Help me please, I cant go on like this much longer.

[KathyM]

No problem...I just hope it's helping. I really hope she sleeps a little later for you in the morning. The first couple days are hard, but it should start to even out a bit. Crossing my fingers for you!

[nike]

Sorry you didn't find any success on your last thread Rachael.  Hoping you get a fresh perspective over here   To be brutally honest, I would be doing a modified version of WI/WO with Maya - leave her for a while to resettle when she wakes early, say 10 mins or so, then do one WI, say "it's still sleepy time", tuck her in, give her a pat (whatever is your normal routine) maybe a sip of water, then WO.  I would then not go back at all.  I guess it's a modified CIO (or the extinction method, as per Dr Weissbluth, and I know you have his book) but it sounds like the gently/gently approach just doesn't work with her.  I would be very wary of moving those bedtimes too late, based on past experience, but again I'd be interested in hearing some other views on this

[RACHPEM]

Hi nike, thanks for checking in on me, you guys really helped me lots emotionally so it was not entirely unsuccessful, I appreciate it more than you will ever know I was really at an all time low.  Anyway I guess Maya just has her own agenda! We are off on holiday next week so we will just be playing it by ear quite a lot so it will probably will do us both good to relax a bit more, plus hubby will be there to lend a hand.  I think our success was short lived due to maybe her molars are coming through, however I also found naps were longer than ever and nt sleep became shorter hence the earlier wakings, so I guess we either need a short nap/early bed or a later bedtime with longer naps, in the real world lol! Anyway just want to say a huge thanks and please dont think I ignored your advice because i have started a new thread , i just thought we would give something else a go, to see if those wake up may get later more consistently. I have just read your other post guess like you have had your fair share of ups and downs recently too,guess it never ends, hpoe things improve anyway.  Have a great Christmas and New Year!
Rachael x

[RACHPEM]

Jsut updating. 
Wednesday woke at 7.40 after waking ealier and doing wi/wo for 1 hr
Nap @ 12.30 -13.30
Bed 7.10

Thursday woke 5.45
Nap 12.10-14.10
Bdtime 7.30

Friday woke 5.30
Nap 12.30-3.00
bed will be at 7.30 tonight.

She has been a little monster btw and we have had trouble getting her to bed and several nw's too, so I guess she is really OT just hope it evens itself out.
Rachael x

[Sima]

Rachael:
Thought I would any suggestions I can think of:
Yes, go with one naptime regardless of wake up time.  I really think that in order for her to wake up later---she needs to go to bed later by moving her day forward.  If she sleeps 10-10.5 hours, then hopefully by moving nap/bedtime later, her wake up will be later.  If put to early, then this is were you are getting EW.
Also, I tried putting my lo to nap earlier hoping for longer nap--5, 5.5,6--still one hour.  I came to realize she needs more awake time in the morning.
Yesterday slept 2 hours- never happens!!!

Also, I read someone else's post that avoiding TV before bed helps with sleep. 


I also agree waiting a little before your go in to check on her when EW.  One day my lo woke up and I waited 10-15 min and she went to sleep by herself.  My lo is spirited and so if I go in--it makes her more hyper. 

I realized that if I only have one kid and she is all over with sleep-if I had two kids, I would not be able to put her down everyday based only on her convenience so I decided that I need one nap time and stick with it.  Also I find A times very stressful!!! Sometimes they wake up early and we would not know it so that would mess up the whole day.  If one thing is constant--maybe it would be better for them??

Rachael, from talking to many moms, I realize that all go by one set nap time-- it is just impossible to be counting all the time...I have gone cookoo doing that!  If lo sleeps less than 2 hours, then put her to bed early..if sleeps more, then put her later. 

Hope this helps!!!  ((((HUGS)))

[momof2ns]

Hi there...just thought I'd throw in my 2 cents.  My first child is now 4, and he had much the same problem that Maya seems to be having now.  Because he was such a horrible sleeper, it became my goal in life to have my dd be a good sleeper.  For the most part, she is a wonderful sleeper (although right now she is 22 months and fighting going down at naps and bed) so I thought maybe i could help a bit.

