2 year old has trouble falling asleep

[caedmyn]

DD has the hardest time falling asleep, and I am at my wits end trying to help her. I've read the No-Cry Sleep Solution for Toddlers, and Sleepless in America. As far as I can tell she's not reacting to any foods she's currently eating. But she just will not fall asleep until 9 or 10 at night, no matter how tired she is. Tonight I had to force her to eat her dinner because she was so tired (if I don't make her eat dinner she wakes up starving at 3 or 4 am and is up for the day), but she still wouldn't go to sleep. Is there some sort of deficiency, or SOMETHING, that would cause a toddler to have trouble falling asleep? I'd just let her go to sleep whenever but she wakes up at 6 am no matter what time she goes to bed, and 9 hours of sleep a night isn't enough for her (she cries at the drop of a hat if she doesn't get enough sleep).

[Attached Mama]

What happens if you put her to bed earlier? Does she get up? Or does she just lie there and not fall asleep? What have you tried? Reading to her? Rocking? etc

Have you tried a bedtime snack such as raw milk warmed with a bit of honey? That's supposed to help.

If she's really tired at supper, then maybe she's just overtired and once she gets caught up a bit she will sleep better....

I really don't know from a nutritional standpoint.... but I had to comment anyway. and hope you figure it out. Sleep issues can be tough!

[cherryblossom]

does she take an afternoon nap? if so, is it far enough away from a regular bed time so that she is tired again at night? do you have a regular calm routine every night? have you tried a bath with some aromatherapy? california baby has some good products you might want to check out. my mother always told me that a child needs 5 hours between nap and bedtime to be able to go down tired and with no problems. not that i think this is what will work for everyone. do you have a pretty regular routine during the day? toddlers love routine and knowing what will happen next, it keeps them feeling in control. the only other thing i can think of is to find something loaded with fat that she loves and try to get her to eat that in the evening. maybe even if it's a custard with egg yolks, cream, coconut oil, butter etc. it will keep her fuller longer and may soothe her to sleep.

i hope this is helpful!

[sasntappy]

My oldest daughter has always been like that. What really helped was making bedtime earlier. It's like there is this magic window before being OVER tired when she would go to sleep. Othewize it was a horrible hours long battle. We would do dinner at 5pm, then bath and then snuggly story time with bedtime tea and cookies (chamomile lavender tea with cream and honey and homemade tea biscuits) House quiet and lights low everywhere-- no TV or anything else she might think she's missing out on anywhere. She would be tucked in for the night by 7pm. If it was any later we had problems and she would end up being up until 10 or 11 at night. Also she has NEVER slept later than 6:30 in the morning (is 6 years old now and still always up that early) no matter how late she stays up. The time she goes to bed just determines how miserable/pitiful she is the next day. Earlier bed time and the high fat snack just before bed helped tremendously! I hope this helps a little...

Sarah

[RootBeerFloat]

Caedmyn, I'm really sorry for both of you that you're going through this. My dd is a horrible, horrible sleeper and we have had issues with taking forever to fall asleep in the past. I've found a combination of things that seem to help dd:

1) Making sure her circadian rythm is "set" well. I think she talks about this in NCSS alot, so sorry if this isn't new. I try to keep our bedroom (where we all sleep) as dark as possible at night, including blackout shades and posterboard over the windows. When we wake up in the am, I open all the shades and turn on the lights to really let the light in. We try to do errands and/or fun activities in the am and when the weather permits, get outside and get sun exposure. Every am--I think the regularity of it really makes a difference. Also dimming the lights in the evening.

2) Helping her other bodily rhythms to stay regular, too. The biggies for Ally are exercise (some type of sustained physical activity every day) and bowel movements. Obviously I can't do much to make her poop, though I do pay really close attention to what foods are around the house and offered at meals, so there is plenty of fat available to her, good fiber, and water available all through the day. If she's acting or complaining of constipation, I massage her belly, which seems to help. If there is no poop during the day, there is almost always a rough night. There is a big difference in the quality of her sleep on the days when she's had exercise and the days when she hasn't, even if the exercise is a self initiated game of running up and down the hallway.

3) Avoiding overtiredness, as much as possible. If dd is overtired, it takes her forever to go to sleep, regardless of our bedtime routine and how much soothing there has been beforehand.

I'm also wondering if you're in a nap transition and that's part of the problem. Dd stopped needing to take a nap shortly after she turned two, but it has been a long transition. One day of the week without a nap, then two, etc. Now she doesn't take any naps, but still needs a little quiet down time during the day. Part of what was hard during that transition was that it made it hard for her to fall asleep at night and her bedtimes became really late. It was like that all through the summer for us, and it was difficult. She needed to nap, couldn't make it through the day without one, but she didn't need as much sleep at night. Once she stopped napping altogether, her bedtime has gotten really early (she goes down around 7pm every night and wakes between 6:30-7:30)--and she's pooped out usually an hour or two before we go down. I think it's just a rough transition.

