Parents of LOW needs sleepers I need advice! UPDATE #73

[sosurreal09]

DD has always had low sleep needs...since birth literally.

I have always dealt with it by following her cues and going with her natural flow. We have always bee fine. Now she's 17 m/o and we are having bedtime issues. When she was younger than 1 y/o bedtime was at 7 or 8pm. Then it was 8:30, then 9, now it's who-knows-when.

She naps around 1 or 2 pm for 2hrs usually. I aim for a 9pm bedtime. She will not go to bed. We have our routine and our wind-down and all that good stuff she is so used to. She doesn't even cry really (except initially when the lights go off she throws a little fit) DH and I always lay with her while she had milkies and drifts to sleep, except as of late there is no drifting! She will just be awake fore HOURS. Last night (almost every night the past IDK 5 days) we fell asleep before her (11pm) and she was still awake, I have no idea what time she fell asleep. She stays with us in the bed and will cuddle or sit up or play with my hair. She doesn't try to leave or anything.

She has been waking up around like 8 or 8:30, sometimes later, as late as 10am some days...

IDK if she's sleeping enough overall, She's a very high needs, highly emotional, sensitive child along with this so it is hard to tell sometimes if lack of sleep is affecting her mood.

IDK what to do...She always went to bed late but at least DH and I had a couple hours before we went to sleep...now we have nothing!

[insidevoice]

I think I would try to shift her sleep time earlier, but that's because I don't know what life would be like without a kid waking me before 6 am. :)

I know that when my little ones are unable to sleep at night in a reasonable period of time, it is usually because I missed the sleep window earlier in the evening.  For one of them that is about 6pm, and the other is usually asleep at about 7- my younger child is the one who sleeps later, my nearing three year old wants to be in bed and asleep by 6pm. They both wake between 5 and 6 in the morning, and nap for about 1.5 hours after lunch. 

If I let either of them stay up past 7:30 in the evening, they won't sleep until well past midnight. 

[sosurreal09]

But it was very normal for her to go past 6 or 7 pm. I got her into bed by 8 the other night and she was up from 2am until 5:30 am! No lie! She has low sleep needs and if she's in bed too early or will even fall asleep but is under tired I am in trouble b/c she will have a few hour stretch in the middle of the night and that is even worse!

[insidevoice]

Are you sure she really has low sleep needs?  I thought the same with my first, and it wasn't until I tried a last-resort approach of a much earlier bedtime that I  discovered she was accustomed to less sleep, but really needed more. 

Have you read Sleepless in America? 

[sosurreal09]

I have not read that.

I do think she's genuinely low sleep needs b/c we tried sleep schedules/routines for MONTHS AND MONTHS AND MONTHS and it just never worked. It was hell on earth getting her to nap and she was up all night and miserable all day and it completely consumed my life trying to get her to sleep all the time and she was miserable. Even at a few weeks old she wouldn't just fall asleep in the wrap she would be up for like 3hrs then take a 45 min nap then be up again. She never had that sleep-all-day newborn phase. I had her at the birth center 2hrs away from us and at 5hrs old she was awake the whole 2hr drive! I was shocked!

Once I stopped trying to get her to sleep so much everything got so much better. She got into her own little routine and we were doing great with it since she was about 9 m/o. She has regressions here and there of course and she's never STTN and is still night nursing anywhere from 1-5x a night. Recently before this new thing she was sleeping 5hrs between feeds normally. She was recently sick and was up a lot. She just never seems tired enough for bed anymore it is so weird. She's calm though not like wired, When she is overtired and goes to sleep she will usually wake up really early, and then I know she was OT.

So her patterns are

OT- early waking (6am or earlier)

UT- waking for hours long stretches in middle of night

Obvs an ideal would be like a 7-7 schedule but she only does 11hr nights usually and always has. She used to sleep 8pm-7am alright, but that was months ago. More recently it was 9pm-8/9am which was more sleep than usual and for longer stretches between nursing and waking. Now she just never seems tired at night and it's getting later and later...

It's 9:45 am and she's still sleeping now. I think she fell asleep around 11:30pm....

[insidevoice]

It really sounds like she's getting some decent blocks of sleep at night, so I think I would simply be inclined to wake her earlier.  I know a lot of parents who let the kids stay up later and pretty much go to bed at the same time, and if that works for you it's fine.  For me- I need a little downtime in the evening to not go completely nuts.  

My youngest isn't a great sleeper- for the first year I maxed out at 3-4 hours a day with him, but he's making the shift.  He'll go to bed at about 7 but often needs to get up for about 15 minutes between 9 and 10 for a snack, a run though the living room,  and a few extra hugs.  After that he goes right back to bed.  