A question for you...do you feel that Maya is cronically overtired?  Looking back on my son compared to my daughter, i know he was cronically OT.  Right now, my DD schedule is as follows (usually):

7:00-7:30 wakes
12:00 naps (1.5-2.5 hours)
7:00-7:30 sleep

It all varies by half an hour or so, depending on what's going on with my son, or supper or the like.  Anyway...my daughter is sleeping through the night and is MORE than ready for a nap by noon.  So, I'm wondering if your DD needs to go down earlier until she catches up a bit?  I just find that the more OT she is the worse things are.  If she's too tired to make it until after lunch, I'll put her to bed earlier.

As I said, just my two cents!  Any chance you're going on vacation where there is a time change?  We went through an early waking phase in the summer.  We then went away for a week to Vancouver where it's 3 hours earlier and it fixed everything!  Good luck, Rachael.  Hang in there!  We've ALL been there!

Lots of hugs,
Jen

[RACHPEM]

gaHi all, I think Maya is chronically Ot, but no matter what I do ie early bed etc she still does 10-10.5 at night so I thought I would give set times a go again, we got into a real mess last time and I have a feeling we are heading in the same direction again.  She took a long nap yesterday of 2.5 and I took her up to bed at 6.45 as she has been taken ages to get to sleep so I guessed by 7.30 she would be asleep which is the "time " i have been aiming for, anyway she fell asleep by 7.10!! woke at 5.20 this morning and was sooo tired she fell asl;eep by 12.10 but only slept 1.20 woke screaming and really horrid like she was possessed! so now what ? do I ride this out or go back to early bedties aga\iin? please help ssomeone. I dont want to go back to 4.30 starts at least 5.20 is better imo!
btw we have a 5 hr time diff behind us though so god knows wht night happen, sorry about typos i have a miserable toddler wriggling on me!
btw noramally when she does 6.5 hrs A time she genrally sleeps 2hrs or more, same today but we got less sleep? tried to get her back off and although she was tired she would not sleep now she is already exhausted and she has only been up 1hr.
Rachael

[jcsmom]

Hi Rachel, first off big (((HUGS)))

It sounds as though things are going really well, despite today's nap, no? If your DD is anything like my DS (and I think we have discovered that they are!) she probably shifts day sleep and night sleep quite easily and also shifts sleep from one day to the next. For example, if my son has a nice long nap, he will still go down at the same time but will wake early the next day thus making it hard to get to nap time then short nap. Or he may have a nice long nap and a nice long night only to short nap and have a short night the next day so he gets OT then a cycle starts. Have you logged how much sleep she gets in 24 hours? I know my son needs about 12.5-13, closer to 12.5 these days.

Since you are trying BTC, the best way yo get some more consistency is to make bedtime, naptime, nap length and wake time all the same time (within reason of course) every single day for a week or more (it has taken us 2+ to get anywhere close but I think we are getting there, just now) and I promise you will see changes. It has worked wonders for us in the past to recover from OT, become more consistent and to save me from a mental breakdown!

From your posts, it seems 12-12.5 might be her overall sleep needs. So if she really only does 10ish comfortably at night so she needs 2 in the day. So set a schedule around that and be super rigid. So one day she may wake at 5:30 and nap longer, like 2.5 then her next night will be short thus making her OT or her night may be long so she short naps the next so she gets OT. Am I making sense? She will get OT, she will get cranky, she may even have NWs and EWs but it has worked for me (and many others who have offered advice to me) and after all I have been through, I never would've imagined that it would get us out of the mess we were in. My son has always preferred long nights and shorter naps. He rarely naps over 1.5 hours. 2 once or twice a month. I have tried and tried to shorten his night but it makes him OT. Seems that your DD is the other way around. She likes longer naps (2 hours? and 10-10.5 nights).

Could you try
6:30 wake
nap 12:30-2:30 nap (wake after 2 hours until her nights get to 10.5 consistently)
8pm bed?

I know early bedtimes help some to get over OT but I also know that your DD is not a long night sleeper no matter what so she just wakes super early, right?This could work if you limit her nap and not get her until her wake time of 6:30am. We have been doing this, leaving my DS until 7am for the last 2 weeks and finally he is waking later. With my DS we need to just leave him, if we wi/wo at that time he gets so upset and thinks we are abandoning for the day. Sorry this is so long, but after all that you have endured I wanted to share my succes with you so you don't give up. Hang in there!

[Vicku]

My ds was similar to your dd and I always worried about OT and because of that, I always ended up with an earlier bedtime - but that always led to an earlier wake-up time and round and round we'd go. So, what helped us in the end was a more set schedule and I worked backwards from wake-up. 

