Zzzzzzzzzzzz....the baby/toddler please oh please SLEEP thread

[Tacori E-ring]

My kid is trying to drop her nap. I really feel like she is too little to go all day. By the time 6:00 pm comes along she is irrational, irritable, and unreasonable. I had a feeling this would happen once she went to daycare. That combined with now climbing out of her crib is killing any chance of a nap. How can a 2.5 year old go from a 3 hour nap a day to none?!? So, my question is for the mamas who have tots in "big kid" beds...how do you make/encourage them to nap? I already put the kid proof door handle on the inside of her room and every single piece of furniture is attached to the wall so I feel like she is safe in there.

 

[KimberlyH]

tac, obviously not there yet (but jane would skip naps too, if i didn''t force them on her, and then melt down and pass out) but what works for my nephew and kiddos when i''ve worked preschool is this: rather than trying to force sleep make it a mandatory rest period. she has to stay in bed, which will probably take a lot of returning her there on your part at first, and can only do a quiet activity, like reading, no toys allowed. make the room dark and quiet, however it would normally be for naptime, and typically they fall asleep at some point, and if not at least she''s rested a bit in a calm environment.

 

[Mara]

why is sleep so darn hard? sleep is fabulous, kiddos. for the rest of your natural lives you will be trying to get MORE sleep instead of less. it's really too bad that mother nature doesn't teach them that lesson in the womb!!!

we are on night 3 (or is it 4?) of the 4 month wakeful. here i thought we were getting off easy what with the deswaddling and waking 1-2x a night, taking the paci and going back to sleep. nope...now he's rolling and finds himself jammed into the crib corner...OR wants to be up at 2am talking to himself and playing with his feet. eventually he works himself into crying and this can go on for an hour or more if i try to let him CIO. sometimes we feed him, sometimes not, i don't want to get into the habit of feeding him at night again but i know the wakeful is also accompanied by a growth spurt so i don't want him hungry.

also real CIO would probably be worse on me than him because our house is tiny and i literally just can't sleep when he is making noise as it sounds so loud and sad...which is why i am up at 3am writing this. he got up at 1am, i soothed him back to sleep 2x before 2:30 then he ate EIGHT oz (a ton for him) and now he is in his crib again talking to himself. really.

it just blows my mind how a baby who has been sleeping 9-12 hours for almost 2.5 months goes to being up pretty much almost every hour or every other hour. oh and naps... almost nonexistent as he doesn't want to sleep then either.

i've read that typically this can last a few weeks, so i figure we'll try to gut it out 2 weeks and if it still is the same we'll have to do hard core CIO and i'll just drink heavily then pass out every night...HA. i am only partially joking. either that or move to a house where he can have his own separate wing.

definitely only having one...