HELP PLEASE!!! 21-m fighting bedtime and EWs

[tuscany]

Hi everyone,

My LO is turning 21-month next week. Lately her sleep habit is turning from bad to worse.

Her current EASY is:

before 6:00am: wake up and ask for milk
7:10: milk followed by breakfast
12:00noon: lunch
1:30-3:00pm: 1.5 hour nap
7:30pm: starts bedtime routine; 8:00pm light off

I should mention that she has been used to falling asleep with mommy or daddy lying besides her. It used to be that she would fall asleep around 8:15pm. And we always have a hard time to get her to sleep longer than 10 hours at night.

We started to use gradual withdrawal approach to train her to fall asleep herself. We were starting to make progress but then she was sick; of course that led to relapse.

After she got well, all of a sudden she is fighting bedtime every night. For three nights in a row, she refused to sleep, got out of her bed (she is sleeping on a full-size bed not a crib anymore), and wanted to get out of her bedroom to play. All these nights, it took us a good 2-3 hours to get her to sleep!

And, she started to wake up earlier and earlier in the morning. She used to wake up around 6:30am; for the last three mornings she woke up at 5:30am (that is only 7.5-hour sleep time at night)!

Her afternoon nap used to be quite good. We always wake her up before 3:30pm though, worrying that getting up later than that will mess up her bedtime at night. But lately she always looks extremely sleepy and does not want to get up when we wake her up. Also she started to wake up after just 1 hour or so.

She is obviously sleep-deprived but she is fighting nap time and bed time at night even more.

What should we do???  We feel things are getting out of control and we are getting desperate. I know there must be a lot of OT here, but how to get her back on track???

[deckchariot]

Her afternoon nap seems really late, I'm wondering if you need to move that a bit earlier.  My dd is older, and she gets up at 7:30 and barely makes it til 1 on most days (some days only til 12:30).  I'm wondering if she's OT at the nap already and then by nighttime is really done, thus the fighting at sleep time.  Especially now that she's waking so early, I would definitely move the nap earlier in the day.

How long has she been in a full size bed?  If it's not been very long, it could just be part of the adjustment phase.  How do you handle the wakings - both during nap and bedtime?  I would be very, very consistent there - either using gw again or going to wi/wo - so that she knows it's time to sleep.

hth
michelle

[tuscany]

Thanks so much Michelle!!! This is really helpful.

First some update -- She woke up after just 1 hour yesterday at nap; I tried for more than an hour to get her back to sleep (gw) and let her nap till 5pm, since she looked really tired. Then 7:30pm I started sleep routine and 8:40pm she fell asleep. Still took a long time but at least an improvement than 10pm. Then this morning she woke up 6am again.

Then today I moved her lunch earlier; and by 1pm she is asleep. I will see how tonight will go.

You are right; her nap has been pushed later and later over the last few months, sometimes even close to 2pm. Partly this is because she looked quite hyper and did not want to sleep when the time comes. Looking back, OT must have accumulated very badly back then already.

She's been in the full size bed for longer than a month. Before she was sick (2 weeks ago), it took me a good 1 week or so to get her settled in her bed.  For nap and bedtime, I normally handled it with GW. But when my husband takes care of her, he does a mixture of things: lying down with her; wi/wo; .... Definitely no consistency there! Sigh.

By the way, how long does your LO nap and when is her bedtime?  I tried to look for some sample EASY for 21-month-old but there aren't that many out there.