[Tattooed Hand]

I feel your pain. My DD sleeps 10-11 hours a night and not a minute more. She sleeps 1.5 hours during the day if we are lucky, sometimes as little 1 hour of sleep a day. I have literally spent months of my life trying to get this child to sleep. I read all the books that told me she needed to be getting more sleep and I stressed that she wasn't. I tried all the tricks. I tried to put her to sleep earlier and she did what your DD does, which is wake up for hours in the middle of the night. Although you are lucky that your DD sleeps in. Mine has never slept in past 7am and that's late for her. We were stuck in a rut at one point where she was going to bed too early or too late (like 9-11pm) and We finally got her schedule to the point where her bedtime (depending on her naps) is between 7-8 and she sleeps until 6-7 am. It took alot of work. I wonder if you could wake her up earlier, like 7am. And then maybe encourage an earlier nap time, like around 12 or 12:30. It just sounds like her whole schedule has moved off. My DD won't go to bed within 5 hours of when she wakes from her nap.

[sosurreal09]

Well yesterday since she woke up at 10 she wouldn't nap until 2:30, then we had company over and I lost track of time. She slept till 5:30! Frig.

She was up till 10:30 then up at 7:45 today....

I always aim for a nap right after lunch, but I can't force her to nap. She will just lie their awake KWIM? She was always like that. I have tried shhing and patting and leaving and everything and it's mother but nothing works.

I am hoping she will be tired enough for an earlier nap so we can hopefully have a decent bedtime!

[tzs]

if our naptime gets too late i just skip it, suffer through the evening grumpiness and aim for an early but not too early bedtime. or if she's really tired i'll let her nap but leave the door open and make sure to be plenty noisy and if that doesn't make for a short nap (one cycle...about 45 minutes or so) then i'll go in and wake her up...also by just being noisy and letting her wake on her own. 

but we haven't really had any problems with being awake at night yet (knock on wood!!!)

[belltree]

I gave up on all the sleep scheduling, it just does not seem to work for us. He sleeps when he's tired and that's it. If I want him to go to bed earlier, I have to wake him in the morning. My 16month old needs on average about 10.5hrs of sleep per day, including all naps. He usually naps 15min and is fully recharged for the rest of the day. More when he's sick or having growth spurts. If I put him to bed too early, he'll just wake up in the middle of the night and play.

My advice would be figuring out how much sleep your child needs over a couple of days and then slowly moving it to times that suit you better by waking her at appropriate times.

[lifeguard]

Almost everyone in the world seems to believe that babies/young children should go to bed early & wake early after a 12 hour night. Some of them just don't work that way but it sure is hard to feel you are doing things right when the above is the message you keep getting.

I could have written your post word for word except for the high needs portion (ds is actually very easy going). The things that we have found have worked best for us:

- acceptance that I'm NOT a bad mother 'cause my babe goes to bed later than most.

- keep the nap but not allow it to go past a certain time - for us we aim for a 1:30-3:30 nap time - it's not always 2 hours but I rarely let it go past 3:30.

- when he starts creeping into sleeping in later & later (which happens for us from time to time) I force myself to get him up by a certain time - generally 8:30/9:00 is what we use so that he is adequately tired that night.

Would I like more time to myself in the evenings (especially as I am a night owl)? Yeppers! But this is the schedule that works for ds & I'm not going to put my wants above his needs. I've spent my whole life being told I'm wrong & lazy for sleeping to my natural sleep schedule but when I do I'm much happier & healthier.

[Peony]

My almost 2y is doing the late nights and late morning sleeping in thing with some several hour awake periods in the middle of the night here and there as well. He usually gets 10-11 hours at night, naps are hit or miss, could be 30 minutes or 2 hours, I never know. Right now if I have him out by 9:30 then I am doing good, some nights it is 1am. Waking him up early in the morning doesn't help him go to bed earlier, I just have a cranky toddler all day. With 2 other children in the house, he often does have to get woken up in the morning, nothing I can do about it. He can sleep in till 8 on the dot usually before I have to wake him up and throw him in the car seat, but those days where we don't have to be someplace, he will often sleep in till 10:30 or 12:30 like last weekend. We just keep trucking along, hoping eventually he will shift one of these days. I feel like I've tried everything, nothing left but to wait it out. 

[JamieB]

Originally Posted by insidevoice 

Are you sure she really has low sleep needs?  I thought the same with my first, and it wasn't until I tried a last-resort approach of a much earlier bedtime that I  discovered she was accustomed to less sleep, but really needed more. 

Have you read Sleepless in America? 

Yes yes yes to this. I also could have written your exact post. My ds would skip naps and then stay up till midnight because I could not get him to sleep. Nothing worked. Then I read Sleepless in America and it was like nitgh and day. Cannot recommend that book enough. Definitely read it.

Originally Posted by sosurreal09 

IDK if she's sleeping enough overall, She's a very high needs, highly emotional, sensitive child along with this so it is hard to tell sometimes if lack of sleep is affecting her mood.

IDK what to do...She always went to bed late but at least DH and I had a couple hours before we went to sleep...now we have nothing!

High needs, highly emotional and sensitive could really just be overtired. It was with my ds, although he still isn't the most easygoing child ever, he is a lot better. I used the advice from Sleeples in America and it worked wonders.

