29 month old help!!

[kaipooi]

Hello mommies,

DS was doing fine, some good days and some not so good days, until last Wednesday. Since then his nights have been short, short, short! And taking ages to get to sleep at night. And he gets super whiney and clingy when I put him to bed too. This was his routine before,

WU: 7:50-8:30
Nap: 14:15 (+/- 15 mins) - 16:15 (+/- 15 mins)
BT: 21:00 - 21:30

He was doing around 1hr50min naps and a 10.5-11hr night.

On Wednesday, he was woken by our neighbour drilling and hence only had a 1hr20 nap, and woke at 15:50. And I put him down by 20:50 for his bed time. But he took 40 mins to fall asleep and then had a 9.5 - 10 hour night. For the last 5 days he has been doing this and I can't figure out why. I thought it was OT and have been putting him to bed early, but he just mucks around in bed like he is not tired. He just gets hyperactive when OT so it is hard to tell what is OT and what is UT.

When this happened before, I usually just bring nap time forward (to am A of 5hr50min) and after a few days, it kinda fixes itself. However, he just started going to playschool everyday from 11am-1pm (since last week) and so I can't get him home, fed and into bed till 14:10 earliest.

The last few afternoons, he has been doing 1hr40min OT naps too. So I am leaning towards OT. But he seems so awake when I put him into bed and wakes early so I just don't know

[kaipooi]

Gosh... he was so terrible in school today. Throwing things at the teachers and so did not get his sticker. He was sooo upset! Screaming and crying, I barely could strap him into his car seat. And then he almost passed out in the car at 13:15. He woke up at 8:00 this morning, however, he looked like he was awake around 7:00? He was not moving in the video monitor but who knows??? And then he sat up at 7:30, and went back to sleep till 8:00. I managed to get a few spoonfuls of lunch into him and he was asking for bed. So I put him in bed at 13:40 today, and he rolled around for 10 minutes before falling asleep.

So he is definitely OT by nap time, this is definite. As such, I have let him sleep as much as he wants. Can he then be UT at BT? He is so tired and out of his mind by nap time (or way before nap time like today!), I really don't know if I should wake him and not let him sleep as much as he wants! I really don't know what to do anymore.

[HenaV]

I think you may be in an OT/UT cycle. 2h IMO is quite a long nap at this age. You may want to consider cutting it down to 1h45m in the first instance and see how that pans out. My dd borders on hsn and I had to do this at around 27m to manage a similiar problem. For her I pushed the nap out BT 15m, keeping WU the same.

Hth

Hena

[kaipooi]

Thanks HenaV. Normally he does not take a 2 hour nap anymore. Usually 1hr50min max. However, I have been letting him sleep 2hrs for the last few days as he was OT.

Anyways, he did a 2hr15min nap yesterday and I did not give him and EBT. EBT has not been working for the last 5 days, so I thought I would try something else. So I let him stay up but kept offering BT every 5 minutes and he finally agreed around his normal BT. He finally slept 11hours last night!

Then I noticed his tshirts were getting shorter this morning and he seems to have lost some weight! Big drama at nap time, I thought it was going to be our first NND. Till I finally asked him if he wanted to eat something, and he said yes! OMG! My poor baby was hungry! He is in a growth spurt and I did not realise it! I feel soooo terrible now... perhaps that is why he has not been sleeping well... oh the guilt!

[HenaV]

Don't feel guilty my lovely, how would you know. It's not like they come with a manual or sign post system. My dd for example can't sleep enough when She's having a growth spurt!!!

Hope things stay back on track for you xx

[kaipooi]

Oh HenaV! I am going bonkers! He did a 1hr45min nap all on his own yesterday and still took 1hr to go to sleep at BT!!! So if I understand what you said, I should do the following...

1. Keep WU the same
2. Push nap out by 15mins
3. Cut nap to 1.5hr (since 1hr45min did not work yesterday, let's cut another 15mins?)
4. Keep BT the same?

He woke at 8:25 this morning but was tossing since 7:50. He only went to sleep at 10:35pm last night! So it's a really short night...