If she normally sleeps 10.5 hours at night, start at 6am and work backwards. For a 6am wakeup, her bedtime would be 7:30pm. That would mean nap would be somewhere about 12-1pm (hopefully for 2 hours). It took a couple days or maybe a week to sort it all out, but it did work. I stopped trying to compensate for short naps/early wake-ups with early bedtimes. If he didn't sleep a lot for nap, he must not have needed the sleep. If he woke early, same thing...nap was still same time. I can recall a few times I had to do nap a half hour early because he just couldn't make it, but I tried to stay as consistent as possible.

HTH

Hi hun! Not read all yet but just wanted to say this is what we did with Lois. Agree with the need to set their body clock at this age and just to remind you about the 'averages' at nearly 2 babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85130.0 is not that much and as Maya takes less than average, you're probably aiming at something like a 1.5-2 hr nap and a 10-10.5 hr night, at the most. the important thing is setting her sleep times to reasonable times. Will read on now...

[RACHPEM]

Thanks guys, nice to have you back Vicku.  It is still very hit and miss but I am going to stick with it, nothing else has worked so nothing to lose.  She has only took 1hr 15 mins nap th last 2 days, and we have been having nw and ]ew, 3.20 this morning!!! took 1hr to get her back off iand up at 6am.  Thanks again for your advice I wqill keep you posted,
Rachaelx

[RACHPEM]

Maya only took an hr and 15 mins again yesterday, I still aimed for bed at 7.30 although we start quite early as she is taking 45 mins or more to settle off so not sure if this is OT or UT? anyway she eventually fell asleep at 8pm!!!! took 9hrs sleep , woke screaming her head off and kept telling me over and over to open curtains and get her up, so I told her it was still bedtime and walked out, she screamed, threw her bear and dummy out so I went in repeated this scenario a couple of times then told her that was the last time i was going to pick up items, i stayed outside and whispered in intermiterdly , this went on for an hour, tbh the more i take notice of her the worse she is so although it breaks my heart to hear her cry i think she needs a firmer hand  and we have tried all the softer approaches and they dont work anyway.  Eventually she fell asleep and slept til 8am!!!! I actually managed to get dressed before she woke now that is a first. She was still pretty grouchy today but still only took 1hr 20 mins for nap and still took 45 mins to get to sleep.
Rachale x

[Mama2boys]

Hi Rachael,

I know some BW moms might not think this is teh right thing but I will share with you what we have done. As you know DS and I struggle with NW as well and when he wake ssuphe wnats to be righht out of the room and up and about. So we have a 'sleep cop' who gets very upset if someone does not sleep in their own room and bed. And especially does not like kids crying in the night unless something is owee (hhu) or in pain or scary. Now this story seems to ahve worked at our end for a few day not sure how long it will and I might have just jinxed it but so far it has.

HTH

[RACHPEM]

Thanks Mukta, we are always looking for new ideas, will give it a go!

[Sima]

Rachael,
I am at the verge of giving up with these sleep issues!!!
Anyways, if I could affort it, I'd pay a sleep consultant to come to my house to figure this out!!!!
Have you tried set clock times yet? 

[RACHPEM]

Hi Siria, I know I feel exactly the same way with Maya,! sometimes I feel like i have missed out on her so much and not enjoyed being a mom to her as much as i wanted due to always being stressed over sleep issues it is exhausting.  We have been sticking to set times about 4 days now so still early days, and also been quite strict with ew;s as she does seem to have me wrapped round her little finger but if i am a little harder on her it does work better, it is just sometimes when you are so tired yoiu will do anything for an easy life.  Anytway last night she fell asleep at 7.20, i heard her at 5am and she fell back on her own, wow!!! that is the first time in ages, and woke at 5.50 so much better but still only 10.5, on top of a 1.20 nap so it does seem to be all she needs on average, so i guess i will stick with this as if this is all she can manage early bedtimes are only ever going to result in ew for us.  I was talking to my niece yesterday and her dd is 9months younfger than Maya and she averages 15-17 hrs in a 24 hr period!!!! Maya has never done that, can you imagine all that sleep, lol.
Anyway hope things sort themselves out, we are away from tommorow for the christmas break so i guess anything can happen while away although at least i have hubby and my mil to help out, so have a lovely christmas and al the best for the new year and i will speak to you in the new year. Love to you both, Rachael and Mayaxxx