3 yr old good sleeper turned bad- reassure me!

[Joneseygirl77]

Sorry this is so long!

DD is 2.10 and has generally been a good sleeper from 10mo. She is still in a cot however we are starting to think about the transition to a big bed. She has recently (past 3 weeks) dropped her nap. She is at nursery 4 days per week and just refuses to sleep there (mainly as none of her friends sleep now). However we are finding she is dropping off in the car on her non nursery day and at weekends.

But her nighttime sleep is now dreadful. We're having multiple wake ups and early starts. We've got her a gro clock which has helped but she just wakes up before the sun and sings. In the night she just shouts and screams till one of us goes into her.

Her behaviour hasn't been great and it's generally worse towards the end of the day 3-4pm ish. We've had a couple of incidents at nursery where she has had a run in with one of her friends. They do enforce quiet time but sometime she only has 20mins of quiet time. I'm convinced a lot of this is due to her being overtired. She's gone from having 12 hrs over night time and sleep to 10/11hrs in one sleep.

Can anyone reassure me this will get better? We do have quiet time on non nursery days.

It will get better. It's a completely normal part of the transition from one to no sleeps. It also happens around 1 when they drop from two sleeps to one ime.

I'd be quite firm with her re. the night time singing. You need to explain and enforce that when the groclock says it's night she needs to be quiet. Maybe leave some books by her bed so she can 'read' to herself is she wakes. Or another quiet toy that keeps her quiet and she can play in bed.

Maybe move bedtime earlier for a while to compensate and stop her getting too over tired.

Ot will get better.

Just because she's not having naps at nursery doesn't mean you have to stop daytime naps. It sounds like she's not ready for that yet. She's starting the transition, but not fully there.

She is of can age where she can "catch up" I missed sleep. Similar to the way adults catch up on list sleep with occassional (weekend) lie-ins, children can do this with occassional naps.

So I would actively encourage a half hour power nap in the car on the way home from nursery. Wake once you get home. It might just take the edge off to be less horrendously tired early evening.

I would also keep naps going on days she is at home. Certainly maintain quiet time. If she refuses to go to bed, make up a bed on the sofa with her pillow and a blanket.

Thanks both- the reassurance has helped.
We are doing bedtime 30mins earlier to ensure she gets enough sleep to help with the overtired cycle.

Fate- We are still pushing for sleeps on the weekend if possible. She does tend to drop off in the car so that helps. If she refuses to sleep then it's a movie and lying on the sofa and again she does sometimes drop off.

We were planning to do the cot to bed transition but that's on hold now as I can't face wandering as well as waking!