please please help

[drivingmisscrazy]

I've posted before, but got very little response. DD is 18 mo, and has been a pretty good sleeper. The last 3 weeks have been hell at bedtime, and it's getting progressively later and later when she goes to sleep - we originally had a 7pm bedtime - we're (currently) listening to her yell at 9.20pm. I just don't know what the problem is: we've tried dropping her afternoon nap, but she is too tired to get through the day. We've tried leaving her cry (which we both find horrible and incredibly stressful) - she just gets more and more wound up until (sometimes) she vomits. If you go in she just gets very angry. We've given her more milk. But nothing is working. She is teething, but she has calpol when we think it's necessary. Doesn't usually make much difference.

Tonight we went with a later bedtime, and more milk, and she seemed to fall asleep but woke up again after about 15 minutes. But she seems to have forgotten how to settle herself at night (goes off fine for her nap). The late nights mean late mornings which mean late nights...need to break this cycle.

So here are the options as I see them

1. drop the nap
2. put her to bed earlier
3. let her cry until she goes to sleep (not keen on this one)
4. some other magic MN solution

She's never been much of a one for being settled - just leaps up and asks you for a book! really, we're at our wits end

What about letting her go to bed when she wants but having more control over when she gets up. You could try a short afternnon nap and then wake her at a reasonable time in the am to try and break the cycle.

I have done thus with dd. But we have different sleep issues so analyse as you will.

thanks for reply - yes, we've been trying to get her up earlier - but we let her have a short nap yest and still bedtime was pretty late. Might just not let her nap for a couple of days, 'reset' her, as it were, and take it from there. But appreciate response.

Hmmm. Well I'd say whatever approach you take is probably going to take a bit of time to work so consistency and patience are called for.

If it were me I would (but feel free to ignore):

1. probably not drop nap as she'll likely be on her knees by bedtime and a raving mess in the hours leading unto but you'd be the only judge of that one
2. explain to her in hours leading unto bedtime that you're going to give her a bath, read x number of stories then put her to sleep in cot and she needs to go to sleep
3. ask her to try explaining why she doesn't want to go to sleep / can anything be done to make bed more happy for her. Depending on language skills you might get more or less sense out of her but she might possibly feel more in charge for it!
4. do 2) then put her in cot and just sit quietly in room. Accept you're going to be there for several hours and this may last several days. It sounds to me like she may have some kind of separation anxiety tied in with control/ prolonging the fun. Don't take her out of cot cos she needs to understand that's where she's staying and interact with her only when required ie when the crying is escalating and def before vomiting stage. When my daughter has done this I stroke her little head, shhh her and evn tho she's standing in cot asking to come out I don't lift her up, just reassure her and lie her back down. Gradually over course of several days she gets it and you can begin the slow exit from room... Ie each night you gradually add a few more inches from cot until you're out of room and back to normal.
5. I wouldn't do con tolled crying or anything like that cos I suspect whatever the underlying issue is cc is going to make infinitely worse
6. might well take a few weeks to resolve I'd expect

Good luck with it!

When my DS1 was showing signs of dropping his nap (i.e taking ages to go to sleep in the afternoon and then playing up at bedtime...), we tried several things that didn't work. He was too tired if we dropped his nap altogether but if we kept up his naps, bedtimes became a nightmare... What has worked for us is letting him sleep on alternate days. And I let him sleep for as long as he needs/wants (can be anything from an hour to 2.5 hours long!) as I don't feel it's right to wake him up if he obviously needs the sleep. He goes to nursery on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday and on those days, he doesn't sleep at all. On Monday and Wednesday, he will have a nap and on the weekends, he usually will have a nap one day and if we are out and about on the other day, he won't nap. On days he doesn't nap, bedtime is fairly sharp (7pm). On days he has a nap, he goes to bed slightly later 7.30/8pm though he usually asks to go to bed! We haven't had any problems since establishing this routine.

Try that and see how you get on. Good luck!

yes, definitely control/prolonging the fun - can try staying in room but I think she will just think I'm there to play...I don't want to do cc with her at all. Would like to go back a few weeks to nice easy 7pm bedtime. She has a pretty good routine, knows what's coming - happy enough to get in bed. I think she just starts to get distressed when she doesn't fall asleep as quickly as she'd like - and this is new. I do think she needs to be made to stay there - though she gets furious if you go up and don't get her up. Thanks very much - you've given me a few things to think about

angel yes I think she's getting too much daytime sleep (for her) so alternate days might help - will try that before doing anything more elaborate! thanks

drivingmisscrazy It will get easier. Doesn't seem like it at the time but it does. It's difficult when they are at that age where they can't quite communicate what they are feeling but can't really control themselves either (i.e. as in realise they are tired and they need to go to bed). I always say that the 18-months-old stage is the worst. DS1 is now 2.5 and he spent the weekend with the GPs. He had a very exciting day out yesterday and no nap and was really tired. This morning, he was a nightmare, very teary and I could tell straightaway he was tired. We left toddler gym and got home at 11am and he actually said he was very tired and wanted to go lie on his pillow and watch TV. I got him some milk, put him to bed and he slept for 2.5 hours and tonight, asked to go to bed before his baby brother tonight! Happy days!

thanks angel - I think she's just realised that her actions have an effect on us. I'm shattered - she went to sleep finally at 9.30 last night - it's more that I am so stressed out by this point that I sleep badly. She was up and at it at 7.30 this morning! she was terrible at going to sleep as a tiny baby, and I thought we past all that! but here we are again

Just wanted to say that I really feel for you - my (19m) DD has been the same for the past three weeks.

