DD sitting up is disrupting independent sleep.

[Emma-Rose's mom]

Not sure if anyone has ever encountered this problem.

DD has, up to now, been a great sleeper. She has a night sleep of 11 hours. Since 5 months, she has been falling asleep independently.

The really great news is my 10 month old is now crawling, pulling herself up to sitting and standing. The BAD news is this has really disrupted her independent sleep.

When I lay her down for naps after seeing sleepy signs, she rolls around in her crib and mantra cries, which is pretty normal, because that's how she settles to sleep. But lately, she rolls onto her stomach then pushes herself up to a sitting position and starts to cry and whimper. If she would only stay laying down on her mat, I know she would go to sleep on her own. But she keeps sitting up and doesn't know how to lay herself down to sleep even though I know she's tired. She keeps doing this until she's so tired that everything becomes unglued. I've tried going in and laying her back down, but when she seesm me, she wants to be picked up and starts screaming and the crying escalates, so she is no longer in the right state of mind to sleep on her own.

She also goes to daycare. My DCP has told me that the last three days, she has only been able to get her to take 1 nap for only 30 minutes - a sign of OT - and that DD just can't get herself to sleep anymore from this constant sit-up that she's doing.   (She used to be textbook, taking two 1.5-2 hour naps)

Does anyone have any suggestions? I figure someone out there has had to go through this developmental blip before?
Mika

[deckchariot]

we had the same issue and did the same thing - practice during the A time - so put her on her tummy, let her sit up, then show her and help her to lay herself back down.  It doesn't take all that long for them to get it (though it seems like it!!).  And then you may have to do some pd to help her get to sleep - go in, lay her down, walk out...repeat, repeat, repeat - I wouldn't do straight pu/pd at this age - I'd just pd and go from there.

hth
michelle

[Emma-Rose's mom]

This morning, I had to do pd three times and all three times, she sat back up, was crying and rubbing her eyes. The third time, I actually had to pick her up because she sat up as soon as I laid her down. Anyway, she immediately put her head on my shoulders and closed her eyes. She was SOOO tired. I only held her for about a minute, but didn't rock or anything, just held her. Then I laid her down again and patted her bum because I noticed that her eyes were really heavy, until she was asleep. I sort of feel like I'm regressing. I hope I'm not creating a habit because for certain, my DCP won't be able to stand there and pat her bum to sleep like I just did since she has other kids to tend to. Anyway, DD managed to get a good 1.5 hour nap in today. Cross fingers for an afternoon nap, too.

Thanks, to both of you ladies. I will try that and teach her how to lay herself down during A time. Hopefully this won't be going on for long. How long did your los do this for? I know every lo is different. I'm just trying to get an idea...

Mika

[deckchariot]

it only took us a few days too - but there was a lot of crying, and I didn't pick her up - if I was tempted to, I called in dh or stepped out, counted to 10 and came back in.  I"m terrible at pd -dh is much better.

[Emma-Rose's mom]

OMgoodness! Her napping is now all over the place.

Yesterday she kept sitting up, and I kept doing pd. She finally fell asleep after about 5 tries, but only slept 25 minutes. I decided to get her up after that since she was up because it was time for her bottle, anyway. So she drank her bottle, then was awake for 15 more minutes before she started getting sleepy again (of course!). So, I laid her down, and she did the sit-up thing another two times, but finally fell asleep. Then she slept for 2 hours!    So, she ended up missing her lunch and didn't eat until 2:00 PM.

Having such a weird "brunch" nap, she never took her afternoon nap. We tried for a catnap at 5:30, but she never settled enough for that. I spent the entire time trying to do pd, and after 30 minutes I gave up. I was lucky I didn't have an OT baby by 7:00PM.

I hope I'm not being double wammied with that this sit-up scenario AND a 2-1 transition at the same time!

I'm trying to teach her to lay down from her sit-up position during A time, and I realized that she does know how to do that because she has to do it all the time in order to get into her crawling position from her sitting position. But she doesn't "understand" that she needs to lay down when she's tired instead of sitting there whinning...

Ah...this is SOOOO fun! 

[deckchariot]

{{{{{{hugs}}}}}} it sounds like you're doing all the right things.  I wouldn't even think about the 2 to 1 transition until the sitting  thing is sorted - one issue at a time is enough