Hi. I'm always reading the posts on here, but have never posted my own. You ladies seem to have just the right dose of advice and encouragement in most cases. qI know that after three kids, I should know a little of what I'm doing. My youngest dd just turned a year old last week. She is precious and oh so funny. She hasn't started walking yet, but I think it's more of a laziness thing for her. She has two older sisters who love to tote her around, so why would she need to walk? Anyway, for the past couple of weeks, she will not nap during the day for more than 30 minutes. She wakes up very early and I think it is mostly because she hears me up with the girls getting them ready for school. Sometimes she takes a decent morning nap, but not always. She does very well in the car and that is the only time that she can put herself to sleep. At home, she needs to be rocked...and nursed at night to go to sleep. We have started to wean during the day and she seems to doing very well with that, but it also seems to be when the sleeplessness began. She still nurses first thing in the morning and to go to sleep at night. She drinks whole milk some during the day...maybe a cup in total.
Any ideas on how I could get her to go to sleep easier and get some rest. It wouldn't bother me much, but she is so very tired and grouchy. I know she needs some sleep. Thanks in advance!
I agree with teaching her to go to sleep on her own. Maybe she's not taking long naps and getting up early in the morning because she wakes up and then can't soothe herself to sleep. But could she be teething? This can also cause sleeplessness.
Our entire family sleeps with white noise machines, and has for years. Actually, the babies each have a box fan in their rooms, and I have a white noise machine on my alarm clock. But you can get room air cleaner towers that sound like the white noise as well. Just something that will drown out sounds that distract and make an alert, intelligent toddler pop her eyes open and think, "Hey! What's going on out there? I want to get up and be part of that!"
The white noise is very restful.
Good luck!
CeceD
Maybe try some white noise in her room, like a fan?
Hi J.,
-You mention that this has been going on for "the past couple of weeks". Could it be since school started for the older two?
-I recommend building your baby's weekday schedule based on the older girls' schedule. Don't try to maintain the schedule on weekends. You may as well not go overboard trying to put her down for a nap when they are home, because of the noise and distraction.
-Like the other postings, I strongly recommend some sort of white noise. I used the "awake, feed, play" cycle for mine.
-So, try waking her up early with the girls. Feed her. Then exercise her; play with her, do calisthenics with her, get her outside, go to a playground, whatever. Then, take her home (without letting her fall asleep in the car), feed her a snack, take her to her room and make her comfortable and read to her. If she doesn't doze off for the first few days, she will after she gets used to the pattern of this being "quiet time".
-Repeat the same cycle in the afternoon. Don't be surprised if you have to put her to sleep at the same time as the older girls in the evening.
Good luck!
I know how you feel. Not only is the child grouchy it makes mom unhappy too. My daughter was the same way. Would not sleep at night or during the day. Unless we were holding her. We found out when she laid down, she had so much drainage in her ears it hurt. Once we had tubes put in and her adnoids removed she did much better. Maybe that is an option to have checked. She is now 6 we had the first procedure at 6 months and the second at 18 months. She slept thru the night the next day. Hope it works.
Interesting read. I will be keeping up with this topic. I cannot give any advice on this topic, but I do have a similar situation. My 11 month old is also a light sleeper and is down to one nap a day on most days. We never know if her nap will be in the morning or afternoon. This being our first child, we have spoiled her a bit. We have to rock her to sleep at night AND she sleeps in the bed with us.
I like the white noise idea. They sell machines and clock radios that have it at Target. We've used one for DD forever.
I have more questions to consider. It sounds like she needs to learn how to fall asleep on her own so she can STAY asleep.
Has she ever been put in bed while still awake?
Do you know her sleepy-time window? You know, if you miss the cues it's a nightmare to get her down.
Does she resist sleep?
Is she on a regular routine?
I've heard about a book that breaks down all the sleep theories. I think it's called "Sleep Solutions" -this way you could see what ideas work best for you.
Personally, I used the Wake/Eat/Play/Wake/Eat/Play routine. That works like a charm, even when I'm caring for a friend's difficult sleeper.
Best of luck!
She may be growing out of her naps. My daughter stopped naps altogether when she was about 18 months...nearly killed me as I needed the naps...LOL! We went from rocking her every night until she fell asleep to laying down with her until she fell asleep.
B.
WAHM
My neice is the same way! When I watch her, I make sure we go out on the trampoline (she loves outdoors) to the park doing fun things to wear her out! She normally doesn't go to sleep until midnight (fighting sleep) but on the days that I made sure she was tired of playing she went to sleep around 9:30-10 o'clock. She has a young Mom and she doesn't understand why she should have her daughter on a schedule.
Best of luck!
My youngest (almoat 1yr) is a light sleeper too. He was 8 mths before I got him on a good nap schedule and sleeping through the night. The train whistle, the geese flying over, and the neighbor across the street always seemed to be waking him up. At 10 mths he finally started falling asleep on his own. I use a music cd to get both my boys asleep for naps and bedtime. Right now he takes a morning nap and an afternoon nap, but I think we're getting ready to cut down to 1 nap. He sleeps 1-2 hrs for each nap and about 10 hrs at night. He's also weaned except for the feeding first thing in the morning. When its nap/bed time, I make his bottle then take him to his crib. I turn on the music and lay him in the crib drinking his bottle. It took a couple of months but now he finishes the bottle and goes right to sleep. At firsr he would fuss and after a few minutes I'd go in and pat his back. I would wait longer and longer to go in there and eventually I didn't have to. Now when he wakes at night he usually just cries out once and goes right back to sleep, even after his music is over. I think falling asleep to the music helps him tune out noises.
I agree with putting a white noise machine in her room while she's sleeping. My youngest son is almost 3 and has always been a very light sleeper. I bought a sound machine off of amazon.com for about $20 and it is wonderful. It has a waterfall setting that sounds like white noise when it's turned up and he sleeps through everything now. It's easy to pack and send on overnight visits to their grandparent's house and to take on vacations. A full night sleep also helps with the naps. My son always naps better when he's not overtired. He'll be 3 in December and I can still get a good 2-3 hour nap out of him after lunch.
Dear J. Y
It sounds like she is growing out of napping for along period of time. You both need to adjust to a different time maybe. Oh please hold her when you can for someday they will no longer need that special touch. Just words of encouragment. And get on with their own life. Each child is so different and that is what we want them to be. Life is not like cutting cookies out of the same shape. It is a puzzles and makes it so interesting to find out were each of us fit in.
Show your older children how to encourage to walk. I came from a family of 7. I was the oldest. I taught a few of them to walk. I would have something in my hand that they like and they would reach out to get it. I back up just a little bit. Before you know it they started to make their steps in their life. It was fun watching them do that. And it made me feel proud to know I help them to walk.
I hope I helped a little.
Have a good Day Today
Vicki w.
