Sleep Fighter-Need Help!

[AKislandgirl]

I need some suggestions. My 17 mo DD really fights bedtime every night. I feel lucky if I get her to sleep before 10:30pm. I do think that part of the problem is that it is so light out. We live in Alaska and it doesn't get dark till at least midnight. We have blackout shades for the bedroom but the rest of the house is not dark.

We've been doing a bedtime routine of night time diaper, pj's, brush teeth, tuck her baby dolls in to bed, read books, nurse, bounce to sleep on yoga ball. Every once in a while she will nurse to sleep but usually it takes bouncing on that blasted ball. She knows when we are getting to that point in the bedtime routine and kicks and squirms and doesn't want to be held. She tries to do laps around the house or cries if I won't read more books. It's exhausting. Skipping a nap won't work. She will crash at like 4 or something and then we are really in for it with an even later bedtime.

Help me! I need some new ideas to try. She's an active toddler and I just don't see how she can't be exhausted that late at night... I know I am!

[SpuglyRoo]

Ugh, I'm a totally with you on this one. Since we transitioned my DS (23 mo) from his crib to his toddler bed has been getting harder and harder to get to sleep. It used to take 5-20 minutes depending on how the day had gone, now it takes at least an hour, sometimes a lot more. (We can't put him back in the crib for two reasons, I'm due with #2 tomorrow, YAY! and we will need it, plus he tried climbing out of the crib and I'd rather he not fall out of it head first). And like your DD, if I try to get him to skip his nap he crashes at around 4 and then will be up all night.

We've tried a few things to fix it, including limiting his naptime to 2 hours or less, putting him down for nap earlier, making sure he eats a REALLY great dinner. None of them seemed to help too much.

Last night, however, three of my brothers were over visiting. My DS LOVES his uncles, and I decided that I wasn't going to fight with him tonight, it wasn't worth it, I just wanted a nice visit with my brothers. So after dinner we cleaned him up and got him completely ready for bed (usually we wait until bedtime to do this) and just let him go play and be with us while we talked and played games. You could see that he was fighting sleep because it was when he should be starting bedtime, but he wasn't fighting US because we were letting him do his thing. It was a calmer and more peaceful night than we have had in months. Around 9:30 I asked him if he wanted to sit and snuggle Mommy, and he climbed up into my lap but then started getting fussy. So I brought him to his room and he squeezed his arms around my neck for a few minutes. When he loosened his grip a bit to readjust his position I laid him down and he was OUT like 10 seconds later. No fussing and fighting. It was about a half hour later than he would normally fall asleep after and hour of fighting, but that may just be because we had company. So we are going to try it again tonight, but ask if he wants to snuggle a bit earlier, until he is once again used to going to bed without fighting us but at an acceptable time for us all.

I'm not sure if this is something that will work for you, but I thought it might help to hear another option and to know that you are not alone. It is soo frustrating because we KNOW they are tired, but they are so determined to be awake! Argh! Good luck, Momma!

[hrsmom]

Spuglyroo- that's awesome! Relaxing about the whole thing (whatever it is) always makes a big difference, I have found!

AKislandgirl, we have a late bedtime in the summer, too! I'd much rather my dd go to bed a little earlier and get up a little earlier, but we just roll with it. Can you adjust your schedule to a late bedtime, or does it need to be earlier? Could you move the bath to bedtime, that helps my dd relax for bed.

I thought of something else- do you dim the lights in the bedroom? You mentioned the blackout shades, so I'm guessing so? But wanted to suggest that having the room as dark as possible during the night time routine really helps around here!

[AKislandgirl]

Generally speaking I'm not too worried about a "set bedtime". I guess the real issue is dealing with a tired baby that just won't let go and fall asleep. Last night was a good night though and she crashed right after getting jammies on at 9:45. We played outside till 9:30 so she could barely keep her eyes open! Harder to do when its raining all the time but I think getting outside later in the evening to run off some energy may be really helpful. Instead of this long drawn out bedtime it was just jammies and nurse to sleep last night. Of course fire works were going off all night and we had a restless night but that's a whole different story! We're having a BBQ tonight so i have a feeling she'll be pretty wiped out again tonight.

[mckittre]

Right there with you. Alaska babies are hard in the summertime!

We've had some success with trying to keep a consistent time, and trying actually earlier than I would have thought. 8:30 works better than 9:30, and if I try 9:30, he's often up until 11! Also, I refuse to do anything that drives me nuts (like bouncing on a ball forever). If nursing to sleep doesn't work, I just get up with him again, or I lay there like a boring lump until he gives up and nurses to sleep (took about 12 times putting his animals to bed and popping up again last night, but went to sleep within 1/2 hour).

Naps are easy, strangely enough. Looking for good suggestions as well!