23 month old's sleep is totally off

[aleasmom]

My 23 month old has always been a good sleeper. Great naps, 11-12 hours at night. wakes up happy, playing in crib. after we eliminated a few props, would go to sleep on own, with a kiss and a bye-bye, and i would leave. life was good. and i stress the word WAS.

now for the past 3 weeks, we have multiple issues going on. 1st, she wont let us leave the room when putting her down, screaming ensues. i'm not a cio person, but have let her cry for a few minutes while "mommy has to go to the bathroom", mommy has to go feed the cat", which resulted in her completely losing her voice. she calms when i come back in but if i try to leave again, she gets very upset.

2nd, night wakings. she is up for hours, not playing, but just tossing and turning. i feel as though she is teething so i do give her some tylenol.

3rd, short naps, waking up screaming, which is usually a sign that she hasnt slept enough.

Last night, she was sleeping by 7:30. she slept through but woke up at 5:30AM.

So I feel there are multiple issues going on here. Teething is not helping anything, some SA.  I've been trying to ride out the stying in the room, by reassuring her that im not going anywhere. Is wi/wo something i should try at this point? people have said to eliminate the nap, but i dont think that is the answer as i feel she is overtired, as opposed to sleeping too much. should i shoot for a later bedtime, with 10 hours per night being the goal? that never seemed like enough sleep for her, but who knows, she could be changing. really not sure where to go from here, becasue i feel like this could go on for months.

thanks for any ideas.

[Giorgina]

Hi aleasmom,
My DS is now 26 mos old and he is taking a 1.5-2hour nap daily and is sleeping about 10-11 hours at night.  It has been like this for many months now.  Maybe it is too much sleep - when she's not OT?  When DS wakes up cranky or crying I KNOW he is still tired.
Also SA would manifiest itself during the day too, at least it did with my son.  Is she clingy to you during the day?  Does she cry or come after you if you leave the room?  If it is SA, then you just have to ride it out.  We tried WI/WO but it didn't work for us during full blown SA.  We just stayed in the room with him until he fell asleep and then after a week or so we stayed until he was settled etc.  For SA we just basically gave in to his need to be with us.  We then retrained him him with WI/WO once we felt the SA was easing up.
It could also be teething if the Tylenol settles her and she goes to sleep without you.  The crappy thing with teething is that those back molars take forever to come in.  My DS still doesn't have them although we have seen signs of teething for a long time now (on and off).
As for the tossing and turning, I assume it is not a comfort issue (too hot, cold, lumpy, etc)?  Is there something going on developmentally that is keeping her up?  Anything new that she might be experiencing - daycare, event?  For my son, a scene in the movie Finding Nemo would cause him to wake at night.  He would wake up crying "fishies".  My husband and I thought he wanted his Fisher Price aquarium turned on but we eventually learned it was the shark scene in the movie that was bothering him.
I don't know if any of this helps.  But since she is OT right now, she needs to get caught up.  After she is caught up, I'd consider shortening her sleep by half an hour or so.  We knew our DS needed less sleep when we would put him in bed at 8pm and nothing we did could get him to fall asleep til 8:30pm.  We figured he just needed less sleep since he wasn't waking up later or cranky.

[aleasmom]

Thanks Giorgina for your quick response. This has been going on for about 3 weeks, and today was the first time that she was upset with me or DH leaving the room. so is it SA now? i guess i will give it another couple of days and then try wi/wo.

with the nw's, nothing has really changed other than that she has been talking a lot more. but somehow i feel that if we get the falling asleep alone under control then this will too. often, she wakes herself up looking to see if we're there. and then gets upset if she cant see us.

in terms of her being overtired, how do i get her to catch up? i put her to bed earlier, she still wakes up. i try to extend the nap, nothing. and she's sleeping considerable less than she was a month ago.

thanks again for your help.

[newmom11]

just wanted to say that my 23 month old son has started the cyring before bed thing...in fact i just posted a new topic on this board and then found your thread.  my son has always done great before bed, but now he fusses and cries and throws a fit when we walk out of the room.  it is very frustrating.  we do not do wi/wo only b/c it makes it worse.  if i just let him fuss (he's not screaming, just fussing), he'll usually do so for about 5-10 minutes and then fall asleep.  if i wi/wo it almost interupts him and he will not fall asleep b/c he keeps waiting for me to come back.  it is really hard and i hate that he falls asleep fussing every night, but i too am hoping that it is SA and that it will pass.  during the day, he gets upset when he realizes that i have stepped out of the room and will yell or come chasing after me.  anyway, it is really hard, but know that you are not alone.  also my son takes a 1.5 - 2 hour nap depending on how active our morning was and only sleeps 9.5-10.5 hours at night so i think 11-12 hours is great for night sleep. my son has always been on the less than average sleep needs, so 10 hours a night works great for him.  of course i wish it would be longer, but it's all he needs.  good luck, i'll be checking back to see if anyone has any good suggestions on eliminating the fussing before bed. 

[Maeve]

My 22-month old has already dropped her daytime nap at a shockingly early age (to me). Could that be it? Do you think she has progressed to needing lesss sleep? Because sometimes these things can happen really suddenly. Or is she definitely overtired?

[aleasmom]

I really think she is overtired. I could be wrong, but she was always on the higher end of sleep amounts.  and in a matter of 3 weeks, she's dropped 2-3 hours. she wakes up cranky and crying. she also hits a wall at about 5 (dinner time).  does it happen that fast?

I think she may need less sleep, but im not sure about dropping the nap. she asks to go down for her nap.

[Giorgina]

Hi Aleasmom,
trust your instincts.  She's got to be OT if she has dropped that much sleep time.  Are you waking her in the morning or nap?  If so, I would recommend NOT waking her so that she can catch up on sleep.

[Maeve]

Maybe she needs a long nap, and a later bedtime? My first kept his nap until nearly 4, but went to bed at 9. He could sleep 3 hours during the day. The other 2 both dropped their daytime naps around 18 months, but went to bed at 7. (Now 8 to .

[aleasmom]

I dont wake her at all. Last night she woke up once at about 12:30 and it didnt take long to go back and this morning she woke up at 7:30 and played in her crib. This was the first time in weeks taht she didnt wake up crying, so i was happy. then for the nap, she slept about an hour and a half (a long one for now) and woke up crying. so we'll see what tonight brings.

still staying int he room until she falls asleep, but its not taking nearly as long as it has been lately.

thanks so much for your ideas.