14 mo - no daytime naps?

[CaresMildly]

My baby has never been a great sleeper and I've always tended to just go with whatever she needed and work around it, rather than doing any formal naps.

Evenings have always been better than daytime, as she would (after milk and rocking) drop off and generally stay asleep.

But currently she's completely given up daytime naps until she gets so exhausted (about 1pm-ish) and will go off. She'll then sleep for a couple of hours.

However, the effect of this is that at bedtime (about 6.30pm/7pm) she is full of beans and just does not want to drop off.

I know logically I should wake her up earlier and have tried this, but it's made no real difference in the evenings - all it's done is make the afternoon harder work as she's still tired and grizzly.

I don't like the idea of CC and feel I would struggle to go through with it as I've never left her to cry. But I'm getting to my wit's end trying to have any sort of time in the evening to relax and wind down (have a glass of wine ...)

She does nursery 2 mornings a week (so I can get a break by going to work ) and they also report that unless she is extremely tired she just won't nap. So is it me or just the way she is and I need to just go through it?

Thanks if you've read this far, it's a bit of a ramble but if anyone's got any ideas or been through similar it would really help to hear.

[NobbyD]

Hi CaresMildly, I feel for you! I have a 14 month ds who is also a terrible sleeper. He's slightly different in that his daytime naps seem fine and has no problems going to bed, its staying alseep thats the problem!

Do you encourage your dd to nap in the daytime? If so, what do you do? You say she gets exhausted and then passes out but do you try to get her to sleep before she reaches this point?

I find that my ds gets really over excited when he's tired. Other people (his grandparents for example) can mistake this for being wide awake and not ready for sleep, they will then leave him until he too "passes out" and this can be way past his usual nap time, which then does affect his going to bed.

Ds only naps once, after lunch for about an hour half to max 2 hours. He has lunch, then a little play and as soon as I notice he has gone a bit mad (running about the place, jumping on me etc) I know he's tired and fighting it, so I take him upstairs to a dark room telling him he is going to bed, give him a little cuddle for a while until he's drowsy and then down he goes. This can be anywhere between 12.30 and 1 (depending on what time he woke up in the morning).

Have you also tried making bed time a little later, say 7.30 rather than 6.30? Do you have a bedtime routine e.g. bath, milk bed?

I would also add that naps are harder for this age group as they are so aware that things are going on around them. If your ds is at nursery only in the mornings and they do not do the darken room sleep after lunch, then I would really not expect her to be able to sleep there. My ds will only sleep if its dark and quiet.

Also, these can be phases. My ds went through a phase of standing up everytime he was put in the cot - it drove me mad. But he soon stopped and went back to normal. So it may just pass with time.

Good luck!

[CaresMildly]

Thank you - just seeing your experiences written down helps actually. Some things sound very familiar - the racing around when over-tired for sure!

I think I will keep on as normal and hope this is a phase and that she settles back down soon, rather than trying CC.

[1of4]

After a nap that I thought had gone on too long I always let my little one wake up himself - but with a little help. I used to open his doorbut not go in. Often the light would gradually wake him in the next few minutes. If this didn't happen I would gently pull his covers off him and retreat again. This normally seemed to work while allowing him to still waken gradually and on his own. the waking on his own seemed to be the key to stopping the grumpy waking thing!

[ShowOfHandsInEpistolaryForm]

My dd gave up napping entirely at 13/14mo. She was crabby in an evening for a while and you had to jolly her along until bedtime but she persisted with the no napping thing.