26 month old...sleep issues, please help me!!

[lolopolo]

Hi everyone

I have been reading over all the posts somewhat related but im just getting a bit confused as to what to do!!

Ill try to keep this to the point:

•   I have a 26 month old Boy who has never been an amazing sleeper but has given us about 4 months of lovely naps and sleep…this has all started to go wrong .

•   We moved him in with his older (4yrs old) sister at Christmas and he’s still in a  crib

•   Has very good speech and has one 2 yr molar through…more to come of course!


Routine before:
S:  bed at 7pm asleep by 730pm
A: between 7am and 730am
Nap: 1-230pm

AS I said was a bad sleeper before and we really worked very hard to get him into the above routine…..

The problem:

A lot of messing at bedtime now, didn’t really mind this too much in the begining as the novelty of moving in with his sister etc  but its escalated:
•   Has started to refuse his nap at home in his crib, will sometimes sleep in his sisters bed or I do APOP in the car, buggy for an hours nap
•   Still naps for child-minder from 11:15am-12:15am in crib but  I have her wake him after an hour even though I know he’d sleep much longer if left but am afraid of MORE messing at BT
•   He’s always cranky after I wake him from nap!
•   Bedtime is a nightmare! They are in bed at about 730pm, my daughter usually is asleep by 8pm but my DS could be messing and calling me etc till 9pm
•   Also the last week have been getting NW and going hysterical that he wants to sleep with me so I caved and has been sleeping in our bed for the last 5 nights

I understand it’s a bit of SA and coupled with the molars but I had 19 months of constant ‘no sleep’ with him and the idea of him regressing is too much to bear!! 

I notice he gets very hyper in the evenings after I pick him up even though my CM tells me he was very sleepy all afternoon (sometimes she says that)

Routine now:
S:  bed at 730pm asleep by 830/9pm
A: between 630am and 700am
Nap: 11:15-12:15 or else APOP in car/buggy on my days off


So is he OT,UT….?

Im thinking of changing him into a BBB like his sister as hes refusing to get into cot now as well….

So a few questions:

Should I start cutting his nap completely? I feel like he still  needs one but am willing to try anything? Or give him more daytime sleep maybe?
Put them to bed separately. Hard to do as my husband works a lot of nights so am on my own alot ?

Just to throw in i'm 5 months pregnant and work full time and commute 2 hours a day so really need help  im beyond wrecked

Thanks you for reading and please help

From a broken Irish mammy 

[Truly Blessed]

Hello Hun,

Oh bless you, these LO's have such super timing!!! ugh So it does look like a routine tweak is needed, and although it is possible he may be heading into the 1-0, there are many different ways in which it manifests and many different ways you can handle it, all depending on how LO needs the sleep to be arranged in order to make it through with the maximum sleep you can achieve over a 24 hour period. So first of all here is a link for you:

The 1-0 transition...Advice and Tips to help you through.

It seems the shorter nights due to BT resistance, which IMHO has been due to UT initially, has resulted in him taking that earlier nap at the CM. It seems to me that now he may be stuck in an UT/OT loop YK  I wonder if the way forward would be to try for an earlier nap, but not quite so early, say midday, and keep capping at one hour to start with. APOP the nap as you are doing on your days off just until he hopefully catches up on the OT, and the hope would be that he will stop the BT resistance when caught up. At which point I would expect him to start to refuse the earlier nap altogether, then you could push it out later again, but keep capping at one hour. Stick with it for a few days, to see if when the nap is back to it's original time, he needs it cutting back again to 45 minutes.

I know that's a lot to take in sorry  .

WRT to moving him into a BBB let me just say this "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!" lol  Honestly, I don't think him refusing to go in his cot has anything to do with the cot itself, just sleep refusal. I speak from experience here as DS did the exact same thing, except he started to climb out at which point my hands were tied, and we had to make the transition. It may be worth putting something soft next to the cot to break a fall, just in case he gets the same idea  . The cot/bed transition may not go well and then you'd be adding more problems to the mix with him being able to get up and down which is not something you want to add to your current situation YK 

Also on nap refusal days IIWM I would bring BT forward more if you are able, trying to keep to an 11 hour day which is what LO's need when they go no nap.

Feel free to ask any more questions Honey, I hope this is helpful.

((HUGS))

x.

[Truly Blessed]

How's it going Honey 

x.