DD taking 2 hours to go to sleep- help!

[BelfastSmile]

DD is 15 months old. She's always been an ok sleeper, but has suddenly (for a few weeks) become really hard to settle at bedtime.

We have the same supper-bath-book-bed routine that's been working for ages, but suddenly it's just stopped working. I put her in her cot at about 7.15. It's generally about 8.30 before she's asleep, sometimes 9pm. Instead of sleeping, she rolls about, babbles, laughs, stands up, falls over - just really active.

She has recently dropped down to one nap per day, for about 1.5 hours. The time varies - she always wakes at 7am; sometimes the nap is at 9.30/10ish, and other times it's not until 12.30. The timing of the nap doesn't seem to make much difference to her evening sleep.

There are no indications that I can see that she's not getting enough sleep, but I'm spending the entire evening in her room trying to get her to go to sleep. If I leave the room she screams; I can't leave her screaming, plus I don't want her to wake DS.

I spend all day with the kids most days, and then all evening with DD. I'm literally not getting a break to do anything I enjoy, and that's wearing me down too.

Does anyone have any ideas how I can get her to go to sleep more quickly?

It won’t be popular, but I honestly think that a bit of crying is inevitable when you’re sleep training. DS is 14 months, and is a good sleeper. If he’s awake but content, babbling, playing, sitting up etc., I just leave him to it. If he cries I will go to him, give him a cuddle until he’s calm, then straight back down and I leave the room. He does cry or whinge, but for literally 2-3 minutes max, often less than 1 minute. I’ve timed him

Does your DD take water at bedtime? With the weather being so warm, DS will often wake but the only thing he wants is a drink of water.

There are times when he wants to stay up, usually if he’s overtired or his teeth are hurting him. If we’ve been trying to settle him for more than half an hour, I usually give him some calpol and he quickly settles.

Could you move her bedtime half an hour later? Maybe she is not tired enough. It's a pain for you as you won't get your evening but it might help. They all go through so many changes at that age.

PP is right about the heat also. Maybe a fan in her bedroom for a bit of white noise and fresh air?

Hi

I have this with my 14mo. It’s like he takes ages to unwind and calm down.

I have just been sitting it out and I have been doing back rub and sitting by his cot on a chair. The other night I was there til 8.30 :( he just took ages to unwind.

Tonight it was only 20mins!

I don’t really know what to do either but am really trying incot settling rather than rocking and he does now go to sleep with the back rub even if it takes ages.

This coupled with the early wake ups (and at least one night waking) make me feel like I have no break.

Feel your pain op xx

Following,I could have written this post myself about 14mo DD! Sorry you are in the same boat and I don’t have any answers but I’m glad I’m not on my own with this one, I constantly feel like I must be doing something wrong!

Leave her to it .. my DS does this some nights. He goes to sleep eventually

Thanks for the tips! She's not interested in water at that time, and I don't think she's too warm (I leave her window open during the day, and the curtains closed; it's not a particularly warm room anyway). I'll try shifting her bedtime back by half an hour and see what happens.

I can't leave her to cry because (1) is find it too hard and (2) she'd wake DS who sleeps in the room beside. Waking DS never ends well.

Hi Belfast,
This is very normal and it is just developmental. It can suck when you want to go and have a long evening to yourself, but it will not be forever.

Both mine who did this for periods of time (slightly younger age than you), the naps were the same, changing bedtime made no difference. It was just a stage.
I really transformed how I dealt with and felt about it by trying not to think "why won't she go to sleep" or "shes messing about", and instead seeing it as being important support while she wound down from the day, both physically and mentally. Sometimes they just need you to stay and be there while they work it out of their system and get sleepy. You will ALWAYS outlast them :-)
I still got grumpy some evenings, but you absolutely don't need to do sleep training or any sort of leaving and crying if it feels wrong. Follow your instinct and try to see this as a really important phase where she needs you to help her by just being there.

p.s. I could never leave mine to cry for more than 30 seconds, never mind 2-3 minutes or even longer. It's ok to not want to do that.

Hi OP - what you are describing is actually quite common (a few of my NCT friends have gone/are going through something similar). When toddlers transition to one nap, their internal clock gets messed up and their biological bedtime often gets pushed back. They may still be tired at 7 or 7.30pm but they may not be able to fall asleep.

My DD went through a similar phase a few weeks ago (she has just turned 17 months). She loves her cot and her sleep and in the past whenever we put her to bed at around 7.15pm, she used to fall asleep within 10-15 minutes. All of a sudden, she stopped settling for the night and could spend up to an hour walking around her cot and loudly practicing her newly acquired vocabulary (bubble! apple! cat!). She never cried but it didn't matter - I was concerned she was not getting enough sleep during the night.

I followed the recommendation in one of the sleep blogs I really like:

www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/09/14/The-Toddler-18-ish-Month-Regression-What-is-it-and-What-can-be-Done-About-it

Determine your child’s biological bedtime. Make sure you are asking your child to sleep when he’s ready to sleep. Remember, the biological bedtime can drift as much as an hour later during toddlerhood. If your child is not ready for sleep, then your intervention will not work no matter what strategy you use. Don’t put your child down until it’s clear that he’s able to sleep. The best way to figure out your child’s bedtime is to take his average fall asleep time from the last week and put him down at that time. This might be a socially crazy time, like 10:00 PM, but if that’s when your child normally falls asleep, it’s the right place to start. Once your child is falling asleep quickly after your routine, you can gradually move bedtime earlier by 20 minutes a day. Once you reach the time that works for your family stick to it and try not to vary bedtime by more than 30 minutes from night to night.

I pushed DD bedtime back to 8.15pm for a few days and then started gradually bringing it forward. Right now we are at 7.30pm and DD normally falls asleep within 15 minutes. She still loves having 10-15 minutes "conversations" before going to sleep but they are actually quite cute and she then goes to sleep peacefully.

Thank you, @InFrance2014 and @wintertravel1980 - that's really helpful. I don't really remember DS having this phase (though he was just a terrible sleeper all round), so I've been worried that it'll last for months!