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Literally no idea how to wind down for sleep

4 replies

username210574 · 10/04/2023 16:45

Basically the title.

DD is 11m and has always been a terrible sleeper. Up until around 8m we used to feed to sleep and contact nap/cosleep for every single nap. Daytime sleep became completely hit and miss and not being able to get some stuff done while she was asleep became unsustainable. I began taking her out for a walk in the pram and up until the last couple of weeks it was working amazingly. Now suddenly she is so interested in everything around her that a walk is almost more stimulating than relaxing, and walks end up with her screaming.

Now I'm completely stuck. I'm mindful of the activities we do leading up to sleep to make them calmer, I draw the curtains, we'll read a couple of stories, I'll put white noise on, I'll give her a feed and even lie down with her... nope, she is still raring to go even though she will be rubbing her eyes and yawning, she just wants to crawl and play.

Timing make no difference (rigid or flexible), she never gets into a quiet, relaxed, sleepy sort of state even though I try to facilitate the right environment and time for her to wind down but nothing seems to make any difference.

I'm at such a loss now and feel like I have zero idea what I'm doing in the sleep department. I just want the challenge that is sleep to get easier rather than worse.

OP posts:
StopGrowingPlease · 10/04/2023 17:51

Probably not very comforting but the only thing we have figured out about sleep is that it’s easier to let it happen when it happens and we’re 19 months in 🤷‍♀️🙈 Ds goes to bed any time between 7pm and 11:30pm and there’s no pattern to it. We co-sleep and breastfeed but if he’s not ready to go to bed then he won’t. As for naps some days he has 5 minutes, some days he has up to 2 hours and other days he’s up 14 hours straight. The only sort of consistent thing is that he rarely wakes up before 9am 🤷‍♀️😂

DragonbornMum · 10/04/2023 18:43

I'm sorry you're going through this as well. I think it's actually really common!

One of the important things is consistency. Have the same wind-down activities and the same awake windows. I spent several months rigidly following a sleep routine, until finally it clicked and my son knew what was going on and now we're pretty flexible.

Please don't expect your child to instinctively know what to do. Self soothing is a skill, and it's very difficult to teach to babies who don't understand you! My son also wanted to feed to sleep; we fixed that issue pretty early, but even then he wasn't able/willing to self soothe at bedtime until about 14 months.

Sorry I can't be more help. Unfortunately there really isn't a single magic routine that will make a child drowsy and calm! It's a marathon, not a sprint.

FlounderingFruitcake · 10/04/2023 18:46

Snoozeshade for the pram? So she’s strapped in, gets the relaxing movement but won’t be distracted by everything going on.

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Peaplant20 · 10/04/2023 21:12

Are you wearing her out enough in the day with outdoor time and time being active etc?

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