My son is 3 and half years old. He was a FABULOUS sleeper until about 4 months ago. Was taking one nap a day (about 2 hours) maybe 3-4 days a week, and going to bed easily at night after a bath, brushing teeth, and reading books. He was using a pacifier only for sleeping and lost it, and that was the end of the pacifier (we were trying to being weaning him from it anyways). Naps immediately stopped after the pacifier was gone. It was like he would put it in his mouth and an immediate calm would come over him. Now his "quiet time" is him sometimes playing quietly and others causing destruction in his room. During this time, night time sleep had remained great. Now, in the past month, he cannot get settled in at night to sleep, despite being exhausted by the end of the day. Our routine has remained the same: bathe, read, kisses, and lights out. He will get up and play in his room for another hour. We have tried taking out toys, letting him read in his bed, etc, but he appears to get immediately hyped up when we leave, despite being relaxed and tired while we are reading to him on his bed. I truly believe he isn't getting enough sleep and his behavior during the day is evidence of this. In fact, many times during the day he will tell me, "Mommy, I am so tired!", but he can settle down enough to rest or take a nap. He is even waking up earlier than he used to. Help! He is sleeping from about 8:45 to 6:45.
Note: Advice for this would be great! We put him in his room at 7 or 7:30 after the whole soothing routine, and he looks as if he is going to fall asleep, but as soon as we leave, he is in overdrive playing and getting into mischief for an hour or hour and a half. How do we solve this?
I agree, he is overtired. Our oldest does the same thing.More tired he gets, less he sleeps.
S.,
I have 3 kids, if they are an indication of "normal" then your kids follow right in line with them. They all have taken ups and downs in their sleep patterns. It could be that he is over tired - when my boys (8,6 and 3) get over tired - they sleep LESS. I cherish nap time as a time to get stuff done around my house, but I have had to give up that time on several occasions to rock or snuggle the kids to sleep because I knew they needed it even if they didn't.
Good Luck, you know your child the best - so if you believe he needs more rest - do what ever it takes....it will last for a season and then his sleep patterns should level out.
T.
Hi S. - my guess is that he is going to bed too late. If he is not napping any longer, he should be going to bed around 7:00p or 7:30p now, not 8:45pm. I would say that he is very overtired. Try an earlier bedtime and it might just do the trick. Good luck!
Hi S.,
I agree with AM, he should go to bed earlier. Also, another poster suggested giving him his pacifier back and I would not do this. In my opinion he's too old and needs to learn how to fall asleep on his own. There's an excellant book that my daughters teacher recommended called "Is my Child Overtired" the sleep solution for raising happier healthier children by Dr Wilkoff. It's easy to read, straight forward and it also has a chart to tell you how much sleep a child needs at whatever age they are. HTH!
Could you substitute the pacifier for a blanket, stuffed animal? I understand the weaning from the pacifier but if he is not sleeping well,even though he is exhausted, you might want to consider giving it back to him. I breast fed all my children and my oldest one would usually fall asleep a few minutes after beginning the feeding. The doctor said that the sucking acted as a relaxer and he would go to sleep. It is probably the same for your child. Good Luck
