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Needs a nap but won't fall asleep

777 views 9 replies 7 participants last post by  Jess A 
#1 ·
How do you deal with a kid who is so tired but won't take a nap? I think DS (2y9m) is trying to drop his nap, but he still really needs it most days. I'm 37 weeks with #2 and I need to rest too, I'm not sleeping well at night and I'm losing it on a daily basis with DS. At naptime he'll nurse and seem like he's going to sleep but then he starts doing things he knows hurts me, like kicking his legs (which causes him to pull painfully at the nipple). When I cut him off from nursing, I try lying down with him but he climbs all over me and kicks me. I've tried letting him watch a video while I rest, but his behavior is even worse after he watches videos--very whiny and cranky in an unusual way. Even if I wanted to let him watch a video today, we would have to go to the library to get one since we don't own any.

I feel so terrible, but I don't want to interact with him at all when he's like this. I just want to rest and I can't! I want him to rest too so he can be my sweet child and not some demon I don't even want to look at. I hate that this coincides with the upcoming birth of the new baby, because it feels like I'm rejecting him and I know he'll feel a certain amount of that anyway when the baby is born.

I don't want to leave the house with him this afternoon because his behavior is so erratic and I can't chase after him if he decides to run away from me, my body is so tired and uncomfortable that I can barely move. We strive to use Gentle Discipline with him, but when I'm tired and he's tired I yell and say mean things...I'm so sad about this. I'm so ashamed to say I actually told him today that if he hurt me he would never be able to nurse again. At least I stopped myself from saying the next horrible thing I thought, which was "and the baby will get all the milk and you won't get any!!" This is not the mama I want to be. I can't stop crying.
 
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#2 ·
It's such a hard transition, and getting DS enough sleep continues to be a struggle for us, even though it has been quite a while since he dropped his nap (almost a year ago, when he was a little over three). When he was still napping (or, perhaps more accurately, when I was still willing to expend a lot of effort to get him to nap, despite his resistance), I had some success with a couple of different strategies:

1. Get in bed with DS, make sure the room we were in was kid-proofed and he couldn't leave, make the room as dark and boring as possible, and lie there with my eyes closed, breathing deeply, and relaxing my body. I would explain to DS that it was time to rest, that it was important for our bodies, etc. If DS got up out of bed, I wouldn't do anything to stop him or even acknowledge that he had gotten up - I would just continue to rest and relax in bed myself. On many occasions, he explored the room for a while before getting bored, getting back in bed, and falling asleep (sometimes asking to nurse first). Sometimes it took as long as 45 minutes or an hour for him to go to sleep, and as he got older, it stopped working at all, but at least I had the opportunity to rest during this time, which made me better able to cope with his attitude-without-nap. And I found that doing this never upset him, whereas trying to "make" him stay in bed and nap always led to both of us ending up in tears.

2. The wear-him-out then drive-him-to-sleep method. I would do an outing to a park or somewhere that DS would be guaranteed to get his ya-yas out, timed to end around nap-time. He would often fall asleep on the drive home (or after a short detour). I would park the car in the garage and let him finish his nap while I read or slept in the car with him, unless I really needed to do something in the house, in which case I would carry him inside and pray that he didn't wake up.

We had the same experience with videos. Although DS would watch them quite intently (and I could rest while he was actually watching them), once they were over, he would be even more amped up and erratic in his behavior. It totally wasn't worth it for the short amount of time "off" it gave me.

Ultimately, when it just became too much of a struggle to be worth it any more, I gave up on trying to get DS to nap and tried to just focus on ensuring that he got enough sleep overall. His behavior throughout the day is dramatically better when he is consistently getting enough sleep at night (generally, 12 hours or more). Although he doesn't necessarily seem tired or ready for bed at 8 p.m., if I do what's necessary to get him fed and through his bedtime routine, he will fall asleep easily at that time (much to my surprise). And I have friends who swear that once they started getting their children to bed earlier at night, the kids were also more willing to nap during the day - sort of a sleep-begets-sleep theory (although that didn't happen with us - DS still doesn't nap, but he also doesn't really seem to need it any more).

Finally, be easy on yourself! I'm not nearly as pregnant as you are, but I know the emotional and physical toll it's taking on me already, and how impatient it's making me with DS's behavior that ordinarily would be no big deal. Get as much help from others as you can, and remember that all you can do is try your best - no one is perfect.
 
#4 ·
: I could've written your post word for word, except I'm not pregnant... yet. It's making me start to doubt having a second - like I'd lose my mind. I hope someone has some more suggestions.
 
#5 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by CalBearMama View Post
1. Get in bed with DS, make sure the room we were in was kid-proofed and he couldn't leave
Can I ask how you did this? Our doorknobs don't work with the child-proof covers and I have my doubts those would stop DS for long. We don't have a gate, but I'm considering getting one. Seems silly to get a gate for a nearly 3yo, but I guess it might come in handy with a new little one around in the future (we never had need of one with DS since we lived on a tiny sailboat until he was 16m).

Thanks for the response--I'm feeling a tiny bit better now that DH and DS are at the park running off any excess energy before bedtime. I just don't know how I'm going to deal with this if it continues (which seems likely). I've been having contractions all day long but as I said I'm only 37 weeks, so this could go on for some time before the baby is actually here...
 
#7 ·
Wow, do I know that feeling. DS is quite a bit younger, though, and there is nooooo question he still needs his nap, because he is an absolute bear if he doesn't get it (and so is mommy!). But he fights sleep tooth and nail. We are pretty hard core co-sleepers, but I found that if I just let him run around screaming it could take a couple of hours to get him to go down, but when I finally got desperate enough to stick him in the pack and play, he was asleep within 5 minutes. He still goes to bed just fine in our bed at bedtime. I guess I just had to take away the option to run around like a crazy thing whenever he would feel himself about to fall asleep. That was his way of intentionally preventing himself from sleeping. So now what I do is I give him ONE opportunity to cuddle with me at nap time. If he gets up and tries to run away, he goes in the PNP. Once in the PNP, it has never taken longer than about 5 minutes (unless he has a wet diaper).
 
#8 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by 2cutiekitties View Post
well we do a daily drive for naps. I am not proud of it, but dangit nap time keeps this family sane. It takes 20 mins roundtrip. Can you do that?
Good suggestion, and I totally would do that if it would work. He will not fall asleep in the car unless he is waaaaay past naptime (in which case it completely effs up bedtime).
 
#9 ·
Quote:

Originally Posted by lizajane30 View Post
Can I ask how you did this? Our doorknobs don't work with the child-proof covers and I have my doubts those would stop DS for long. We don't have a gate, but I'm considering getting one. Seems silly to get a gate for a nearly 3yo, but I guess it might come in handy with a new little one around in the future (we never had need of one with DS since we lived on a tiny sailboat until he was 16m).
Yes, I did use a gate - actually two. DS knew how to open them, so I stacked two gates vertically, so that he wasn't tall enough to reach over the top one to unlatch it. We just bought really cheap wooden ones (I think at Target) that were really fast and easy to install and remove.
 
#10 ·
I have an almost two year old who has been a bad sleeper for most of his life. If he doesn't nap, the whole family suffers.

I just read Sleepless in America and it was very helpful. We've instituted a specific nap time and some other things, and so far, it seems to be helping.

One of the things I liked about the book was that it helped me to determine DS's temperament. He'd very intense and active, and if he gets into a non-napping cycle, it can be almost impossible for him to settle.

So I'm still kind of there with you. Not too much advice but lots of (((HUGS))) and maybe the book will give you some ideas.
 
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