 min but for the most part it is a guarnteed hour no matter what time I put him down and for this reason I put him down purposely 1 hour before I hope he will fall asleep.  I did a lot of experimenting to find this out.

She might need that wind down time to fall asleep, or she might be fine if you just put her down later.  Also make sure you have a mini nap wind down if you don't already to try to quiet her mind. 

Good luck!

Meg

[carla_s]

Thanks for your reply, Meg.

It doesn't seem to interfere with her bed time, as she is pretty sleepy by 7:30pm. At night, she will take usually about 30 minutes to get to sleep, but she is much quieter than at nap time (less talking, less rolling around and bumping the crib rails, no singing usually). She will often seem to drift off to sleep after 15 min or so, and then wake up to talk quietly for a little while a few minutes later (that sort of pattern). So I don't think it is interfering with her night sleep. She still will sleep between 11 and 11.5 hours each night.

The times that I have put her down for her nap later (there have been a couple lately), she has ended up not falling asleep until after 2pm (took over an hour each time), and that then extends her nap too late in the afternoon (that does impact her bed time). But I'm not sure if it was just those couple days where she was a little off, or not. I could try putting her down at 1:00pm for a few days in a row and see what happens.

Maybe I'll start to introduce a story too at nap time (like bedtime) to try to wind down a little more. Thanks for the suggestions!!!

Carla

[PeepersMom]

try out a few things for a few days to see what works for her, but in my case it turned out that PJ just needs that hour (roughly) at night before he will fall asleep.  So it might turn out that that is the way  your daughter is and you just have to listen to her sing for a while before she drifts off.  I listen to PJ talk about his day, sing songs, do summersaults and pound on the crib rails.  Nothing I have done really makes a difference.

We do read stories right before nap and do rocking - for us at nap he does fall asleep this way.  At night we do a little more of a wind down and we end with rocking, only he is put down awake at night.  through a lot of trail and error and guess work this is what has worked out best for us.


Meg

[lumpty]

My 19 mth DD has started doing this too. She will do it at night and nap. Routine is the same and she parties for an hour before going to sleep.

DH and I will go in and PD. We find if we are silent with her she takes it much more seriously. It is getting very frustrating, especially at night because she isn't getting to sleep until 8:30-9. (her bedtime is between 7:30 &

[PeepersMom]

Melissa,

Agreed it is very frustrating.  Last winter, when PJ was around 16-20 months, he was up partying until 830-9 pm most days.  We did EVERYTHING to fix it.  toyed with bedtimes, nap times, wind down routine, going back in and starting routine again to try to reinforce it is bedtime, reasoning.... nothing made a difference for him.  Like I said previously, it never was a serious issue for naps b/c we rock and at nap he tends to fall asleep then.  At night he rarely falls asleep during the rocking unless he is sick or skips a nap. 

If you have tried everything you can think of my advice would be to try to accept it.  I am not good at this and now, a year later, I still at times get really upset when I put him down at 7 pm every night and can still hear him in there partying at 8.  What has happened is that VERY slowly, he has started to adjust his night so that he gets just about 11 hours every night.  So if he falls asleep at 815 I can be pretty sure he will be up at 715am.  Also if I am not sure what time he fell asleep and he wakes up at 7 I can guess he fell asleep around 8!  ha ha

I posted about what to do about a year ago - should I put him down early thinking that it will take him an hour to fall asleep?  FOr exampe - should i put him down at 630 b/c I want him asleep at 730?  the answer was yes.  If I truly did everything I could to shorten that time and it is just his need to wind down on his own before falling asleep, then yes, give him that time to wind down on his own.  Now, a year later, I know what is going through his head b/c he can talk so much better.  I know is he is talking about the zoo or his friends, counting, abc's, singing itsy bitsy spider....

Meg

[lumpty]

DD is basically the same. Fell asleep at 9 woke at 8. I think we will start putting her down earlier too. Mind you I do like it when she is up at 8, gives me a slower morning with DS. She is just talking, feet up in the air or bouncing and screeching her excitement for life. A friend told me today her DD went through it too and nothng worked either. she just had to live with it.

[carla_s]

I've also found that I can't go in to do any kind of PD, because she thinks I'm coming in to play with her.

It doesn't really bother me, since she seems to be content to just talk and sing and bounce around, but it's nice to know that maybe it's just something she needs to do (and not something that I'm doing wrong! LOL)

The last couple days, I've put her down a bit later for her naps and she's fallen asleep at 1:45pm both times. It only took her 45 to 1 hour, instead of more than 1 hour, to fall asleep (: We'll see if it continues.


Carla