how to stop toddler from thinking it's the morning if she wakes in the night

[drivingmisscrazy]

DD is 22 months old. She was frankly a crappy sleeper at first, but we had a good run from Oct-June of this year (7-7 with at least one nap). Since June she has been varying degrees of rubbish. Naps are gone. Sometimes she takes ages to settle (lots of crying) but recently she has starting waking in the night - often around 11 when we go to bed - and then not going back to sleep for 2-3 hours. She thinks it's the morning - asks for juice, says 'up, up, up'. This is happening at least twice a week.

Any minor disruption makes it worse - she started nursery 2 mornings a week at the end of August, and seems to be suffering from a degree of separation anxiety. Not that she goes to sleep when we bring her into our bed - we've done this a couple of times, but she's always had to go back to her own bed as she just wants to play.

How can we help her to sleep better? Should we bring back the naps? (we dropped these because 1. she wouldn't go down for them and 2. because this made it impossible to get her to bed in the evening).

Any ideas? i am getting very tired and I'm finding it hard to get through my work. I am sure she is not getting the amount of sleep she needs. DP and I are floundering about without an approach -

Have you tried the glo lights clock or the rabbit clock ( the great little trading company). They have visual cues as to whether it is day or night (time set by you as appropriate). These worked for my dc's. The glo clocks are great, rabbit clock a little noisy on wake up time if you would rather they slept on if possible, the night lights go out and the scene goes to daytime. Mine have a in the nightgarden one and they know if it's iggle-piggle DON'T WAKE ME UP.. (not a morning person!

It does sound like she is overtired, particularly with nursey added.

Will she fall asleep in the car or buggy? If so, could you get her to nap that way for about 45min every day for a couple of weeks, and see if that helps?

As for night-time wakings, I think you have to bite the bullet and do the 'Boring Return'.

When shw wakes gi to her, don't get her up but lie her down again, saying something like "Nighttime is for sleeping, daytime is for playing. Nightime now, so dd is going back to sleep now. Sleep tight, lovey.". A few strokes and you're back out of the room. If she cries you return, repeat the process exactly. Do it as many times as it takes, after the first few times you start saying less and less, but the basic message doesn't change.

The idea is that it should be boring and unrewarding for her to wake up at night. If she cries, understand that she is crying because she is not getting what she wants -she is angry , not distressed. No need to leave her to cry, nonetheless your response can be low-key andboring.

Was about to suggest just taking her into your bed then actually read your thread properly! (it's late!)
Our DS always comes into our bed for a while in the morning but lately his concept of "morning" has got earlier and earlier (first time ever I've been pleased about the clocks going back - at least now it's light when we get up so he can tell the difference between day and night again!).

The other night I snapped at about 3am - DH was snoring like a tractor (ditto tonight!), DS was leaping up to open the curtains every five minutes to see if it was light yet and pulling my ears every time I almost nodded off. I was VERY STERN and told him in no uncertain terms he could go to sleep nicely or go back to his own bed. Amazingly he went to sleep and has been angelic since! Wouldn't generally advocate shouting as a nighttime parenting technique but sadly in my case it seems to have worked! Having said that he is a year older than your DD and if I'd yelled a year ago, he would have been very upset.

I agree with candles that whatever you do (boring return or bringing her into your bed) it needs to be boring as hell. If your bed is a novelty to your DD, it's not going to work (we coslept till DS was nearly 2 so our bed isn't a novelty for him).

Thinking about it I cut out DS's nap about 6 or 8 months ago for the same reasons you describe, but ended up with him very overtired. I really struggle to get him down but we seem to have settled into a routine of him having a longer nap a couple of times a week. I would have thought that having different sleep patterns on different days would be confusing for him but actually it's working really well. Perhaps you could try a well-timed car journey every couple of days and see if this helps?

in the spirit of establishing in her mind what happens in the day and what happens at night, I just said to DD that when it's light it's day and time to play, and when it's dark it's time to sleep. I asked her what happens in the night: 'crying', she said :(

Awwww.

Ds2 took several weeks to settle into part-time nursery at 2.5y, and then again when we returned after a 3w summer holiday about a term after he had statred nursery. Until he was about 3.5y, when asked what he did at nursery he would answer "crying".

From 3.5 to 4y he used to answer the question "What did you do at nursery?" with "I did not cry today.". It's only in the last few months that he has made no mention of crying at nursery.

But I know that he has always been very happy at nursery, and that he only cried at the begining of each settling-in period.

Little monsters darlings!