The dreaded day has arrived

[NikiJ]

Hi Girls

I need your help & if I'm completely honest, I should have asked for your help weeks ago but I've been putting it off & now I need to get this sorted.

DD came down the stairs to me after her nap today   I heard a bang (which isn't unusual b/c she throws her books out of the cot when she is finished) & then she came downstairs.  She's 2 & a half now so I'm not really surprised & tbh we (dh & I) have had our suspicions that she's been in & out of her cot for a couple of weeks but we never caught her out of bed.

So obviously the sides have to come off the cot bed now.

The problem?

Madi has been falling to sleep quite late for the last few weeks.  Maybe 10/12 weeks.  She goes to bed at 8 but might not go to sleep until 11, rarely before half 9.  She really isn't going to go to sleep any earlier just because she is in a bed unfortunately.

The main problem, I think, is that we have to leave a lamp on when we put her to bed.  She gets nightmares & is afraid of the dark.  So b/c the lamp is on she reads & plays & she can do this for hours.

DD wakes at between 8 & half past.  She has an hour & a half nap at 2.

Bedtime routine starts at 7pm if she is having a bath (can't always) & half 7 if not.  We change into pj's, have cuddles (she won't let us read her stories anymore), wee, teeth & bed.

Any suggestions or comments greatly appreciated.

Niki

[Izzy-B's mommy]

My only suggestion would be that maybe she doesn't need a nap anymore.. I say this b/c my dd (also 2.5yrs) has now stopped napping.   When she turned about 26mths she started not falling asleep well at night.  Then after awhile, started refusing her naps on most days (and started sleeping better at night). She would go into her room for her nap but ended up playing the whole time.  Now what we do is she has quiet time on the couch with a movie, her lovey,pillow & blanket for about an hour and she's rested at the end, falls right asleep at night.   ~~  She also needs her night light at night, but we just have a dim one.

Not sure if that helped you at all.. 

[ryan's mum]

It could be her late nap time , could you try shifting nap time earlier ? If Ryan naps any later than 2.30pm we are in for a long night trying to get to sleep .The mornings Ryan is up at 8am (rare ) he has a nap at 1pm-2pm/2,30pm .If he's up in the morning at 7/7.30am then nap is 12-2pm .With your DD having a nap later on in the day she may not be tired enough at bedtime .Ryan has to have a light in his room too but he has a very dim one . Not long ago Ryan had a pead appt right at nap time so he had to go without , Ryan had a different idea and conked out at 3pm on the sofa (in the time it took me to make a cup of tea  )he slept till 5pm , i put him to bed at 8.30pm instead of 7.30 and he was still awake at 11.30pm and i was up and down like a yo-yo to his room . I will never make that mistake again and it made me realise that he still needs his nap

[mari]

If Alex sleeps past 2.30pm she has a late night.  I try to get her nap around 12.30-1pm and I wake her at 2.30pm.  Have you tried an earlier nap?  Perhaps thenn she will go to bed for you a little earlier than 8, which is quite late for a toddler.

[evanskimberley]

With the light thing how about a light on a timer and get an angel to sleep by her bed to look after her? Holly had bad nightmares for a while and her godparents bought her a dream catcher for her window and an angel to sleep on her bedside table - its worked wonders!!!

Holly has slept soooo much better since we put her in a toddler bed with a duvet and proper pillow. She is just comfier!

[mari]

Dream catchers are good if you tell them a story about it.

My niece used to have awful dreams and my sister told her penpal from Oklahoma (her Ancesters were Red Indians) and she sent her a dreamcatcher and told her a little story about how it worked so my sister told her dd and they hung it above her bed.  she didn't have bad dreams until one night, she woke up and called my sister who went in and my niece said that she'd had a bad dream and my sister said, 'that's strange, I wonder why the dreamcatcher didn't catch the bad dream'  Then they put the light on and the dreamcatcher had fallen on the floor!!!     

Freaky eh!  It's probably a mind over matter thing but it was wierd.

[esthere]

Hi Niki ,
We took off the bars of the cotbed after Christmas, but also, Harry dropped his nap around this time, now he has quiet time with his books, for an hour in the afternoon. Just before he dropped the nap, he was not falling asleep until after 9 now he is back to being asleep by 7pm.

[NikiJ]

Thanks Girls

Tonight was a great success.  We made a bit of a big deal about taking the bars off her bed & she loves it.  She went to bed at 8 & sound asleep by half 8

I have tried without success to make her take her naps earlier.  The earliest she will take it is half past one.  When she was smaller & had 2 naps this was the time of her second nap & when we don't the first nap, she wouldn't change the second nap so we just carried on as normal

I must admit though, that 8 is the earliest I can put her to bed, for our own convinience really.  Dh likes to spend time with dd after work & then 2 evenings a week (starts at 7:30 for an hour on Tuesday & 2 hours on Thursday) we go to church & she won't sleep at church, so having a later bed time means she isn't as irritable as she could be.

I am definately going to try to make her nap time a bit earlier.  She still needs a nap.  So just have to go & try to figure out how to do that.

That's for the help again girls.

Niki

[evanskimberley]

How about wakin gher up in the morning a bit earlier? What time does she get up? If you woke her up for a few mornings do you think she's get tired enough after a few days to creep the nap forward by an hour.