[provocativa]

those mamas are right about sleep cycles, but the easy to spot deficiencies are magnesium and calcium. my sister says it's magnesium to fall asleep, and calcium to stay asleep. www.mgwater.com i am an insomniac without an extra supplement of the two (well, ours has zinc in it, too.) my kids absolutely love bluebonnet liquid cal/mag/zinc, it is blueberry flavored, and the vitamin d is natural, animal d3 from lanolin! i would rather them just take a mag supplement, but they won't take gillham's natural calm, and the floradix one bombed here as well. if only they would eat more sunflower seeds!

[425lisamarie]

2 is the age when a lot of times there are just going to be more days of crankyness and sleep deprivation. Both mine went through it....DD is going through it right now. there's not much I really do though. I'll try to carry her on my back for a little while if she's so cranky that she's flippin out about everything and becomes downright difficult. Sometimes she falls asleep for a nap at 6 or 6:30, sleeps till 8, then is up till about 11:00. DS goes to bed about the same time with no nap, and he sleeps for about 10 hours a night. He is 3.5

It varies so much. 9 or 10 is really early to me so I dont' know about times really, but I would say whatever schedule she works herself in to I would try to go with that (if it's possible....if you work I guess not though)

I dunno, mine both at 2 years old didn't want anything to do with sleeping. We would sometimes go for a little walk, do something super exciting and hope it tired them enough or at least avoided a cranky fit

[caedmyn]

Thanks for the responses...DD has had trouble going to sleep for pretty much her entire life, so it's not a 2 year old thing. She's had two periods in her life where she generally went to sleep easily at night, one late last spring, and one through October and half of November. I can't figure out what was different about those two times that she went to sleep easily. DH doesn't think she's tired, but I think that she CAN'T go to sleep for some reason. Sometimes she'll lie in bed with me for 45 minutes or more, just lying quietly, but she just won't go to sleep. Other times she's pretty wiggly when she won't go to sleep.

I have wondered if she's starting to not need a nap as she occasionally has trouble going down for her nap, but if she doesn't get a nap she'll fall asleep in the car in about 3 minutes if we go anywhere in the early afternoon (if she's getting enough sleep it will take her at least 15 minutes to fall asleep in the car). She used to be able to nap as late as 2:30 and still go to sleep fine at 7 pm (during one of her "easy bedtime" phases), but now there doesn't seem to be any correlation between how late she naps and what time she'll go to bed. Once she skipped her nap entirely and still wouldn't go to sleep until 9 pm.

I have wondered if I'm just missing her sleep window, like maybe I need to put her in bed by 6:45 instead of 7 or 7:15.

We generally eat dinner shortly before bedtime so she doesn't get a bedtime snack. Dinner is pretty high-fat but she can't have dairy, eggs, or coconut products. She can't do anything herbal or scented, either, unfortunately.

Maybe I need to work harder on having a consistent routine , and getting home and getting dinner ready earlier in the evenings so she has more time to unwind and play after dinner and before bed instead of going right from dinner to bedtime.

[UUMom]

I have one like that. Even as a tiny babe she never fell asleep for a good stretch before 10 or so. At 8 yrs old, she is exactly the same. And exactly like her father. She gets a second wind of creativity at 8 or so. Now that she is older and can manage to set up and and clean up after herself I don't freak out when the clay and paints and glue comes out so late. (We're hsers, so we don't have to deal with school in the morning-- I don't know what we would do in that case),

She has no intellectual or nutritional deficiences that I can see, and she is extremely healthy. Has never had an antibiotic and is 100% unvx'd. When she finally falls asleep, she sleeps well. She was never much of a napper at all. I remember how hard she partied on her first New Year's Eve. All my other older kids were asleep, but the baby was dancing with everyone.

[bigknitwit]

I'm not sure how long her nap is, but my guess is that she may not be tired until late because she's having a long nap (?). If my dd (20 months) sleeps longer than 1.5-2 hours in the afternoon (hopefully 12-2 and no later!), then she can easily be up until 8:45-9pm. I still get her into bed at the same time (8ish), but she's just not sleepy until later. For her, things work best if she naps early (12ish), and not more than 2 hours. Then she's generally ready to sleep at the same time as her brothers (8ish).

Oh, and all of my kids have slept terribly at night at this age when they miss the nap (even 45 minutes gets them through). They go into overtired mode and have a hard time going to sleep, and getting into a deep/restful sleep (lots of wake-ups all night long).

I don't know if this is helpful at all - just thought I'd put it out there.

[tanyalynn]

My daughter had a lot of trouble falling asleep--seemed like it was always a problem, started really young. This may not be a solution you're interested in, but I give both the kids melatonin each night. For my son, it's more obviously needed because he's got symptoms that the mercury he got from me is a problem (I also need melatonin), but while my daughter doesn't have symptoms, she clearly got a lot of mercury (and I don't know what else) from me. So for her, I don't know what's going on or exactly why it helps, but since it does, we'll keep doing it.

