Taking Forever to Fall Asleep!

[momtothomas]

Not that you're wondering... but Thomas has an ear infection again (or should I say STILL).  We got the ENT names and are calling first thing Monday morning.

[momtonb&ab]

that will explain why it takes him so long to settle.  glad to hear you are going to push forward with the ENT....no need to suffer ... poor little guy!

[newmama12]

Hi everyone! How is everything going?

Sorry I haven't been around much lately. We were out of town and then I was super busy, etc. We're still having 1.5 hour naps lately. For about 3 days after vacation she napped 2+ hours and I though, wow we're finally getting somewhere. But, no, she was just catching up on sleep b/c now we're back to barely 1.5 hours the past few days. Today she napped from 12:30-2. Grrr. Maybe she will just not be a consistent 2 hour napper??? She seems to do 10.5-11 at night. Rarely more. It's just that by 5:30 she is soooo crabby. Especially if she naps closer to 12 b/c then she's up by 1:30. Should I still be shooting for a 6:30 bedtime?? Lately she's been waking 6:15-6:30, just depends on when she falls asleep the previous night.

[momtothomas]

You have the exact same schedule as us...  Up around 6:15-6:30, nap from 12-1:30 (although we've had a few 2 or 2.5 hour naps the past couple weeks!), then shooting for a 6:30 bedtime.  The bedtime usually ends up being closer to 6:45 or 7, though.  I say stick with the 6:30 or 7 bedtime for a while.

[becky1969]

I'd definitely go with the early bedtime.  Sounds like a sleepy bub to me!

Here's the puzzling thing about toddlers: even though they can be on the same routine for months at a go, they often have 'invisible' changes that cause them to need extra sleep.  We don't realize these changes are going on, so we keep them on the same routine but suddenly it doesn't work for them anymore! They are simply experiencing so many new things and gaining new skills, and it just wears the little guys out sometimes! When they were infants, it was easier to keep up because they changed their A time so often, we were constantly on the look out for OT signs.  But as toddlers, we kind of forget that they can regress sometimes due to these 'invisible' changes I mentioned.  It can be so confusing and irritating! 

I've found when in doubt, move bedtime up.  That has worked really well since I made the rule up about a year ago! 

[newmama12]

Well, I still haven't been able to get her in bed before 6:45. Boo on me. I know. And then it's still taking her 30 minutes to fall asleep, so she's not sleeping till 7:!5pm. And only napping barely 1.5 hours. Last night for whatever reason she was up a lot between 2:30-5am. During that time she only cried for about 10 seconds, so she was just laying around in bed. Don't know what that was about. Needless to say, she was pretty crabby this morning. She fell asleep for nap right before noon, so we'll see how long she's down for. I am probably going to still try and get her in bed by 6:30 tonight b/c of her lost sleep last night.

[newmama12]

Update: Grrrr...she is already up from her nap! It's only been an hour and 15 minutes!! She's not crying so I'm going to leave her up there a bit in hopes that she lays down again. But I don't have high hopes...I know her patters all too well. Bummer. Definetly in bed by 6:30 the latest tonight.

[momtothomas]

Sorry things are frustrating...!  DS is on a super strong antibiotic before he gets tubes in his ears a week from today, and the antibiotic is tearing up his little tush.  Poor buddy.  He was up from 8:45 to midnight last night.  We'll see if tonight is another banner night...

[newmama12]

Oh, poor baby. I'm sure the tubes will help, though. I know he's been battling some pretty bad infections.

Got J in bed at 6:30 and she was asleep within 20 minutes. Now, lets just hope she doesn't wake at, like, 5am. LOL!