HELP! 17 mo old lost independent sleep and night wakes.

[scotpiper]

Help!! I have a 17 month old daughter. We have always had sleep problems with her. She has been on EASY since she was 6 months old, but has been very resistant to it. She had finally been sleeping about 12 hours a night with no wake ups and had been napping 1.5-2 hours a day. Usually only 1.5 hour naps. Naps continued to be a bit erratic no matter what we tried. Everything was thrown for a loop when she started on her first molar. A month ago, she woke up hysterical in the wee hours of the morning and was hysterical for several hours. She then started getting hysterical if we tried to leave her room at bedtime while she was still awake. Her doc said it was probably tooth pain and it scared her. We started giving her Motrin at bedtime as well as orajel and spent 2 weeks staying with her until she fell asleep. We only had to stand inside her room, by the door and talk to her when necessary. After 2 weeks, she was back to falling asleep after we left the room. 2 weeks ago, it started again. She just started getting hysterical one night when we tried to leave her room while awake....while still getting the pain meds. Nothing changed. No new teeth, just the usual swollen spots that are taking forever to appear. It now effects both naps and nights. She's now waking several times a night and we have to go in every time. Naps are short: 30 min to 1 hour. Early wakings have reappeared: 5 am is a favorite. She has always woken early (6-7am), but we're morning people, so it wasn't a big deal. We have no idea what's causing this or how to begin to stop it. She's clearly sleep deprived again and is having the typical toddler meltdowns during the day as well as whining and refusing to use the words she had been speaking before. Her Easy is (was):

6-6:30am - wake & BF
7am - breakfast
10:45 - snack
11am - nap (1-1.5 hrs...we haven't seen a 1.5 hr nap in a while!)
2pm - lunch
5pm - BF, dinner
6pm - start bedtime routine(read books, sponge bath, diaper change, pj's, then put her in crib and head for the door)
6:30 -  bedtime
What exactly is WI/WO and "gradual withdrawl?"

[mari]

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=80750.0

That is the link that explains the two methods.

I think that the short nap is having a knock on effect with the night time sleep, as the nap is so short she is overtired by bedtime.  Do you think that she could get a little teeny nap in around 9.30ish for about 20mins then do a nap of around 12-12.30pm and bedtime of 6.30-7pm.  Try the little nap just until you can get her on track and only if she has had nightwakings.  Hopefully, by the time naptime comes she won't be so tired and she will sleep a little longer for you.  It's ust a theory that worked for me with a baby that I care for.

[scotpiper]

Mari,
We know that the short naps/night wakes are a vicious circle with one effecting the other. DD basically chose to drop to the 1 nap when she started going absolutely crazy when we tried to put her down for an afternoon or morning catnap. Our house became much calmer when we stopped trying to force her to take any more than the 1 nap. Unfortunately, she dropped to 1 nap in her own style....without warning, before it was age appropriate and all at once! She has been this way about everything since birth! Since I wrote the post, she has started taking the occasional 2 hour nap, but not consistently. I was able to put her in her crib at naptime today and walk right out without a problem...like I used to. That hasn't happened in over a month. My husband put her to bed tonight, walked out while she was awake, she started yelling and he had to go back in, but was then able to walk right out. That also hasn't happened in a while. She has been having so many NW's that one of us winds up sleeping in her room most nights so we can get some sleep. She has been waking every 30 minutes for hours once she has her first NW for about a month. She stands in the crib and yells until we go to her. We have no idea why it started or how to stop it. We plan to sleep in the hall outside of her room with her door open if we continue to have the frequent NW's. I guess that would be considered gradual withdrawl?