Chatting for 1 - 2 hours in the middle of the night!!

[Parker]

Does anyone else have experience of this?
My 18mth old does it periodically and then seems really tired all day and needs a longer and earlier nap which is a vicious circle.
Any advice?

How long's it been going on for? My dd had a short phase of being awake for a couple of hours in the night a few months ago but it was associated with her not being very well.

My dd is going through this atm. I'm not complaining though because it means she sleeps in while 10am

I used to keep going in to her, putting her dummy back in and tucking her in which sorted it but we've just gone cold turkey with the dummy so it doesn't really solve anything.

Invest in some earplugs and it should pass!

Is his or her room dark enough, cool enough, warm enough, peaceful enough, etc? Could there be something disturbing at a regular hour - like a clock chiming, say?

Or else just grit your teeth and bear it. Definitely don't go to the baby because that just gives a resaon for them to continue and get some extra entertainment.

I'd suggest that you get the baby up 2h after they've gone down for the nap, no matter when that was, to try and ensure that they're tired at night - but not over-tire of course, cos that also causes sleep progblems .

Thanks for the replies.
It has been going on on and off for a while but as he doesn't cry or seem distressed I dont go into him.He still wakes early even after all that time awake!
He does have a cold Mummylonglegs but if he is really unwell then he cries.
I have tried the earplugs but then I wont hear my 4year old as DH sleeps v deeply!
I guess like many things in life there is no answer! His room is dark with v dim night light, but he does back onto the railway line 150 ft from his room, so I expect there are trains in the night. DS1 has got used to it so I expect he will too.

Doesn't seem to be much you can do about the night-times, really. Maybe he doesn't need all that much sleep in total, but can't quite cope on the amount he's getting. The only thing I can think of would be tweaking his daytime naps and making sure he doesn't sleep too long during the day.

Until I got used to dd's nightly mutterings and groanings she woke me constantly (although she was still asleep) and I too worried about using earplugs in case I didn't hear ds if he cried. The solution, I found, was to dig out the baby monitor - with the receiver on the bedside table right by my head, I could hear if they cried loudly, even when I wore earplugs, but mutterings etc weren't loud enough to get through the earplugs.

You're right prettycandles there isn't much I can do. I only let him sleep for 1 hour at 12pm though he would like much longer but then takes ages to settle at 7pm bedtime. He certainly can't do without his nap yet so I guess we'll live through it!

I've discovered with my dd that if she doesn't get enough sleep during the daytime - skips nap or if it gets cut short - then she wakes every 1-1.5h between going to bed and about 1am. I wonder whether there could be anything similar with yours? My two didn't give up having two naps a day until they were about 18m, but took about 3m to go from 2 naps to 1 nap - and it was a very tough time. I wonder whether your ds could do with a short nap - say 20-40min - to refresh him for lunchtime, followed by his 1h nap? Again, I found that, at that age, letting the children sleep beyond 3.30 made bed-time difficult. What about shifting his bed-time on 30-60mins if he needs a longer nap in the afternoon?

Thanks for the advice PC. It's all gone out of the window as DS1 has chickenpox! After nearly a month off for Easter he now is covered in spots and really suffering poor chap, and back at home of course. We wait for DS2's turn!!

my dd did this a few times, we simply cut her nap time and put her to bed half hour later, then gradually brought it back to normal
This sorted it, I think it was summery high jinks though.