[deckchariot]

I"m guessing the hyper-ness is actually OT - that's exactly what my dd is like when she's OT.  Her routine is really consistent (unless we're out or she's sick):

7:30 - wake (rarely earlier than 7 and sometimes she'll sleep in til 8ish), milk with mommy on waking
8:30/9 - breakfast
10:30 - snack
12is  - lunch
1 - nap (again, sometimes it's no snack, lunch at 11:30, nap at 12:30)
3/4/4:30 - up from nap (I'd say average is 3:30), snack upon waking
6 - dinner
7:15 - start bedtime routine, in bed by 7:45/8, usually chats to herself for 15 or so min before falling asleep

We've been on that routine since she went to 1 nap at 14 mos....bedtime has gotten later, nap has gotten shorter and is more often at 1 (it was more often at 12:30 when she was first on just 1 nap)

Abby is still in a crib, so I don't have to worry about getting out of the crib....so on that one, I'd say just keep being consistent.  1 month in the new bed isn't really all that long, so it could still be some boundary testing - again, why that consistency is so important (if you can convince dh of that it will definitely help).

hth and let me know how you get on!

[tuscany]

Thanks so much for sharing your EASY Michelle! Abby's routine sounds fantastic. Great that all of you have been able to keep it. (Sarah was an angel baby sleep wise on a perfect EASY till about 14 months. We traveled for two weeks and everything started to go downhill ever since....)

Today Sarah napped from 1pm till a little over 3pm (she did try to run out of her bedroom for the nap!); we started bedtime routine at 7:20pm, and she is asleep by 8pm!

(You are right; she is also likely getting used to the new bed, and basically testing new boundaries.  About a week ago after failing to get her back to sleep after two hours, daddy took her out of the bedroom to watch TV with us at 10:30pm. She must have realized right away that getting out of bedroom at middle of the night to play is a brand-new option in life.)

I will keep you updated. And thanks again!!!

[tuscany]

Update: last night was a total disaster. Although she fell alseep relatively easily at 7:50pm, she started to wake up frequently from 11:30pm onwards. First two or three times I got her back to sleep quickly but sitting besides her. But the 2:30am NW was dreadful. She had a real hard time to fall back to sleep and appeared to be in a happy and playful mood. By the time she finally fell asleep it was past 4:30am. She then slept till 6am and called for me; I went to lie down besides her and she slept till 7:10am.

[deckchariot]

oh dear.....sounds like a better nap day but a terrible night.  When she woke at night - was she happy or crying?  If happy, I'm guessing the nap was still too long.  If she was crying, it may have been something else entirely (of course, after the first few NWs, no doubt she was OT then....).  It does still sound a bit like adjusting to the new bed.    I'd keep the hope of a 2 hr nap today (don't wake her), because she had such a rough night, but you may want to consider shortening it to 1.5 hrs.

hth
michelle

[tuscany]

She was happy when she woke up at night.....even talking to her baby bear a bit!

I am on business trip so my husband took care of her last night. The report came in that she fell asleep 8:20pm; woke up at 2am, he was able to get her back to sleep without too much trouble, lasted 30 minutes or so; then she woke up 6:10am. 

[lin7604]

wow you issue sounds a bit like mine.... all went crazy after a 2 week holiday....

[deckchariot]

If she's happy when waking at night, I"d definitely look at limiting that daytime nap to no more than 1.5 hrs.  It sounds like too much day sleep is robbing her nighttime sleep.  Glad it was only once for dh though (lucky him!)

[tuscany]

lin7604, that two-week holiday started the trend of all sorts of sleep problems....she used to sleep in her own crib; fall asleep on her own; 15-hour sleep every day. Could not ask for more. one relapse after another, several months after the trip, she no longer can fall asleep on her own; got in our bed; EWs; NWs....Of course it was because we slowly lost our ground and lost our consistency!

Michelle, I just got back from a trip and for last night, she woke up 5:40am crying and wanting to get out of her bed. took me an hour to get her back to sleep. so I am guessing it is still OT, and the long process of getting used to sleeping in her own bed again (not only a new bed, but also no longer sleeping with us). So I am trying to consistently keeping her nap time earlier than before, and hopefully slowly we can correct the OT problem.

