3 yo, no naps, very OT, resists BT UGH

[~*Nicole*~]

DD is seriously refusing BT (again for the billionth time in her life).

She no longer naps, so although that would be an awesome solution to catch us up....unless I do a car ride nap it's a no go. Even then there's no predicting what time to try for one as she often won't fall asleep. Even still, if she DOES fall asleep, then BT becomes even later!

I keep trying to get her in to bed a bit on the early side, but it usually coincides with cooking dinner and getting DS to bed as well. The earliest I've gotten her into bed has been about 6:30 and she will still fight sleep and say she isn't tired and get out of bed and end up awake until 9:30 or 10pm!

I ended up rocking her and rubbing her back to sleep the other night.

She either plays, yells and screams for me to come back/kicks things and wakes up her brother, or just plain gets out of bed and comes downstairs! She keeps saying she is not tired, but she'll rub her eyes and is clearly tired. She has started falling asleep in the car again b/c she is tired during the days b/c she won't go to bed at night!

The other night I tried to go to sleep WITH HER. In bed, cuddling with the lights off (she normally keeps a lamp on) and she STILL stayed awake after I fell asleep and was reading books, playing around, getting in and out of bed.....What gives?!

How can I get her to shut down and relax enough to settle to sleep??

[Tweakster]

Nicole how long has it been going on?  Is it just Christmas or something developmental going on?  It sounds like OS led to OT there and now it's just propelling as it does in these crazy Spirited kids.

What time is she waking when she finally does get herself to sleep?

[~*Nicole*~]

It's been going on for awhile. Truthfully, I think a lot of this is stemming from baby brother. He's been a tough baby with reflux, MSPI, a kidney removal operation, etc. etc. Has taken a lot of our time and attention. Now he's crawling, standing, cruising and she's super agitated by that. So we were confined to the house a lot before b/c he was miserable. Now we're confined b/c it's winter and hard for me to take both of them out to do things. She is definitely one that needs physical things to do, although again that is a fine line b/c that leads to OS as well which also leads to some of the same struggles!

At any rate, aside from those fun issues....

She wakes anywhere from 7-8:30 most days although some of them are after NWs where she ends up in our room. Sometimes she'll wake up and go back to sleep in the morning as well, esp. if she's in my bed as she'll fall asleep next to me, but never if she's in her own room. We let her come to our bed b/c she climbs in and goes back to sleep there as opposed to taking ages to settle and carrying on if we try to get her back to sleep in her own bed and b/c often she'll sleep straight through in her own bed the whole night. We used to never let her sleep with us as she use to talk and play and not settle and keep ME awake but that has changed as she has gotten older.