Hello All
Wondering if anyone has any advice about my DD's sleep. She is 24 months old. She has slept through the night 7pm-7am since she was about 12months old, before which she was an atrocious sleeper and woke regularly throughout the night.
She also has a nap in the day, from about 12pm-2pm. She still sleeps in a cot. We have got her a toddler bed, which is also in her room, however we haven't transitioned her to it yet because we figured there was no point fixing what wasn't broken for the time being - she's been perfectly happy in the cot.
Up until a couple of weeks ago, she has gone to bed for both naps and her night time sleep with no fuss at all. She actually seemed to like going to bed and be ready for it. She has stories, then milk, then we sing a song, then she goes down and I walk out. She rarely made a peep.
The past couple of weeks, we have had the following problems:
- Not wanting the nap. Sometimes screaming and crying the moment there was any sign of nap time e.g. setting foot in her bedroom after lunch, crying at sight of her sleeping bag. Some days, I have comforted her and she has calmed down and then had the nap anyway. Other days she has refused so we've skipped it, other days she's gone down without fuss as normal. My diagnosis here was that she was dropping the nap (sob!)
- Waking up early. Can't really complain about this because I realise we were really lucky she was sleeping until 7! It is coming into Spring here (Oz) and it is lighter in the mornings which may be why she is now waking up at 6. I can handle this, but thought I'd mention it in case it is related to the other issues.
- Waking in the night, usually either around 1am or around 4am, sometimes both. She usually wakes up and cries a bit, then stops, so I don't go in unless it escalates to proper distressed crying. When I go in, I pick her up and she usually stops crying immediately and clings to me, then becomes really chirpy and asks if it's daytime/ can we go in the lounge/ can we watch TV/ can we read a story. She actually seems wide, wide awake. I've been dealing with this by just ascertaining she is ok, offering her a drink of water, then putting her back down and leaving the room at which point she becomes hysterical and I usually end up having to go back in again several times.
I'm 32 weeks pregnant and at the moment I'm suffering with quite bad anxiety and I'm really struggling to cope with the broken sleep when at the moment sleep is generally uncomfortable anyway. I'm really worried about coping with both newborn night feeds plus this. My DH is overseas for the next 2 weeks so I'm on my own and also having to function at work.
Can anyone advise 1) what may have caused this (sleep regression? She has recently had a big leap in language so wondered about this? 2) How best to handle night wake ups at this age? My DH feels leaving her to cry is the best option. I am ok with this in some circumstances as long as she is not obviously very distressed, but don't want her to start associating bedtime with being upset after we have done so well with a positive bedtime routine!
Any thoughts welcome!