I've got a question: As of her early waking around 5am, unless I lie down with her in her bed, she will take forever to settle back to sleep; sometimes just kept awake till 7am then we all have to get up. for now, should i just lie down with her so that she could quickly go back to sleep? then slowly change to withdrawal after being with her a while? But by doing so, am I encouraging another bad habit?

[deckchariot]

If you lie down with her to help her get back to sleep, that will help get her out of the OT cycle - then you will need to do gradual withdrawal to break her of that habit.  So it's up to you how you want to handle those EWs - I would just be consistent and have a plan starting out.  Does that make sense?

[lin7604]

I hear ya of those problems...... after our 2 week holiday he refused to go to sleep on his own, battles for 2+ hrs to finally get to sleep,  then had to have me in his room to fall asleep or back to sleep with a nw,  lots of night wakes several times a night and waking at 4:50 to start his day!   it has been quite the challange!!!  We have concored the bedtime battles to maybe 20-30 min now, some nights only needing to go into his room once.... We have gotten better with him going back to sleep on his own with a night wake but we are still having 1-4 nightwakes and early early rising!  today was 5:45 much better then 4:50!  We still have a long way to go and now i am doubting a 2 week holiday in the past...

[tuscany]

Yeah it makes total sense Michelle. I had wanted to hold on not lying down with her to save me one more battle down the road; but out of sleep-deprivation, I gave up. For "early night wakings" say at 2am, normally I could get her back to sleep rather quickly by just sitting besides her. But 5am in the morning? That is my weakest time.

Last night she went to sleep before 8pm; woke up briefly 2am but went back to sleep after 10 minutes or so; then woke up 6am happily chatting to her doll, and ready to play. -- This really puzzles me: ever since she turned one, I have always had major hard time to get her to sleep longer than 10 hours at night. I read comments from other moms that sleeping for 10.5 hour at night is a sure sign of OT. But could it be that she just needs that much sleep??? (She naps for 2 hours during the day so that is a total of 12 hour sleep. Still on the low end, but I have never been able to get her sleep more than that for the last six months!)

Then today we got her to nap around 12:30pm for 2 hours. 7:10pm we started bedtime routine, and she had a very hard time to fall sleep -- eventually fell asleep after 8:15pm.

I am starting to wonder if the long winter here and spending every day indoor is contributing to this difficulty in sleep. She is not getting any A time outdoor. And indoor there is only very limited way to burn her energy....

lin7604: sorry to hear of what you are going through. The biggest mistake we made was that we gave in and did not try hard enough to get her back to falling asleep on her own after that trip. Looking back, really it was the beginning of many problems afterward. With our elder one, we used to travel everywhere with playpen, and she never got in our bed even in hotels. We did travel with her a lot and did not mess up her sleep habit that much. With Sarah, we got lazy and now we are paying a price.

[lin7604]

ya it's easy to make mistakes at 4am and being sleep deprived. I started to do the same by rubbing his back to get him to sleep as those 2hr battels were not fun.  He would scream /freak uncontrollably like he was super scared of something.... so i gave in and started to rub him until he fell asleep, but after 2 weeks of that i realized i got him in the bed habit and even when he had a night wake he wanted it, so i knew i had to stop it ( it was like he forgot how to put himself back to sleep).  THen it was another big battle to get him out of that, it's been about a month now and it's gotten so much better.  i just wish it would happen quicker!!! but don't we all.   Good luck...
i do think that 12 hrs is great in 24hrs, nothing wrong with that, for some it's low butso others it's perfect.  That is what my ds was getting before all this 11.5-12.  We also could never seem to get him to sleep more then 10 hrs at night either. he napped 1.5-2hrs at home but at daycare it can be only 50 min or up tp 2hr....., then that starts another issue, so i have to daily go by how much he napped at daycare and figure out what time bedtime should be. now it seems to be a total of 10-11.5 but more so in the 10's in a 24hr peroid and i don't think it's enough for him..... just how do i get him back to the 11's..i need the night wakes gone!  sending sleep waves our way.... lol....