Ideas for breaking the overtiredness cycle...

[KSDoulaMama]

So my 18 month old is generally a great sleeper. She goes down at 7:30pm, sleeps until 7:30am (with a wakeup to nurse around 4:30 and occasionally a wakeup around 1.) She naps in the afternoon from about 12:30 to 2:30/3:00. We worked hard to create a positive sleep environment for her with a good routine. She usually tells us when she's ready to go night night (!!!), goes to sleep quite easily, and is well-rested and happy during the day.

But... she's been sick. All this weekend she had a pretty high fever with no other visible symptoms aside from being very irritable. We have no idea what she had, but it made her sleep terribly. Totally understandable. Now her fever is gone and she seems to be feeling better, but she's so wired she can not sleep. Last night she went to bed at 7, but woke up at 9 and was awake and inconsolable for two hours. The rest of the night she was fitful and wanted to nurse but it didn't really help her to actually sleep. Today she went down for her nap, and only slept 40 minutes- she usually sleeps for 2-2.5 hours! She is so incredibly tired, but when we nurse her or offer a bottle she thrashes around and doesn't sleep. If I rock her, she just screams and screams. If I leave her alone in her bed she either screams or she plays, but does not sleep. If DW tries to nurse her in bed, she'll sometimes doze, but she gets no solid, sound sleep and she frequently wakes up and talks or cries.

When does this cycle end? I consider myself to be pretty sleep-savvy, but I can't seem to find the solution to this one. And seriously, she needs to break the cycle because it's making her miserable and her poor nursing, full-time working Mommy and her pregnant Mama need to get a little rest too!

Suggestions? Anything?

[KSDoulaMama]

Since apparently nobody had any ideas whatsoever to share, I will share what finally worked. I put DD down really early in the evening (6:00.) I put a blanket over her window and sealed off the crack of her door so NO light could get in. While rocking her I gave her a bottle with chamomile tea, honey, and four drops of Rescue Remedy. She drank most of the bottle and went right to sleep. She slept for a solid 5 hours or so before waking which was enough good quality sleep that once she woke up to nurse, she was not frantic, manic, or wired. She just nursed and went back to sleep. She still had more night wakings than on a normal night, but she was able to go right back to sleep after being nursed each time. The next night she was back to her normal sleeping habits. Since she is NOT a bedsharing baby (to my dismay sometimes, haha,) this worked really well for her.

[blue elephant]

Very happy to hear she is back to normal! Some people seem to find the opposite, but I know being tired makes things so hard for mine !

[KSDoulaMama]

Yeah, she's a great sleeper, but overtiredness can really lead to poor quality sleep sometimes. Eesh! We were all exhausted around here. So glad she's back to normal. She was awake in the night more last week than she was as a newborn.