Good luck mama. I know it is so so hard.

[crunchy_mommy]

Originally Posted by lifeguard 

Almost everyone in the world seems to believe that babies/young children should go to bed early & wake early after a 12 hour night. Some of them just don't work that way but it sure is hard to feel you are doing things right when the above is the message you keep getting.

I could have written your post word for word except for the high needs portion (ds is actually very easy going). The things that we have found have worked best for us:

- acceptance that I'm NOT a bad mother 'cause my babe goes to bed later than most.

- keep the nap but not allow it to go past a certain time - for us we aim for a 1:30-3:30 nap time - it's not always 2 hours but I rarely let it go past 3:30.

- when he starts creeping into sleeping in later & later (which happens for us from time to time) I force myself to get him up by a certain time - generally 8:30/9:00 is what we use so that he is adequately tired that night.

Would I like more time to myself in the evenings (especially as I am a night owl)? Yeppers! But this is the schedule that works for ds & I'm not going to put my wants above his needs. I've spent my whole life being told I'm wrong & lazy for sleeping to my natural sleep schedule but when I do I'm much happier & healthier.

This, exactly (although my DS *was* high-needs*) -- I spent a long time thinking there was something wrong with me or him but really, he is a thousand times happier & more rested & easy-going when we goes to bed at 11:30pm and wakes up around 10am... he takes a short nap around 1pm most days so gets about 11-12 hours of sleep every 24 hours, and I think that's within average. Sure, it would be nice to have that time at the end of the day to unwind, but TBH I much prefer sleeping in a bit anyway... I would NOT be a happy camper if I had to be up & chasing a toddler at 5am or something!!! It took quite a while to figure out that he just isn't going to be the kind of kid that goes to bed by 8pm, and that early bedtimes meant less sleep for all of us...

It doesn't sound to me like your DD is getting too little sleep... although it would concern me that she is wide awake for a couple hours in the middle of the night... that, to me, signifies her bedtime may be off a bit & you may need to play around with very early or very late bedtimes to figure out how she can max out her sleep. However, around 18mos we had a sleep regression and it seems like that is a typical age for sleep issues, so that could be part of it... plus daylight savings time, if that affects you (DS was waking up about an hour+ early for the last few weeks & hopefully now will get back on track with the time change!)

[sosurreal09]

Jamie- She really and truly is a very high neds and SPIRITED child. I like spirited better. She is very expressive and I am fine with it it's who she is. She still cries like a newborn..ear peircing screams when she is upset or wants/needs something. If she is sick or teething forget it crying like all day long. It is not simply over tired...

Well yesterday she was in bed at 8:30pm and then at 12am was up for an hour, woke up at 8:30am...

[JamieB]

Originally Posted by sosurreal09 

Jamie- She really and truly is a very high neds and SPIRITED child. I like spirited better. She is very expressive and I am fine with it it's who she is. She still cries like a newborn..ear peircing screams when she is upset or wants/needs something. If she is sick or teething forget it crying like all day long. It is not simply over tired...

Well yesterday she was in bed at 8:30pm and then at 12am was up for an hour, woke up at 8:30am...

You said in your OP that you don't know that she is getting enough sleep overall.....but you know that her being overtired is not playing a role in her spiritedness?  I don't really know what to say to that.  You don't have to listen to any advice here, but you did ask for it.  Staying up late, having to be woken in the morning and fighing sleep are all signs of being overtired. 

[sosurreal09]

I wasn't saying she wasn't over tired I was just trying to say she is very spirited no matter how much sleep she gets, of course she can be even more of a challenge when she is OT. I apologize if it sounded like I was disregarding your advice.

[Friday13th]

This is totally opposite of what everyone else is saying but at that age DS1 started taking HOURS to go to sleep and HOURS to fall asleep for a nap.  So we gave up the nap.  He was a little crabby at dinner time for a couple weeks but out like a light by 7:30 and slept until 8 or 8:30 in the morning.  I couldn't deal with the laying in the dark four hours trying to wait out him falling asleep, it was making me miserable and him miserable and it was consuming our day so we stopped.  And it worked really well for us.

[lifeguard]

I just wanted to add that I have found that if I get ds to sleep early (anything before 8:30/9:00) we are SCREWED in the middle of the night 'cause he will be up for hours! I know that many people find that unbelievable but through trial & error we have found it to be true for ds. What this means for us is that if he's getting all sleepy & wanting to fall asleep at 8 we keep him up 'cause having a 'nap' at that hour just makes for a bad night overall.

[sosurreal09]

Yeah well she was up at 8:30 today and had a nap at 12:30-2:30 and I tried to lay with her and nurse at 8pm...she wouldn't sleep, we were up there until 9:45 and just finally came downstairs...maybe there isn't anything I can do? maybe it's just some milestone things going on? I have no clue her vocab has been rapidly increasing lately..

It is hard when I feel like I can't get one min to myself though!