2.5 year old sleep issues after removing dummy

[Sammie225]

We have been talking to our 2.5 year old about giving her dummy to the fairies for quite some time and reading her a book about it. She decided to go ahead with this 2 weeks ago and hasn’t had her dummy since. We put all the dummies in the bin so we weren’t tempted to go back.

I think she is doing well but there have been some definite changes since she took this step. She had always been great at going down to sleep. Bath, milk, couple of stories and then in to bed. We took the cot sides off and she kept to this and doesn’t really get out of bed but she’s not going to sleep until 9pm some nights and never before 8. She always used to sleep from 7-7:30 until around 7. Now she wakes at 5am crying, she doesn’t go back to sleep, we go in to settle her but she stays awake and then she’s miserable all day. She will still have a nap but we wake her after 30minutes to 1 hour or bedtime is even later.

She doesn’t really ask for her dummy that much. Once or twice in a day but no tears or upset about that. I suppose what I am wondering is, is this normal? Is it related to the dummy or a coincidence? I am struggling with the 5am starts as I work a lot of evenings and I’m not getting in until midnight some nights.

Could be dummy or could be total coincidence, either way it doesn't matter what the reason is because you've binned the dummies and are right to be adamant on not going backwards. The early wake ups are a result of the later bed time, the less sleep she gets the harder it is for her to sleep, it's over tiredness. For about 2-3 days try and get her as much sleep as possible to correct this before trying to go bk to normal sleep routine. So a longer nap but make it earlier in the day so as not to affect bed time, she may still go to sleep at 8 or slightly later on the first day but the extra sleep from the nap will help her not to wake quite as early the next morning and then do the same on the 2nd day, a 3rd day may / may not be needed. I used to have to do this with my ds as over tiredness caused him to have night terrors and I would /did everything I could think of to avoid them, the above tactic worked best for us to correct an overtired spell. Good luck x

Yes I suppose you’re right that it doesn’t matter either way. I have tried an earlier nap but it never seems to happen, just a more drawn out process with a later nap anyway. I might try and time my outings to fit an early nap in the car, rather than timing them to be back for a nap. I wonder if the lighter mornings are contributing but she has a stick up blackout blind, a roller blackout blind and blackout curtains so I can’t keep anymore light out. The other thing was we had a sticker chart for no dummy so she was reminded of it every day but this has now been replaced with potty training stickers and sleeping wel. Fingers crossed. Thanks for your advice.

Could it be that she's ready to drop her daytime nap and it's just a coincidence?

Ds dropped his daytime nap at around 2.5, at nearly 3 he still struggles to manage a whole day, but if he has a nap even for half an hour, he won't go to bed.

We've also just ditched the dummy's, it's been a week, he's been fine but he can take longer to go to sleep now, but If he's tired enough he will go to sleep.

Yeah do anything necessary to get more sleep into her, I used to do the same car naps, leave the house around 20 minutes before I wanted the nap to start and just drive anywhere until he dozed off then pill over and read a book/go on phone, then take off again towards home 20 mins before I wanted him to wake up. Hope that helps x