Hello :)
Just wondering if anyone has had the same experience or similar and how you dealt with it
My 17mo dropped down to 1 nap at 10 months and it was really hard to keep her going all day but she'd resist at least 1 of her naps and then would be really hard to get to sleep at night.
Now she is resisting her nap and if she does nap, she's really hard to get to sleep at night. For example, yesterday she fell asleep straight away for her nap 11.20 (which was 4.5 hours after she woke) napped for 1.5 hours and then after doing bedtime at the usual time of 7, she fell asleep at 9:30pm. Another example is that my mum tried for 3 hours on and off one day and she had no luck with a nap. She'd tried rocking her, leaving her and putting her in the pram and going on a walk. This past week, my daughter has napped 3 times and each time has taken hours to get to sleep at night.
We normally rock her to sleep but she's getting bigger so is fidgeting more and we can't keep hold of her, it also seems like she wants to get herself comfortable so we put her back in her cot.
We've not consistently tried any techniques but we have sat by her cot and ignored her but she just wants to talk and it takes forever and also we've just walked out and let her fall asleep on her own (if she's crying we do check on her and briefly comfort).
My thoughts are (and I'm open to suggestions):
- Drop the nap completely (unless she absolutely needs it)
- If she doesn't nap after 20 minutes just leaving her for 'cot hour' so at least she's in a relaxing environment
- Sleep training (but I'm not sure on which method to use)
She also is only with a parent throughout the day 3 days a week, goes to nursery 2 days a week and 2 days a week she's with either of her nans so maybe it's better to wait until maternity leave which is in 4 weeks? I'm currently 34 weeks pregnant so I am keen to get this started before the baby gets here. Because of the new baby, having her in our bed isn't an option.
I'll also mention that she does generally sleep through the night regardless and we rarely need to go into her, there are a few nights that we have to go in and out but they are few and far between