I Give Up

[JNate]

But the post by Gippie's mom helps me with this decision...

Nate is now just past 18 months, he's at a dayhome, naps once a day during the week for 1.5 hours, will nap for 3 hours on the weekend...

In early March we had early wakeups (5 or 5:30)/tired boy/early bed times (bed before 7)/one nap a day at the dayhome
Then we slowly slept a little later (6:30 or 7)
Then we slept a lot later (8am), adjusted bed time till later (bed 7:45) as a result
Then we started playing for 2 hours a night
Now we've stopped playing for 2 hours a night but are getting up at 5am

I can't keep up with all the changes he's going through so I'm going to stop trying to figure it out and just adapt as needed. I can't control how he naps at the day home, I can't figure out how to tweak his bedtime well enogh...

I would just like to know when this might settle down. I'm so frustrated by seeing friends with their toddlers who sleep predictably and well!!!!!!

[donna_issabella]

HUGS

I have no ideas, as this joy is still awaiting me, but thought you could do with a Good Luck, Keep the faith {HUG}.

DI

[Layla]

JNate - I can assure you that your toddler is not the only one waking up in the early hours of the morning or having crib parties in the middle of the night.

Do you think you could post your schedule for us and we'll try to work this out together.....

Layla

[macsmum]

I give up too my ds has slept 7 till 7 for 4 weeks now i am back to a crying toddler at 5.26 on the dot every morning
nothing has changed appart from he had chicken pox last week but was fine when he had them, now this

[AliP]

I'm so sorry to hear you're going through this.

Have you tried shifting bedtime earlier - back to 7pm?  

I also think there is no toddler who sleeps predictably or well all the time - it just seems like that.  All of my friends have problems of some kind at some stage.

[JNate]

Here's his new schedule:

wake up 5-5:30
bottle
dayhome
lunch 12ish
nap 12:30ish for 1.5 hours
home by 5pm
dinner 5:30
bath 7:15
bed 7:30ish

Note two nights ago we put him to bed earlier because it seemed he was tired and he was teething. Thats when he first slept through the night and woke up early. Last night we went back to his somewhat normal bedtime.

[becky1969]

We rarely had EW, but there were 2 periods (each lasted about a week) I can remember: right around 3 months, and then again about a month ago.   Owen would wake crying, just like you are describing.  I'm guessing, since your LO is a BW baby, that a 'normal' wake-up doesn't involve crying. Is that true? The crying tells us they don't REALLY want to wake-up, just something is bothering: pain, poo, or sleep issues.

What happened when we had those EW - both times - is I ignored the crying! I know we're not supposed to cry it out, but I finally figured out he wasn't TRULY awake. He would seem like it - standing in his crib, eyes open - but I think he was having almost a nightmare.  When I ignored the crying, ti actually stopped fairly quickly - <2 minutes - and then he went back to sleep! I was so thrilled! By the 3rd morning, he just stopped the crying altogether. I think my going in and responding at first was reinforcing whatever weird sleep habit was going on. The 5 am wakings at 3 months old also were accompanied by an early morning poo.  I changed when I gave him his last feed, and that fixed those as well.

My only other thought is that he's a touch OT by bedtime if his nap is only 1.5 hours, and he's got 5.5 hours before bed. My LO pretty much can only go about 4.5-5 right now.  5.5 definitely puts us into night waking territory. I've noticed that early wakers tend not to have night wakings, and vice versa. So, it could be just a matter of bringing bedtime forward a bit. When Owen's teething, he's extra tired so I have to make sure to offer nap and bedtime a little earlier than normal.

The only other thing I notice is that his napping is different during the week and on weekends. Perhaps the inconsistency is buggering his nighttime sleep. While we were going thru the 2-1 nap transition, Owen had lots of night wakings and other night sleep problems. I think it was b/c from day to day we could never predict how much daytimesleep he'd get, or whether it would happen in 1 or 2 naps.  You could try limiting those weekend sleeps a little to be closer to the weekday ones (say, no more than 2 hours) and see if that also helps.

[JNate]

I think I'll watch his bedtime a little more and also consider shorter weekend naps and see what happens.....

4 out of 5 nights this week he hasn't woken us up during the night. Yesterday he was awake at 6:15 (an improvement), today 5:45. He's definitely not tired in the evenings but I think we need to push bed time just a bit earlier.....

Its nice to know that its normal, I was getting tired of hearing about these angel toddlers!

[yaya]

Wish I knew the answer to your Q, my DS is same age and behaves same way, sometime 1 hr nap, sometime 3, sleeps well at night but then wakes early wakes at night, sleeps in late and all this when I change NO variables!!
All I have noticed is that the nap timing has a huge impact on sleep. I cannot let him sleep later than 2.30 so I try to get him to bed at 12.30 and he has  2 hrs max, otherwise it seems to affect night sleep: overtired, undertired etc.

i do agree with the earlier bedtime tho, it seemed to work so I'd stick with it not change back

[becky1969]

I'm pretending that these horrible toddler sleep changes are just our last "trial by fire" before blissful, consistent sleep that comes with an older child! I know I'm delusional, but it's how I get thru my day!    You're definitely not alone!! I know of plenty of babes who slept like angels up until they hit the 12-18 month range.  Lots going on in our LOs bodies, so it stands to reason that sleep will be challenging too! Good thing they're so cute, eh? And loveable! We're starting to get baby kisses over here, and I think I"m willing to endure some unpredictable sleep habits if he keeps on handing those out! 

[Layla]

JNate - try to stick to same routine at home on the weekends as daycare. So no 3hr naps  ... wake him up after 2 hrs to protect the bedtime and keep his little internal clock regular

And as for angel toddlers..... well I got one of each. An angel toddler who pretty much has been consistent other than during the 2-1 switch and an absoulute grump baby (who is to be a toddler in about a week) and I can assure you... she is as inconsistent as they can get... has always been and doesn't take well to changes at all! So this will be me posting in about 4 months asking for help....

 

[JNate]

I did some reading the last week, Dr Ferber's book. It helped me understand sleep schedules a little bit better...

Anyways, Nate has really settled into a 10hr sleep schedule so I just have to figure out how to best manage it. We think we were putting him to bed too early, which was both affecting how long it took him to go to sleep and also making him wake up during the night.

Knock on wood/computer, things are settling down. We put him to bed around 8pm and he's sleeping till 6ish. We haven't had long play sessions during the night and wakeups have been reduced to much more manageable where some nights we don't even have to get up.

I've no clue how long this will last but it sure is less stressful.

The one up/downside is that while we have more time to play in the evening, we have less time to get things done in the evenings....