Getting 17 month old to sleep

jennej24

Some background so we have never been on a schedule, I always just let her nap and go to sleep whenever she was tired. It used to be I could see when she took a short or no nap during the day she would go to bed earlier, but now this isn't happening. Yesterday she only napped about 90 minutes, but then wouldn't go to sleep until 10:30. She generally nurses to sleep, and now bedtime/naptime is the only time I encourage her to nurse so she will sleep, however if she is not ready when I try she will nurse but then pinch or bite. We currently cosleep, although I usually try to move her to her crib after she falls asleep until first waking. She recently went from waking up to nurse every 1-2 hours to 1 or 2 times a night.

I tried the Pantley method when she was younger without much success. I have tried a routine, but due to the fact that she varies her bedtime it is hard. I tried doing the routine and then keeping her in room reading books and doing quiet activities, but she just wants to crawl off the bed and eventually the only way to keep her there is to pin her down crying. If I let her off the bed she stands at the door crying for me to open it. Sometimes I have resorted to letting her watch TV until she falls asleep, but that doesn't seem like a good solution, and it doesn't always work anyway. I don't think she is getting enough sleep and neither my husband or I are night owls, and we just want to go to sleep before she falls asleep.

 

Emerald27

DS is 20 months old and very much the same. He really NEEDS a nap every day and to go to bed by 9. Otherwise he is a cranky mess.

We've had some recent trouble going to sleep for naps and bedtime, but I am attributing it to development, he suddenly now repeats any word you ask him to, and teething, he just cut a canine and a molar.

My solution has been a short bath to wind down before naptime, and dark bedroom with no toys and just mama at night. We read a book, brush our teeth, and get a new diaper and jammies in the living room. Then the toys to night night and we do too. He doesn't have to lay down but he has to stay on the bed, and he usually gets bored within a couple minutes and lays down to nurse and sleep.

At naptime, if he has taken his bath and still acts wakeful, we sit on the bed tickling and singing songs, and I lay him down and see if he'll nurse every 5 minutes. But he rarely stays awake long after a bath.

KateLouise

DD2 is 17mths. We have a night time routine. Dinner. Bath. Ointment and massage (she has eczema). Books and a bit of a play before bed.

The routine generally starts at the same time everynight because our dinners are pretty much at the same time, but books and playtime can vary in length depending on how big a nap she had and how tired she is. 

One of us goes and lies down with her until she goes to sleep. Sometimes she fights it, in which case we close the door so she has to stay in the room, and we just keep putting her back on the bed. She normally only fights it for a few minutes.

So I guess my point is that I agree with pp that routine is really valuable. But it doesn't have to be carved in stone down to the minute. It's the sequence of events that matter. Babies can't tell the time so if you start things  a bit earlier or later or allow bathtime to go on a bit longer based on how tired LO is and what they need then that's fine.

Naptime can also have a routine like a snack or drink of milk and a book and cuddles with Mum before hand.

That way LO gets to recognise that sleeptime is coming. 

 

jennej24

Her bedtime does vary with naps. I guess I will try a routine again, but the reason it didn't work before was I chose a time that I thought would be good and then sometimes she would fall asleep before we would even get to the routine. Or we would do the routine and then she would want to play for another hour. Maybe I didn't allow for enough crying, but 15 minutes of me holding her on the bed and her struggling to get off the bed and crying and I was worn out and couldn't do it anymore.

KateLouise

Does she generally wake at the same time each morning and go down for a nap at the same time? So it's just the length of nap that varies?

Does she generally have one or two naps?

Sometimes when they're ready to drop a nap they can be really up and down and back and forth with their routine. Sometimes I get a bit tough on the afternoon nap. ie If LO goes down for an earlier nap than usual say 11am rather than 12pm. I won't let her have an afternoon nap (unless it's like a 15 min nap if we go out in the car) but I will put her to bed earlier than usual.  Otherwise if she has a 4pm nap, then I know we'll all be up until 10pm.

Maybe pushing her morning nap later will help her? LOs daycare put her down around 1230pm (sometimes earlier if she needs it) which makes a big difference to how long and how well she naps. I've often put her down earlier on the weekends, but then she has a shorter nap and it messes with the rest of her day/evening and her overall happiness...so it's better for me to push her out to the later sleep time. 

jennej24

She generally has one nap. I usually try to put her down at 1ish, but sometimes she doesn't fall asleep until later or sometimes it is earlier. Length does vary too. She sometimes wakes up and nurses back to sleep during naps. The reason I think she needs more sleep is that lots of times she falls asleep for those short naps in the car. She generally wakes at the same time, but it is usually my husband getting ready for work that wakes her unintentionally since she sleeps in our bed and she will sleep in later on the weekends.