10 month old Spirited Baby......help!!

[cath73]

Hello all,
I would like some advice on how to help my gorgeous spirited little madam get to sleep at bedtime.
Long story, but she has up until about 6 weeks ago been pretty good with naps and bedtime. She has always been a cryer, and mantra cries for around 10 minutes before she finally drops off. Naps have always been much better than bedtime so we probably had issues at bedtime once a week where she ended up downstairs with us. My family would describe her as having duracell batteries i.e she seems to be able to stay awake for hours. Her record has been staying up until midnight having woken from her nap at 3pm ........and she was quite happy till the last 20 mins as long as we did not try to put her down for bed!!
Anyway, I have finally identified her as a spirited baby, which explains loads!! She is a nightmare with teething and suffers from awful separation anxiety...........and has done since being tiny.

The issue I have now is that regardless of how she sleeps in the day, she is refusing to go to bed, and gets so worked up that she vomits.........have been trying wi/wo which seems to stress her even more. Tonight I eventually got her to sleep 80 minutes after I first put her down, but the whole time she was flailing around, banging her arms and legs, and working herself into a frenzy, then when I picked her up to calm her she was desperately trying to get out of my arms (so I only did that twice!!). What eventually worked was having her fan on max speed (white noise I guess) and me saying very firmly 'enough' everytime she started up again! That is not my sleepy phrase, more like my exasperated one!! The only reason I could stay with her that long was because DH was home to deal with my angel/textbook 2year old!

Does anyone have any advice on how we can get through this? For the record, she is not crawling or standing yet so dreading the time when she does that!

Her EASY is this:(I'll miss out the E)

A 6.30am ish
S 9.30am (45 mins) if she has longer than the pm nap goes out of the window!
A 10.15am
S 1pm
A 3pm
Bath 6.30 and bedtime 7pm(in my dreams!)

Help.....

[Smurfette]

HI there

What is your wind down routine for naps and bedtime?

[cath73]

Hello,
She does tend to go down for her naps ok, just a bit of mantra crying so don't really have a wind down as such, just a quiet walk around the house, into her bedroom, nappy change and into grobag. Then snuggles and kisses with sleepy phrase, then I leave saying night night.
Bedtime is bath (with brother so quite boisterous at times ), into bedroom, massage cream, into pj's etc, dim light and milk feed. Then cuddles on my lap  and a quiet story, then into grobag whilst saying sleepy phrase, put her into cot, say night night and leave room.................then all hell breaks loose!!!
For the last few nights, I have been staying with her which worked the first time (took 40 mins to go to sleep) but for the last couple of nights, after an hour of her thrashing around in the cot, I have brought her downstairs and she eventually goes to bed 2 hours later happy as a clam! 

[ZacsMumme]

I think she is likely UT at BT. A lot of spirited LOs hit the 2-1 with vengeance at this age and 3.5 -4hrs after a long pm nap isn't long really. She may be needing another 30 mins to e tired enough to sleep at BT...what do you think?

The other way to make the day shorter and encourage night sleep is to cap that am nap at 30 mins, bring the nap forward and BT forward do you think she is hitting the 2-1 Hun?

[cath73]

Hi, I do think she is UT.........I guess I didn't want to believe it!! My textbook DS was still taking 2 1.5 hr naps at 18 months!! Opposite ends of the sleep needs scale!!
I think we are battling SA plus UT. The UT is easily sorted (fingers crossed!), but SA is another story. I was at a friends yesterday and needed to change DS nappy, so had DD in one room playing with toys and friends baby plus friend while I changed nappy in another room. She screamed and screamed and got herself so worked up that she vomited . I had only left room for a minute top as ended up getting friend to change DS's nappy.
 I cannot let her out of my sight at the moment as she gets so distressed . It definitely impacts bedtime too.

[skatty]

I think you should maybe try and see how things go withoout the bath etc too. My dd just got revved up from bathing before bed and I am sure having a sibling in there just makes it even more stimulating. My dd's sleep went complately haywire around 9/10 months and right around 1 months she was on one nap and everything was better, we actually got a dream sleeper once she was on one nap!

[ZacsMumme]

Our sleep got a ton better once Z hit 1 nap too
However, now on it, he has had a pretty similar routine since then - slight increases in A and nap capping but OT much. He still sleeps a typical amount in 24 really....some LOs just need to be good and tired to sleep

[cath73]

Thanks ladies, I agree, she is definitely UT at bedtime when she's had  a good nap at lunchtime, its just really tricky to adjust! Today went like this:
A 7am
S 10am (eventually fell asleep at 10.20 ....SA kicking in at nap time it seems now )
A 10.50 (woke her after 30 mins as suggested)
S 2.20 (eventually fell asleep at 2.40)
A 3.40 (I woke her....she would have slept for 2 hrs)

Then I bathed her earlier with her brother and came back downstairs  for a bit(as suggested that bathtime directly before bed may be too stimulating) then started wind down at 7.30. She was still wide awake, wanting to play with me in cot, grabbing my hair and hands and banging her legs and arms and giggling (little minx!). Then reverted to hysterical screaming if I left the room, so brought her back down where she was very content.
Eventually took her up at 9pm and she fell asleep finally at 9.15.

