What is it with spring and kids not sleeping? I think I know six other moms who have small children who are giving them grief at bedtime (or after bedtime...or both).
J was having issues with napping at daycare - she was sleeping in the cubby room because she was too disruptive to the other kids. She sang. She talked. She got up and wandered around the room.
But she REALLY wanted to sleep in the nap room. For months they would try to move her into the nap room and the experiment would fail...and then two weeks ago, well, it worked. Not only is she sleeping in the nap room, she's doing it on her own. She goes in, lies down, goes to sleep. She doesn't need a teacher to help her go to sleep or sing her songs or tell her stories. She just goes to sleep.
But now she won't sleep at home.
She offers to go to bed, but then she resists. She yells. She hides. She stalls. She cries. She stalls some more. It's the longest, most difficult process ever. And then, after she finally falls asleep, she wakes up multiple times, really upset. I think she's having bad dreams...or at least she's asleep and still dreaming. She told me the other night that she wasn't crying so she was going to stay in mommy and daddy's bed. Ummm...she was sleeping in her bed...so I agreed with her and she put her head down and went back to sleep.
And I've had enough...even though we have a bedtime routine, it still takes up to two hours to get her to bed. And I'm doing bedtime on my own because Alex is at work. And then I'm up multiple times in the night (she usually settles in just before Alex gets home so I have to get up every time). I had no idea what to do...so I called my mom.
Apparently all three of us did the same thing at about the same age. The difference was that my mom just sent us all outside to play after dinner. But we don't have yard. So our new plan of action is to go for a walk or to the park before bed time...hopefully it will work...fingers crossed...
And on that note, I'm off to grab a little sleep before J wakes me up...
Hmm...
ReplyDeleteWhen S was about that age, we struggled with bedtime too. We could put her down early, but it'd still be 10/10:30 before she finally caved.
Our problem was the nap... she was outgrowing it. If she napped, she was up late. Once she stopped napping, she was asleep within about 10-15 min of being put to bed. It was a hard call, because she really seemed to need the nap. We used the Easter long weekend to experiment with the no-nap thing, and we never looked back.
If J just reintroduced a nap, then it seems this could be a likely cause of her nighttime nutties?
Good luck figuring it out...
Nah, she was napping before, she just disrupted everyone else which is why she was in the other room. But she'd sleep for usually an hour and a half to two and a half hours...
ReplyDeleteSince she's moved into the other room she's been on a 3:30 limit - she has to get up whether she's been asleep for two hours or for fifteen minutes...but that doesn't seem to be helping. I think we might add a no more than an hour and a half and up by 3:30 regardless clause...
I think it's because of spring (Mommy, it's still light out), growing and needing more activity, and all the lovely routine messing that went on over the last three months because she (or I) was sick.
Good to know S out grew it...there is light at the end of the tunnel!
I feel your pain. Bedtime is so tough!
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