[zjandosmom]

: My dh and I are seriously going to lose it over here. Our dd won't sleep. She is 14m old. She takes about a 40min nap during the day and that is it. She goes down around 7pm and awakens around 3 or 4 ready to play. She laughs at our grumblings. I try nursing, no lights on, rubbing her back. Dh has tried walking her around. Nothing doing. This goes on for about 2 hours and she goes back to sleep. Just when we need to get up with the other children. She is our 4th............never had this problem before. I feel I could die from sleep deprivation. She has never been a good sleeper. She has always done this waking up thing but it would be once every few weeks (not fun but doable) now it's been several nights in a row. I don't want this to become a habit. Any suggestions welcome. HELP I am tired.

 

[zjandosmom]

no suggestions?

:

 

[alegna]

Sounds like she just doesn't need much sleep. Unless you like getting up at 3 or 4 I'd make her bedtime later.

-Angela

 

[SMR]

sorry no suggestions.. could she be getting teeth?? It sounds like you're doing everything you can at this point! I hope she starts sleeping soon!

 

[termasan]

I agree, maybe her bedtime is too early. My son was @ 1 nap from 10 mo-24 mo, then stopped napping almost all together. His bedtime was never any earlier than 9. It would take him an hour to go to sleep for bedtime, nursing then flopping around on the bed (after we weaned him from being bounced to sleep around 1 year). His total nighttime sleep was 10 hours, then he'd always wake at 45 min for his nap, I'd nurse him back (sometime several times) to try and get 1-3 hours out of his nap. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it was a 45 min nap.

You may want to look at her total hours of sleep. Mine has always averaged around 12. Sounds like yours is about 11. What time do you do nap? Sounds like you could almost consider her 5 AM sleep as a nap, and consider pushing her into two naps/day. Maybe she could go down for the night 9-5, nap 9-11, then nap 3-4 or something like that. She may then draw out her nighttime sleep to more than 8 hours and you can drop a nap and move it to one midday nap.

Hope that makes some sense. I'm sure teething and develpmental milestones are contributing, but maybe you can try a new wacky schedule to replace the current wacky schedule.

Good luck!

 

[honeybunmom]

This happened to us, too. Went on for a couple of days if I recall and periodically after that. This was during the time we were transitioning dd from our bed to her crib (which took a full month and we're now 2.5 months from when we started). So, I would tell her it is not time to play, but time to sleep, grab a comforter and pillow and lay down on her floor and go back to sleep. Or dh would do it. But, she was not allowed out of the crib. But, inevitably dh would cave, bring her to our bed, get kicked in the head and then take her back. So, ultimately, popping a squat on the floor in her room taught her it was time to sleep and that's what everyone was going to do. For me, I felt ok with this approach as I believed that dd had the capacity to understand what was going on and that it was time to sleep. Demonstrating that by going to sleep in front of her would reinforce that lesson in our book.

HTHs!

ETA: I just read the post before mine and I should add that dd was a horrible napper for the longest time. All we'd get out of her is the 40 minutes or so you described. Now, she takes 2 naps. The late morning/early afternoon nap can last anywhere from 1-2 hours and the late afternoon evening nap around 45 minutes. That can be as late as 5pm. She's in bed by 9pm and usually up around 7am or as late as 8. If she's with her caregiver - the nap is a no-go and I come home to a fussy toddler (which totally sucks). I'd be more inclined to think it's the developmental milestones waking her up and not change the bed time. Are you putting her down for a nap when she seems tired as opposed to the time on the clock? If you are, I'd just suggest waiting it out and sleeping on the floor in her room in the interim. Not a great suggestion, I know, but it worked for us.
Elisa

 

[Petersmamma]

Perhaps you need to put her to bed EARLIER. My ds used to sleep horribly and wake up at around 4:30, and we started putting him to bed really early (around 6-6:30) and he would sleep much better and would sleep till about 5-5:30. For me, it became about the quality of his sleep. I figured as long as he was well rested we would have an easy day, but when HE was tired, our day SUCKED. So, if he's going to get up early, fine. Just be well rested. I tried putting him to bed half an hour earlier and he slept better!

He's always been an early waker, and I can handle getting up at 5:30, but not 4:30. Even now if we put him to bed late, he still wakes at the same time, and is just grumpy the next day.

 

[spughy]

My child was sleeping crappily for a long time due to teething - but yesterday I completely wore her out (it was a beautiful day and we spent the afternoon exploring our neighbourhood) to the point where she was actually cranky in the late afternoon because she was exhausted... she slept like a log last night.

Worth a try. Just make her run around a lot. Outside, so she doesn't have the option of sitting down to play with anything. Go for a loooong walk and try not to give in to requests for pick-ups.

 

[zjandosmom]

Thank you so much for all your replies. She has all her teeth and has been walking for several months....so I don't think it's developmental. But I could be wrong. I don't think it's too much sleep as a 40 min nap is it and then she sleeps for about 9 hours and then grabs 1-2 more. Surely she needs more than 9 hours before she's good to go?! I NEEd her to need more that's for sure. Last night was better. She went down closer to 8:30 and slept until 7! She nursed a few times in between but to me that doesn't count! I was trying the later bedtime idea and maybe that's it. She is on the go a lot with 3 older brothers so I think she gets plenty of outside time. I know the whole daylight saviings thing messed us all up and maybe that's part of the problem. Thanks for all the suggestions and help. Hopefully this is already passing.

 

[alegna]

My dd went through several stages where she wouldn't sleep more than 9 hours in a stretch

and didn't really nap either...

-Angela