So, even though its still early, should I try just one long nap for her and bring bedtime forward if necessary, or persevere with the 30 min catnap in the morning and longer nap at lunchtime? I thought maybe trying to put her down after 2.5 hrs in the morning which may help bringing lunchtime nap forward?

[ZacsMumme]

I think maybe its worth trying 1 nap hun. You start to get silly long days and if she is napping 2hrs at a time as well then she isn't struggling to sleep well when she is tired enough KWIM?

I would first try maybe offering the nap 4.5hours after WU (if she can manage it) then let her sleep as long as she likes up to 3hrs. Then BT 4.5-5 hrs later. The longer A times will make her more tired at BT so she may even need 4.5hrs after that nap even though on the 2 naps it seems to short A to BT.

The 10am resistance could be SA or just plain old UT and she doesn't want to sleep Its hard to tell sometimes with spirited kids.

Just bear in mind OT can creep in over a few days so if you notice the nap get shorter, or her having an unsettled nap ie cryouts etc and EW/NW etc then you may need to look at alternating 1-2 nap days for a bit...

Katt what do you think?

[ZacsMumme]

ohhh and here is a support thread in case you want to jump in. esp good for the 1-2 alternating nap days where you need support with wonkiness
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=231552.315

[Smurfette]

Some LOs experience quite the regression around 10-11 months and it may seem like they're ready for one nap, but after a few weeks it becomes apparent that they really aren't and you run into lots of night wakings, crankiness and short naps.
 You may just have to experiment at bit. Some moms start to wake their LOs up a bit earlier in the morning to fit everything in.
Another option is to offer one nap every 2nd day as perviously mentioned. On the days that she only does take one nap, you may need to do an early bedtime though to compensate.

Last thing-some spirited LOs need a bit of a longer wind down routine so you may want to see if you can spend a bit more time in her room, in the dark or dimly lit, perhaps reading some books or some soft singing to see if that helps anything.

Hope some of that helps.

[skatty]

I agree with Sara that if she will take a really good nap one nap might work for you, my dd never napped well  What did work for us was putting her down at 4hrs and then she would have about an hour and 10 mins (which believe it or not was good for her!!) and then we gave a 20 min nap after around another 4 hrs (walking with the pushchair) and put her to bed 2 hrs after that  After a few weeks we realised that she was adding onto her night so just went with one nap and an extremely early bedtime, it was fantastic, suddenly our lives were not revolving around sleep 2 times aday and I was a lot less frustrated and all nighttime shenannigans stopped! The biggest challenge with spiriteds and sleep is that their window is so short you can blink and miss it and then they rev up and wont sleep for hours  I think as Smurfette says if you try one nap do so with extreme caution and observe, in our case dd just got more OT with 2 naps, it was easier to control with just one!!

[cath73]

Some great advice thank you, although today has been a nightmare!! She woke at 7am (after a bedtime of 9.15pm), so I put her down for her nap at 11.30 which she fought until 12 and then slept until 2.45 . Then bedtime at 7pm which was a disaster. Have only just managed to get her to sleep at 10.20pm . She was sooo tired, yawning and rubbing eyes but every time I attempted wind down and into bed, she screamed, thrashed around and cried so much I was worried she would vomit again . I ended up giving her an extra bottle and feeding her to sleep so we'll see what the night brings!
Its so odd as up until 8 months old she was pretty good at bedtime and certainly did not get as distressed as she does now. She seems like a different baby.
Skatty, you are so right about the miniscule sleep window.........her sleep cues are pretty much non existant but if I miss the window these days there is  no going back!!
I guess the plus to all of this is she is still STTN.............although really hope I don't jinx that, and her naps are pretty good too.
I will check out the support thread, thank you Zacsmumme x

[Smurfette]

Sorry to hear about the bad night.

Many times when you first move to one nap, you need to have a bedtime of 5:30/6 to compensate for the missing sleep, so you might want to try a super early bedtime the next time you try one nap.

((hugs)) This time is so hard to get through.

[skatty]

Oh no, it sounds like she was OT by bedtime. It must be hard working out bedtime after such a long nap but she was also missing sleep from the day before so I guess it is better to be cautious and cut the A time down. It's amazing she STTN, even now my dd is almost 6 she is terrible at getting OT