Why does my DD (nearly 2.5) sleep so little?

[ladymarian]

HELP! My DD (nearly 2.5) doesn't seem to sleep enough -only around 9.5 to 10.5 hrs per night with no day time naps - and I am worried it will start to affect her health and development.

She has always been an early riser (usually around 6) but this has got even earlier recently as we had to take the side of her cot bed due to her jumping out and hurting herself. Last week she woke up at 4.30 a couple of days and just would not go back to sleep. She gave up her afternoon nap a couple of months ago.

She is usually in bed asleep by 7.15 most nights. We have tried putting her to bed later but this makes her get up even earlier .

I am knackered and the lack of sleep and the stress is making my PND worse (GP upped my dose of ADs last week as I was in tears at my review appointment.

Any tips??? I have tried to re-introduce her nap this afternoon but she is bawling as I type....

This possibly won't make you feel much better but mine was exactly the same at 2.5. I remember those occasional 4:30am starts too. Not good.

She's now 2.8 and is sleeping a bit longer at night now. One thing that really does seem to help is either a fan (last few nights) or a CD of the sound of waves (she preferred that to rain) running all night.

Mine stopped napping at about 2.4 and only very, very rarely has a sleep now. She doesn't go to sleep until 8pm and usually wakes up at about 6:30 or 7:00am. On Saturday, though, she slept in until 8:00am - joy.

I don't think it will be likely to impair her health, etc. Some children are just like this. Or so I am repeatedly told.

I think what I'm trying to say is that it does, slowly, get better.

I know it's hard though. I really do feel for you. The constant tiredness has me wondering if I'm actually losing my mind... x

Thanks for your msg - its good to know I am not alone!

She actually slept for just over an hour this afternoon after a lot of crying and climbing out of the bed but she was super grumpy when I got her up - I wonder if its worth it?? Hopefully she'll sleep ok tonight....

Actually, you've just reminded me that when my DD sleeps occasionally in the afternoon now, I ask nursery to limit it to one hour else she will not sleep for long at night.

Hope you weren't up too early today.