19 mos --- monster at night

[momofowen]

OK - Olivia goes through her moments where she is sleeping through the night, but it only takes one tiny thing to mess it up. 

She is 19 months old, she naps for 1 1/2 hours in hte PM and goes to sleep about 6:30.  She 99% of the time wakes at 11.30 then again at 5 - or sometimes she wakes at 3.  She was taking a sippy of milk to bed with her until I walked in and saw her with it dangling in her mouth.  we stopped that cold turkey.  She will wake still looking for a drink - we stopped with milk before bed and now gets 50/50 juice water during reading and song time in her room. 

when she wakes at night she wants her juice, we will take her out of the crib and give her some drink for a minute, then we will put her back to bed.  If we pat shh her, she will go back to sleep for about 5 min, hten start crying again.  The other night she wimpered and cried on and off for 45 minutes, we went in a few times, but for the most part layed and listened.  She was not hysterical, just calling Mommy - dada- juice, my baby, milk, etc... I can not take anymore of the waking at night.  I could use some advice on how to get her to sleep through. 

[georgia's mama]

Hi there, sounds like things have been kind of tough.  Our daughter goes through periods of sleeping through and waking as well and it sure does throw everything out of sync.

We also used to give Georgia milk in her crib but changed it to water for the sake of her teeth and a theory I read about where children will get used to being hungry for milk if they are given it on a regular basis during the night, therefore waking for it and having a wetter diaper, being uncomfortable, waking earlier, etc...it worked for us and we leave it in there all night.  If she has a hard time switching to strictly water (if that's what you want to do ) try to cut the juice out more during the day as well so it's not such a shock at bedtime.

We also try very, very hard not to take her out of her crib during the night unless she is sick or in pain and will resort to the PD if necessary.  Could you still meet her needs while she is in the crib?  She may also get more woken up if she is taken out of her crib.  We also do not go in her room unless we think something is wrong - other than the usual peeks - (even if she begins to cry or whimper) and that took awhile getting used to not rushing in but now for the most part she will put herself back to sleep.  I didn't use the shhh...pat for Georgia but I remember reading that once they get past a certain age it isn't super effective anymore.  Maybe someone else could help you out with that.

Maybe you could try a later bedtime...wake for Georgia is usually around 7:30/8:00, nap at 12:30 (1.5-2.5 hrs) and bed at 7:30/8:00.
There is also a book I read about sleeping habits and it says that on average children 18 mos - 2 yrs require app. 13 - 13.5 hrs of sleep where 11 hours of that is evening sleep and the rest is nap time.  This has sort of helped us gauge what her daytime schedule should look like for wake hours and sleeping hours.  Maybe she is getting too much sleep.  The other thing it talks about is their sleeping pattern and it typically looks like this:

initial 2 or 3 hours is deep sleep
next 7 or 8 is light sleep and dreaming (this is noted where alot of night wakings occur)
the last hour or two is deep sleep

Georgia will still have difficulty some mornings transitioning between the last 2 stages of sleep and will wake around 6:00/6:30 - we go in and lay her back down and she is out again for another 1.5 hours.  This has gone on for several months and happens often but not every night - it is apparently developmental and quite common.

Hopefully all of this helps and I can only offer what we have done.  Let me know if you want any more info from the book and let me know how things go.  Sorry no one replied sooner, it's hard when you are losing sleep.

ps.  can you nap when she does or get someone to watch her for a couple hours for you to get some rest? or better yet arrange a sleep over?

take care
Michele

[Katet]

Firstly I think as with the pp, you should try to avaoid taking her out, keep any attention to the absolute minimum. Then I'd say 100% water, stop the juice, part for her teeth as it will hang around & can rot them (just as bad as milk after you have cleaned them) & also that juice will probably make her a bit "hungry" as it has calories so her body is in a "habit" of needing night time calories. drop it back to 40/60, then 30/70 etc. if you find cold turkey too hard.

Then for us what worked was just going in, re-assuring, leaving going back... hard work, but Aiden got the idea we responded, but that was all.

HTH

[imsmum]

My 19 mo old dd has the early waking thing going on too (although today she slept from 7 until 6--yippee)  but normally she wakes up around 9 1/2 to 10 hours after falling asleep regardless of when that is!

Michele--Thanks for the post about the sleeping pattern.  I know dd has trouble at the 2 to3 hour mark going from deep sleep to lighter sleep so it makes total sense that she would have an even harder time going from a light sleep to a deeper one, especially after  nearly a full night's rest.  The trouble is my dd will not go back to sleep unless she wakes really early ie. before 5 am  and it usually takes about 1 1/2 for her to fall back to sleep.  How do you get your dd to fall back to sleep right away??  And does the sleep book happen to mention if and when developmentally they grow out of this??  Do you mind saying which book it is--I thought for sure I had every sleep book going!

[georgia's mama]

imsmum...sorry it took me so long to reply, I couldn't get onto the forum - the book is called "Solve Your Child's Sleep Problem's" and though this may scare alot of people off, the author is Richard Ferber, he is the big CIO theorist.  I don't personally agree with CIO and on that end of things am a devoted BW, however he has really helped me gain more insight into the sleeping patterns of my lo.  It has been extremely useful and I refer to it (and my BW) every single time.

With all that said, Georgia went through a period of time where she would wake no later than 5:30 - it nearly killed me, so I know how you feel.  I decided that despite her being ready to start her day that this was way too early for me.  After reading through the above book I realized that she was having trouble transitioning into that last stage of sleep so we did the PD with her in the am and it took at least a week of really being consitent and sticking to it for it to work - I also had to come to terms with her maybe needing to go to one nap and possibly a later bedtime but always one thing at a time, right?  Periodically this would creep back up but we decided as well that some days we just may not be able to get her back to sleep but would not take her out of her crib until 7:00...so she could play or we would do PD until 7:00 and then it was time to start her day.

if that isn't it...

It sounds like your daughter is starting her day at 5:00 and having an early nap at 7:30 (which may throw the rest of her day off) - in the book it's called an "early sleep phase" and what they suggest is to push her whole day back beginning at the time you would like her to wake, for example 7:00 am, so (you may have to do this gradually) you would start with not letting her go back to bed, keep her up until an appropriate nap time and so eventually all her naps, meals and bedtime would coincide with her later wake time (in this case 2 hours later)- remember that we can always adjust their sleep patterns but not the amount of sleep they require (19 months app. 11 hours pm sleep, 2.5 nap).

does she have one or two naps?  how long are they?  does she cry when she wakes at 5:30 or is she happy and ready to go?  what time does she go to bed?

at 21 months (and probably since she was about 17 months ) this is what Georgia's schedule looks like

7:30 ish wake
8:00 breakie
12:00 lunch
12:30 nap (2-3 hrs)
6:00 supper
7:15 ish bath
8:00 bedtime

if she wakes before 7:00 we try to get her back down

hope this helps - keep me posted