seriously at my witts end

[luchi]

Okay, I'm at a loss   Marie, I'm back again...
dd is almost 16 months old and has never been a good sleeper.  It's a battle we've been fighting (and losing) since she was born.  The past few months, however, her naps extended to an hour and forty five minutes on a good day and she would get about 11 or 12 hours of sleep at night--though she would get up for a bottle around five am.
These past few days though, she's clearly overtired, and I have no idea what to do.  She started by gettinig up and staying up for two hours in the middle of the night.  Her nap has gone to an hour and a half, tops.  I have been putting her in her crib at seven, and she yaps to herself until nine pm.  She doesn't cry, just talks to herself.  On Tuesday night, she still woke up at four and stayed awake until six.  Wedesday night she woke up at five thirty, had her bottle, and went back to sleep till 8 am.  Last night though, I was ready to give her away.  She yapped until nine pm, slept until 11pm, and then was up until THREE THIRTY in the morning.  I didn't know what to do.  Then she only slept until nine am, and had a one hour and twenty minute nap.  I put her down tonight at six pm, to make up for the lost sleep.  She slept until six thirty, cried a bit, we did wiwo, and she settled down, she cried again about twenty minutes later and we did wiwo again, and now it's nine twenty, and she's still yapping to herself. 
Last night, she was hysterical.  Laughing out loud at nothing, kicking, etc--the way you get when you're crazy tired.  I should mention, that we have tried everything starting when she was nine monhts old.  We did pd for three weeks with no success, wiwo for two weeks with little success, and then I started my own version of gradual withdrawal which worked a couple of months ago but has since lost its charm.  She's going to sleep independently, it just takes her HOURS to do it.  Am I missing something?
Her routine right now (VERY LOOSE) is like so
5 or 6 am--bottle
8 am--wake
8:30--breakfast
11:15--lunch
11:40--bottle and nap She normall falls asleep around 12:15 or 12:30pm
1:45-2:00pm--wake and snack
5:00--dinner
6:00-6:45pm--bath, and night time wind down
6:45-7pm, bed

Any help would be greatly appreciated.  Thanks so much...

[Katet]

I have found that both my boys kick & roll around & chatter/laugh etc when they aren't actually tired enough to go to sleep & when they are really overtired they cry & need company & me to help them relax, so I have to think you might be reading her sleep needs wrongly???
& looking at your routine the hours in bed are roughly 13 + the 1.5 hour nap, so that is 14.5 hours or more in bed
The normal "down time" for around her age is 13.5 in 24 hours & down time actually includes them falling asleep not when they actually sleep & it looks like you have a pretty long wind down too... so I'm wondering if you aren't asking for too much sleep/ time in bed & so while "mentally" she is tired due to poor sleep, she hasn't had enough activity to be "physically tired"... I know with my ds#2 that he has always slept worse if we have quiet days & not enough stimulation
I'm thinking that you should probably wake her up 11.5 hours after bedtime (ie the time you put her to bed) then nap 5.5 hours later but start the wind down at 5hours 20mins & then make sure that you give her some really physical time both in the am & pm.

[Layla]

Luchi - how's everything going???

[luchi]

Well, I thought we were making progress...that night she fell asleep at nine thirty pm and slept until 7am.  We gave her two naps that day (she hasn't taken two naps in a few months) and she slept forty minutes in the am (we woke her) and an hour and twenty minutes in the pm.  We put her in bed at 8, and she was asleep by 8:15am.  She woke up at six, had a bottle and slept til 8am.  We thought maybe we should try two naps again, so we did her routine and put her in her crib, but she didn't take her morning nap.  She only slept an hour and twenty minutes in the afternoon.  Last night we had her ready for bed by 7:30pm, but she talked until nine pm.  She woke up at two because she had done a poo.  I changed her and she was screaming hysterically.  She finally calmed down, and was up until five am...She slept until nine am.  I didn't want to wake her any earlier, since she only got nine hours of night sleep in total.  I'll give her a pm nap and an early bed time tonight and see what happens. 
Correct me if I'm wrong, but nine hours of night sleep (which she has been averaging) and an hour and a half nap, is simply not enough?  I have noticed she's a much happier baby on about 13 hours sleep. 
I know Katet said that she has too much time in bed, but when she's only sleeping for nine hours, and playing the rest, I'm not going to shorten her sleep time.  We go out every morning--she has gymboree, music, swimming, etc, so she's pretty stimulated before nap time. 
The reason I haven't been waiting the 5.5 hours before her nap is because Marie suggested I bring her nap earlier since she's not getting enough sleep...
What do you think is going on?

[Layla]

I would actually experiment with just 1 nap and as Kate said, make it 5.5hrs after she woke up. Wake her up at 7am and give her a nap at 12.30pm. I really don't think she needs 2 naps when she wakes at 7am - most 16mo's are on 1 nap.

If you are going to let her sleep till 8 or 9am then push the nap to be 5.5hrs from A time.


Layla

[MDHmommy]

I agree with Layla - FWIW my 16 month old (also not a great sleeper) has about 11 hours of night sleep - usually with a few very brief wakes of maybe 1 min, 2 min each. Then he does 5.5 hours morning awake time, 2 hour nap and 4.5 hours awake in the eve before bed.

At this age - I have found and I know others in the Nov/Dec 05 birth club have also found that you've got to be a bit more firm in enforcing what you expect LO to do at bed and in the night. I know she's chatting/playing in her crib at bed time, what are you doing with her during the night when she wakes for those long stretches?