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I'm at a loss here and hoping maybe some of you mamas will have some good advice.
My 13 month DD has never been a "great" sleeper by our culture's standards. Still wakes multiple times a night (has NEVER sttn), etc. Mostly it's worked for us but it's starting to wear on me. The hardest part is that she takes FOREVER to fall asleep at night. And I do mean forever. If she falls asleep in one hour (that's an hour of lying in bed nursing, not including bedtime routine leading up to it), that's my idea of a good night. Sometimes it takes hours and hours.
The weird part, to me, is that it's SO easy to get her to fall asleep for naps. I just put her down for her nap, and it literally took five minutes. I get her blankie, turn on the white noise, sit in the rocking chair, get my book, and she's out before I even finish two pages. But I do the same thing at night, and she'll nurse for twenty minutes or a half hour before she decides she wants to do something else. I let her crawl around and play in the dark, but she just gets more and more energetic. All this when she's obviously tired--rubbing her eyes, being fussy, etc.
I've tried pretty much everything I can think of. A couple of months ago I started following the No-Cry Sleep Solution pretty religiously, so we have an exact bedtime routine (bath, pee, pajamas, brush teeth, read two books). We follow the same schedule pretty much every day. She gets up at the same time every day, naps at the same time, goes outside to the zoo or the playground every day in the afternoon, comes home for dinner, then supposedly goes to bed. She just won't go to sleep until she's practically falling over. Sometimes if I wait till really late (like eleven pm), she'll fall asleep easily, but not always--sometimes it still takes an hour even then, which sucks because at that point DH and I are exhausted and really want to sleep. The worst of it, though, is that we never get any couple time because she's up so late. I really, really want her to go to sleep just a little earlier at night--I'd be THRILLED with 9 pm, although 8 or 8:30 would be ideal. I've tried attempting bedtime as early as 7 pm and as late as midnight--nothing seems to work. I've even tried swaddling again, which worked for a week till she decided she really hated it. Any ideas?
TIA!
My 13 month DD has never been a "great" sleeper by our culture's standards. Still wakes multiple times a night (has NEVER sttn), etc. Mostly it's worked for us but it's starting to wear on me. The hardest part is that she takes FOREVER to fall asleep at night. And I do mean forever. If she falls asleep in one hour (that's an hour of lying in bed nursing, not including bedtime routine leading up to it), that's my idea of a good night. Sometimes it takes hours and hours.
The weird part, to me, is that it's SO easy to get her to fall asleep for naps. I just put her down for her nap, and it literally took five minutes. I get her blankie, turn on the white noise, sit in the rocking chair, get my book, and she's out before I even finish two pages. But I do the same thing at night, and she'll nurse for twenty minutes or a half hour before she decides she wants to do something else. I let her crawl around and play in the dark, but she just gets more and more energetic. All this when she's obviously tired--rubbing her eyes, being fussy, etc.
I've tried pretty much everything I can think of. A couple of months ago I started following the No-Cry Sleep Solution pretty religiously, so we have an exact bedtime routine (bath, pee, pajamas, brush teeth, read two books). We follow the same schedule pretty much every day. She gets up at the same time every day, naps at the same time, goes outside to the zoo or the playground every day in the afternoon, comes home for dinner, then supposedly goes to bed. She just won't go to sleep until she's practically falling over. Sometimes if I wait till really late (like eleven pm), she'll fall asleep easily, but not always--sometimes it still takes an hour even then, which sucks because at that point DH and I are exhausted and really want to sleep. The worst of it, though, is that we never get any couple time because she's up so late. I really, really want her to go to sleep just a little earlier at night--I'd be THRILLED with 9 pm, although 8 or 8:30 would be ideal. I've tried attempting bedtime as early as 7 pm and as late as midnight--nothing seems to work. I've even tried swaddling again, which worked for a week till she decided she really hated it. Any ideas?
TIA!
