Would be very grateful for any advice!
DD is 2 next week. We will put her down to sleep in the evening about 7, but she is still awake 45 mins to an hour later. Not crying, just awake. I end up going in to see her and she will have had a poo, hence not going to sleep. I change her, but then she is not tired at all and just won't go back down. We end up having to keep her up for a bit longer playing. Then about 45 mins or so later, we try again and she will go to sleep.
This only used to happen occasionally. However, over the last few weeks this has happened every. single. evening (bar maybe one or two nights). Because she just will not go back to sleep after being changed, it means we are barely having an evening at all.
It occurred to me yesterday that she now probably knows that if she poos after she's been put down, she knows she will be able to get back up again & play for a bit longer, so she probably 'saves' it until bedtime. Yesterday, she actually had a poo just before bath time and we thought great, she will definitely sleep! Nope, same thing happened again.
We decided to change her, then let her quietly read a couple of books and putting her back down within 10-15 mins. No playing with toys. As soon as I shut the bedroom door, she started wailing. I left her to it for a little while. She ended up wailing and banging intermittently. I didnt go in to see her, as she wasnt properly crying, just having a bit of a whinge.
Well - an hour later, she is still awake and starts really crying. So I go straight up there to see her. Try to lie her back down and she ends up hysterical. So I just felt I had no choice to let her play for a while, then putting her back down, then she went to sleep fine.
The irony is that if I had just let her play in the first place, she would have gone back down much sooner, and it would have been a lot less stressful. She ended up going to sleep just after 10.
We've tried a later bedtime, capping naps, longer naps, but nothing seems to work. She has one lunchtime nap, ranging between 1-2 hours. Going back in at intervals just seems to 'reset' everything & she gets more upset. There's no way she would go back to sleep if I stayed in the room with her.
How can I deal with this? She sleeps through once shes asleep (which I am grateful for), but this is really starting to grate now!