I have a 4 year old DS and 20 month old DD. Had a few of the usual sleep and naptime niggles was DS, but overall he was a decent sleeper, and is fine now. No worries.
When DD was born I assumed she'd follow her brother's pattern, but she is the opposite to him in so many ways. She's a terrible sleeper, always has been, and all our tricks and techniques DO NOT WORK.
It was always a fight to get her to nap in daytime. Always took up to an hour for her to have a nap of any length - sometimes 20 minutes, sometimes 2 hours. She dropped her nap altogether at 16 months and that's just fine with her. Seriously she just doesn't seem to need it (?) and will refuse. Even if I drive for an hour she will not even rest her eyes.
She's also either awake or asleep. Doesn't seem to be a middle stage where she's yawning and giving tired signals. Sometimes she'll be a bit whingy but not every day and it doesn't actually mean she's tired.
For the first year of her life she woke up pretty much hourly. Every fucking hour. I breastfed her for a year (same as I did with DS) and even when weaned she still wasn't a great sleeper.
For a while a few months ago she did sleep 12 hours a night and DH and I were laughing with glee.... But now she's just getting worse and I'm feeling so lost.
Because she doesn't nap she goes to bed at 6pm. Wakes up around 6:30am which is fine. It's the bits in the middle that are the issue. For example last night she woke up at 7:30pm for a few moments crying, then again at 8:30pm, then up for a longer crying spell at 9:45pm. At 11pm she walked into our room and wanted to co-sleep with me. Only I will do, DH just makes her scream her head off, even though he isn't doing anything different than I am.
It's just like she wants me me me, and needs attention even if it's nighttime.
I think I'm starting to ramble now, and I'm sorry.
Can someone please comfort me, make me feel like I'm not the only sinner with a child who just doesn't need to sleep much?
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Is she just the way she is? Nothing we can do to solve it?
5 replies
ROARmeow · 20/04/2014 18:22
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