sleep help advice? (long)

remote_girl

so the little guy has never been all that great of a sleeper (lots of crying, unpredictable schedule, very VERY rarely STTN), but recently we had a schedule that seemed to work and it seemed to lead to him being a much happier kid. he was going to bed around 7/7:30, woke up once at night, and he got up on his own around 6am with a morning nap from around 10-12 and an afternoon nap for about an hour. he often fussed/cried for a few minutes (3 or less) but had figured out how to get to sleep and passed out pretty quickly.

i figured the naps would scale back or move to one at some point soon, but instead he was fine one day and the next was a holy terror. i figured it was sleep regression and moved to graduated cry it out in the hopes to get him back on track - didn't work at all. some days he napped once, some days he napped twice and once he didn't nap at all. so after a while i did straight cry it out - yeah, it was not good. as the days passed it became apparent it wasn't sleep regression it was separation anxiety (and CIO was not a good thing to try at that point according to all the reading i did). so the past week or two i have just been riding it out and trying to find a pattern. i should note that going to bed at night hasn't been as much of a problem as he has been so tired.

so the past two days he has been up at 6am, i have kept him busy until 11:30 when i put him down for a nap (with minimal fuss as he is really tired), and he has napped for an hour and a half exactly. he is then up, gets tired/cranky late in the afternoon, but won't sleep so he has been passing out at 7pm (and that is stretching it). someone suggested trying an earlier bedtime while he adjusts to the one nap, and then moving it back to normal so we gave it a go last night since he seemed so beat. he passed out at 6:30 without a peep....and was up at 5am ready to go - ugh. so i guess my question is should i try to keep him up  until 11:30 again today? i know he is going to be beat earlier than that but if i put him down earlier i  am pretty sure an afternoon nap won't happen and once again i will have a fusspot on my hands. am i doing the right thing at all?

if you made it through this giant post thanks! 

 

slwprincess

When it comes to naps, I am not a fan of trying to force my kids into a schedule.  It always ALWAYS backfires.  When they start showing signs of being sleepy, rubbing eyes, fussy, whatever... it's naptime.  It may change in a week or so, or you may figure out that he's consistently tired at the same time.  Don't watch the clock and watch his cues today and see if that helps.  Also, I always find that when Gavin is resisting naptime, it helps if a I recreate our bedtime routine so that he gets the full experience.  I have even gone so far as to give him a bath right before his nap!  Good luck- this too shall pass.

smynings_bride

I don't have any clear advice, but I'll tell you what's going on with us. 

With naps, I also don't have a set nap schedule when we're home on weekends, we just really look for her cues to tell us when she needs a nap.  Some mornings she seems to need a nap an hour or so after she gets up (and will nap for 2 hours) and other mornings she's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and so we go to breakfast and run our errands and then she's ready for a nap closer to lunch time.  During the week, they just started her class on the school napping schedule of 12:30-2:30 and she sleeps the entire time.  There's no way she could make it to 12:30 on the weekends before napping but I think she's so stimulated at school she lasts longer. She hardly ever napped at daycare before the whole class went on the same schedule. 

We generally put her down around 7 and she almost always sleeps 11-12 hours.  Same thing as you mentioned, she's really tired in the late afternoon. When she starts to fuss we put her down a little early and when she seems full of energy we put her down a little later.  There's no rhyme or reason with regard to what time we put her to sleep at night and when she wakes up. She usually gets up b/w 6:30 and 7 but on occasion she gets up around 5 for a day or two.  When she does, I let her play in her crib and don't go in. 9 times out of 10 she falls back to sleep and within a day or two she's back to waking up regular time.  

remote_girl

thanks for the advice you guys! i am pretty much a go with flow momma and let him sort of develop his own schedules but this one has thrown me for a loop. we have a naptime routine and i totally watch him for cues vs the clock, but he seemed to tense up every time we started our routine and fought naps despite throwing cues my way like crazy.

i guess it just feels like most people i know can nail down when their kids nap (and make plans accordingly), and that somehow i was supposed to as well. like i was letting him manipulate the situation, or i was doing something wrong that was making his sleeping hard for him. i appreciate hearing that it doesn't have to be a set in stone schedule for everyone....

mrsd0907

We too are much more go with the flow than strict schedule. We have always just looked for Derek's cues and he typically goes down about 12 but it could be anywhere from 11-1 and he'll sleep for 2-3 hours. He had a bad separation anxiety phase too when we put him in daycare at first and CIO backfired bad. I remember just rocking him to sleep and putting him to bed once he was really asleep. A few weeks later we tried CIO again and it worked after that.