[momma4fun]

My kids have trouble falling asleep and and staying asleep when they eat right before bed. My 7 year old gets nightmares if dinner is late.

I was told at a waldorf conference once that almost all sleep problems are food related. Concerning the liver and the circadian rythms, when a child has too much protein after 3 pm, the child can get into a habit of regularly waking up at 3 am every morning and needing help to get back to sleep, because this is the liver's timetable for whatever it does. Sorry I'm not being to clear and can't provide a link on that.

It works best if our dinner is two hours before bedtime. Also, dinner tends our lighter meal of the day, with breakfast being the largest.

AND getting at least an hour of fresh air every morning is pretty important for my 2 year old's sleep patterns. Here's what my 2 year old's day looks like.

-wakes up around 530 to 6

-breakfast at 630 or 7

-play out side for an hour or more at 8 or 830

-when we get back in my baby goes down for a nap, and then 2 yo eats a snack

- after playing and house stuff, 2yo goes down for a nap with milk at 1130

-she usually wakes up at 130 or 2, after which she has some lunch

-if we have errands or outings we do 'em in the afternoon, maybe play outside some more

-dinner's at 5 or 530, she rarely has dessert

-evenings are pretty calm, we usually go up to my bedroom so I can lay down for a rest while the girls play a little hide and seek in my closets, or we might take a bath

-dad gets home around 630 or 7 and after he undwinds for about 15 - 20 minutes, he puts 2 year old straight to bed. Lately he has to lay with her until she falls asleep, often he reads with a headlamp next to her or just falls asleep with her

[Chakra]

Try he Bach flower essence. The sleep remedy one. It always helps w/ my wild children

[RootBeerFloat]

Originally Posted by provocativa

those mamas are right about sleep cycles, but the easy to spot deficiencies are magnesium and calcium. my sister says it's magnesium to fall asleep, and calcium to stay asleep. www.mgwater.com i am an insomniac without an extra supplement of the two (well, ours has zinc in it, too.) my kids absolutely love bluebonnet liquid cal/mag/zinc, it is blueberry flavored, and the vitamin d is natural, animal d3 from lanolin!

This is very interesting to me! Is this the supplement to which you refer? http://www.vitamincottage.com/shop/p...vate_product=0

[quietserena]

Thank you so much for posting this..

Mine has been driving me bananas. She used to go to sleep between 7:30 and 8. And now it's well after 9. Can't figure it out either but I was already going to get us a liquid mineral supplement and now I have another reason to get it.

The really sad thing is.. she's just like me in the sleep department. She fights it to the last moment. Her eyes will be closing and her little legs still want to take her places. If I didn't read myself to sleep every night, I'd probably be doing the same sort of shenanigans that she does...

[NatrlCatholicMama]

A way to help in the rhythms dept. - whole family sit down for 5 minutes about 10 minutes after bkfast ... on the throne. Doing that for a few weeks helped me establish a morning bm habit, and now has helped my children. It was amazing - our bodies wanted to do it, we just didn't know it.

I have no help in the sleep dept.; mine would rarely go to sleep w/o nursing when younger than 3. I think we need some definite change in light/dark cycles - we stay awake too long past nightfall and don't get enough sun exposure in the daytime.

[kjbrown92]

caedmyn -- if DD can't have milk, eggs, coconut -- are you sure that those are the only foods? Sleep issues are often food-intolerance related. A lot of people who have milk intolerance, also cannot have soy. Not sure if you've done elimination diets and all that. We eat at 6, and bedtime is 7:30. We don't do a snack before bed. My DD is 2 1/2. She's in the nap transition stage. If she takes her normal 2 hour nap (which is rare), she won't go to sleep until 9:30 or so. If she doesn't get her nap, she goes to sleep in about 5 minutes at 7:30. She always wakes up at 5:30 on the button, I give her about 4 oz. of rice milk, and she'll crawl into bed with me and sleep for another hour. I try not to go in the car between noon and 2:30 because at those times, she would fall asleep. After that it's not a problem, unless it's a really long car ride.

[Bensmommy]

Here's my 2yo routine- HTH

6:30-7:30a Wake for the day (whenever she wakes up)

11:30-12:00 Lunch (depends on our morning activities if it's early or not)

12:30 Nap (she usually naps 1.5-2.5hours)- I never let her sleep longer than 3:30, even if she starts nap late!

6:45 Bath time

7:10-7:30ish Nursing routine (rocking and nursing in her dark room, lullabyes, etc)

7:30ish Down for the night (we have a special routine- we sing one verse of "Angels We Have Heard On High", then we both say in unison "Good night, Sweet Dreams, I love you. No crying, No screaming. It's night-night time", I kiss her on the forehead, pull up her crib rail, and leave)

She sleeps in a dark room with a small night light. She has a real problem going to sleep if she's overtired, so we try to stick to a good nap/night routine. We very rarely skip naps or have late nights- it's better for the whole family!

HTH