Nighttime and night lights and napping. Oh my

hellopoppyseed

My 2.75 year old has been all over the map with sleeping lately. For the past couple of months he naps like 50% of the time. This weekend he was sick so I'm sure that contributes to some of the randomness. He normally goes to bed at 7 and wakes between 6 and 6:30. If he does take a nap, it takes him a while to fall asleep at night. If he doesn't take a nap, he usually wakes in the night and then super early so the naps seem to affect his nighttime sleeping either way. 

Then lately he's been waking and saying he's scared. Last night we put a nightlight in his room. He was up at 8:30 (when we put the nightlight in there) then at 3am and 4:30 am then 7 for the day. He won't take a nap today. I ordered the kinderglo nightlight which is a glowing dinosaur that he can sleep with. He's going to go nuts for it. He is still in the crib. We don't have specific plans to change him unless it would be beneficial but otherwise we'll probably wait till 3ish. Is this age normal for needing a nightlight? Normal for giving up naps?

He is definitely the type that sleeps less if he sleeps less. Does that make sense? If he's overtired, things get so ugly. I feel like he is not a naturally great sleeper but we just managed it well from about 8 months till now and our system is breaking down. I neeeeeeeed a working system. Thank you!

Stacyc625

The turtle star thing worked for us during the 'i am scared' period-

we also bought a Mobi Glo which was a big ole bust.

Hoping for sleep for your household!

hellopoppyseed

That turtle is really cute. If the dinosaur breaks maybe I'll get the turtle for back up. I foresee a lot of money being thrown at this. =/

Stacyc625

lol- Been there.

Money is well spent if it fixes sleep issues.

hellopoppyseed

Stacyc625:

lol- Been there.

Money is well spent if it fixes sleep issues.

Absolutely 

hellopoppyseed

ExpectantSteelerFan:

Ds is of a similar age, and seems to be similar sleep-wise.  He naps maybe 2-3 days a week.  If he does nap, he takes forever to fall asleep (but he sttn, and is also still in a crib).  If he doesn't nap, he sleeps 7/7:30-6:30ish, but if he does nap, we put him down around 7:30 and he takes till 8:30 or so to fall asleep. 

He's had a nightlight for a while, but lately he's had some dreams that he could actually articulate in the morning (I went in the other day and he started crying when he saw me and said 'mommy get new foam numbers?  don't let the numbers go down the drain?' apparently because he dreamed that his foam numbers that he plays with in the bath went down the drain...they physically can't so I'm guessing it had to be a dream...he wouldn't calm down till I showed them to him).  

Oh, and he's slept with the glowing seahorse since he was an infant, and he still uses it to fall asleep and freaks if it runs out of batteries.  If he does wake overnight, he uses that to put himself back to sleep.

 

The glowing seahorse! Why didn't I think of that thing? Where is it?  We probably dont have the right sized batteries but if we have problems tonight, I'm searching for it in the night.