Query

[samb]

My darling daughter, Rebecca (Becky for short), is around 13 and a half months, she turns 14 months on the 14th, and since last night just won't go to sleep in her cot.  I put her to bed at around 7pm last night and as soon as I left the room she burst into tears, and after going up a few times she just wouldn't go to sleep, and ended up going to bed with us, naughty I know, but it's the only way we could get her to sleep.

Tonight is the same, she just won't sleep in her cot.  Again I put her to bed after giving her a bottle (the same as last night), and again she won't go to sleep.  As I type this she is currently downstairs with me (it's almost 9pm).

The thing is, what do I do?  From being born, she has slept almost right through, but it's only since yesterday that she just won't go to bed at the same time that she's always gone.  Do I try keeping her up, and try putting her to bed when I go up, or do I carry on putting her to bed at her normal time?

[samb]

Thought I'd get a routine posted up.

6.30ish, comes to bed with me and we watch a bit of tv

7am - 7.30 she has her breakfast, after that she gets dressed

8.30 onwards plays with her toys, has some dilute

12ish she has some lunch, whatever I have in the cupboard, she then plays with her toys again or we have some mum and daughter time.

Naps during the afternoon if shes tired, this varies from day to day, sometimes she has a nap, other days she doesn't.

4.30 - 5, she has some tea.

6.45 - 7, she has hetr bottle and bed

[Florencia]

Hi Sam!

There could be a combination of things what's going on here. Overtiredness is my bet since she's not napping much and if she does, she does it in the afternoons. At her age and given her wake up time she should be having at least one nap around 12:30, 1PM tops. She might not seem tired (cause toddlers are like the energizer bunny) but i bet she is, and her way to express it is by resisting bedtime cause when it finally comes she's too tired to relax and go to sleep easy. Tricky, I know cause we adults crash if we're tired but toddlers work in different ways.

I strongly suggest you to try and introduce a nap around 12:30 or 1 PM. Try and lay her and the first days she might just want quiet time cause it's a new way to do things and she might resist it, but if you remain consistant you should get her napping regularly at that hour. Preserving a 7/730 Pm bedtime if she had at least 1 hour nap, and 630/645 if the nap was shorter than that should help as well.

If you have troubles laying her down, i suggest you to look at the FAQ section of this board under a thread called Teaching Independent Sleep, so you can read through the 3 different methods we work with and pick the one you think will suit you and her best.

Also, teething might be in the mix. She's in the exact age when toddlers start teething her 1 year molars and that's also a sleep buster. OFfering pain meds (ok'd by your ped) 30 mins before bed should help you out too.

But my main suggestion is introducing and persevering with the nap. As she grows into toddlerhood she'll need that recharge in the middle of the day and if she misses it, you might face night wakings and disrupted issues in the future.

HTH and post back if you need aditional info. Good luck!

[samb]

Thanks for the information.  She's had a sleep at lunchtime today, had an hour and a quarter, 1pm till 2.15pm.

I think what part of the problem is that next door below us have had some of that crazy paving done, and at 9pm Tuesday night they were still finishing the paving off, She had no sleep yesterday, Wednesday, she fell asleep at 6.30 last night and I heard nothing until 5.45 this morning, plus she was in her cot, so I think that might have been part of the problem.  I'm going to wait and see how she goes on tonight, I hope that things go well like last night.

I think she could be teething a nit as well as she seems to chew her fingers over the course of the day.