Any ideas on this one?

[Bancha]

My DD is 16m. Her sleep is (now) pretty good. She has a 90 minute nap in the day - sometimes more if she’s poorly or had a bad night. Otherwise, if I let her have any longer than that she is up for HOURS in the night. At bedtime she goes down at 7.30 and sleeps til 7-7.10 generally. She self settles to sleep for naps and at bedtime with no issue. Sleeps the same at nursery as at home.

Apart from having to watch her naps, her sleep is generally pretty good unless she’s been really under the weather. Developmentally she’s flying, all good there.

I really do know that this is the stuff of dreams for some parents out there, it certainly was for me at one stage. So I’m not complaining about the current situation, I’m just wondering if anyone can shed any light on these random wake ups DD has started doing.

They happen generally between 12pm and 12.30pm. She will wake up crying really loudly, me to DH will go in, quick cuddle, and she goes straight back to sleep. She goes back to sleep quicker for DH so at the moment he is going to her. It used to happen every so often and it’s increasing, so is probably happening every other day at the moment?

Could it be nightmares? The warmer weather? A noise somewhere (pretty sure it’s not though)? I really don’t know what to make of it.

I would really appreciate any thoughts. I have a (possibly irrational) worry that there is something I should have picked up on that is bothering her.

That is very low on total amount of sleep in 24h, for this age. Sleep deprivation means that sleep that does happen is often lighter sleep rather than deep sleep - and it's much easier to be woken in light sleep. So I would suggest the most likely reason for night wakes is not enough sleep over 24h.

I would make your afternoon nap 30-60 minutes earlier, to make it more like 2-2.5h in length.

Hi @FATEdestiny, thanks for the reply. You’ve helped me loads before - I had a different username.

I really do mean it when I say that if she naps for longer she will be awake for two hours overnight. Recently when she has napped too long it was 2.5 hours and last time it was three hours 😓 this only happens when she has slept longer in the day. Obviously when that happens, she gets less sleep overall and then she seems really tired.

She has always averaged around 13 hours’ sleep in 24, which is what she is getting at the moment. When I cut her nap from 2h to 90 minutes (I have to wake her) she started sleeping 30-40 minutes longer overnight so she was still getting 13 hours. She is happy and developing well and generally a very contented little soul. She sleeps soundly otherwise, she doesn’t wake at small noises (we aren’t especially quiet) and doesn’t wake early for the day... All this is to say, I really don’t think she is over tired. And if she is, well, I don’t know what I can do about it, given the nap situation.

Is there any chance she could be having nightmares? Or too hot?

Also the long wakes have always been an issue for her from when she was really tiny. I used to kill myself to get her to sleep longer in the daytime thinking this would help but I realise now I was just making it worse. When she sleeps less in the day (up to a point, of course) her night sleep is significantly better.

Being too hot is an immediate-solve. You should literally get results straight away. Put her to bed in fewer layers (or lighter tog rating sleeping bag). If the reason she's waking is because she's too hot, she should not wake up right from the first night.

I highly doubt it's nightmare. It's not presenting as nightmares anyway (they are more time randomised), but mostly she's not of a stage with the cognitive development yet.