Naps went out of the window and she would take ages to get to sleep then wake every night at midnightish and take up to 3hrs to settle. Before that she was great, 2 naps a day and self-settling at night and after waking.

Anyway - just wanted to say that for the past 5 days naps have been OK (after a little shouting it settles down) and she has slept 7 to 7 for the past three nights. (Hmm...hope I haven't jinxed it now and she is up all night!)

I know it might go wrong again but feel like I can handle that better in the future knowing that it won't last forever, even though it felt like it at the time.

I tried a combination of things depending on the night in question - sometimes I will let her cry a bit but will keep going back in. She stands in her cot and screams when I go out but I keep going back in and telling her to lie down; sometimes I did this soooo many times and it just didn't work but she seems to have got the hang of that for naps and I'd say I maybe go out and straight back in again 4 or 5 times by which time she is lying herself back down, still crying a bit but feebly IYKWIM then I can shut the door gradually and tiptoe out.

Other thing was to cuddle her until almost asleep then put her in her cot; she would cry, I would ssshhh and just gradually withdraw from the room - helped if it was pitch black so she couldn't see exactly where I was and she would gradually get more sleepy.

I really worried that I would be 'breaking' her good sleep habits and causing problems but so far she seems to be OK although not exactly as good as she was before. I think it was a combo of sleep regression and full-on teething (lots of molars coming through at the same time) and really felt different from any disturbed sleep in the past.

Had some good advice from someone else on MN to have 'quiet time' even if she won't nap - this does seem to have helped. Although she's moved from 2 naps to 1, we now sit down quietly around nap time each morning and have a quiet story and a drink. This seems to give her time to recharge a bit and makes the morning easier. I had been doing the opposite and having her running around, doing loads of stuff in an attempt to tire her out but I think it just exacerbated the problem.

I was sooo tired though and everything seems loads more difficult to cope with when you're exhausted. Any chance anyone would look after her for an hour or so and you can rest? (I didn't have anyone but wish I had). Otherwise while I used to lie on the sofa in DDs room cuddling her to try to get her to sleep, at least it was 15 mins of peace for me too.

Really hope it passes soon and you get some well-earned rest. Good luck!

Oh, God, the 18 month sleep regression. We're just heading out of the woods on this one ourselves (a week short of 20 mo).

Nothing we did made a difference. We left her to cry a little bit when it was clearly an exhausted cry (and only 5 minutes) because there was no other way she'd go to sleep. But apart from that, we just went back to old habits from the last sleep regression, took it in turns to do wakeups, shared the bedtime battle, and napped on the weekends.

She's shifted her nap later - now around 1 -3pm, before was more like 11.30/12 - 1ish. Bedtime restabilised at 7.30-8pm. Back to one wakeup a night which is where we were pre-18-mo.

So, no real advice, but you haven't done anything wrong, it's a really common age for a sleep regression. Is she having a language explosion at the same time?

lots going on with her - lots of new words, some word combining, understanding that she is a person (looked at a photo of herself and said 'me, me, me') - plus at least 2 molars coming. I think the nap is not really the issue - she goes down fine for it and sleeps for about hour and 15 mins. The issue is not having it too late in the day, but the real issue is the bedtime behaviour - this all began when we were on holiday and she found it hard to settle in an unfamiliar place (and we stayed in 3 different places which didn't help) so we would go and get her and make sure that she knew we were there. And with a few exceptions this has been going on ever since - we've been hoodwinked forgiving because of teeth and a cold and the rest. It's just hard to know whether we should just wait it out, or try something else. I think at least we'll try to make sure that we don't get her up. aaaargh.

Awww, she sounds great. It's such a fantastic age, isn't it? I could preserve my daughter in amber, recently.

We do have to be a bit firm about bedtime recently, in that she's started stalling ("ok, sweetheart, time to go in your cot" -- "read this!" ) and there's been a bit of crying here and there. Definitely gets worse after travelling.

But I think, just be really firm about bedtime routine and don't give in (like I do) to the temptation of letting her run around just a bit longer, and she'll settle down again soon.

she's a total dote (as they say here), but the sleep thing just means everyone is overtired and crappy...stalling definitely (book, book, rhino, more, more). We'll see...

just as an update, we dropped the nap and moved bedtime a bit earlier to compensate - so far so good. I let her have about 25 mins in the car before lunch and I think we'll bring back a nap - perhaps not every day - because she does need it still. But hopefully we'll have a new pattern. Thanks for all the advice - I will store it up for the future