Confused what to do about 1 yr old sleep

A few weeks ago DD started really fighting her afternoon sleep, so I came to the conclusion that she was transitioning from two naps a day down to one. I started keeping her up longer in the mornings with the aim of her having one longer sleep around midday. Probably 3 days out of 4 she was managing this, but then on the forth day she would want to go to sleep around 8.30am (after getting up at 7) for a half hour cat-nap. We're pretty much baby-led around here, so i let her, and for one day in every four it was working out ok most times, but last week she did this 3 days in a row, and each of those days I spent over an hour in her bedroom in the afternoon trying to get her to sleep, she was rubbing her face and whingey, but she wouldn't give in to sleep and ended up staying up til bedtime.

So i decided I'd have to try to persuade her back towards a midday sleep. If i let her fall asleep any time before 11 it would result in a half hour at the most sleep, so for the last few days she's been going for her nap at any time between 11am and 1pm, based on when she seems to want it... I'm not really sure what time is best for her yet. Generally she's been sleeping for somewhere between one and a half and two and a half hours BUT she's waking somewhere between every 20 and every 40 minutes and I have to go in and feed her to resettle her, then she drifts back off to sleep, i pop her in her cot, and she's ok again for another 20 - 40 minutes.



Do you think this is happening because she's not used to this sleep pattern and she's just adjusting to it? Or some other reason?

There's a lot going on in her little life at the moment - wonder week @ 55 weeks, teething, just started walking unaided, recently started taking day sleeps in cot instead of in her pram (by her choice), she's been dropping feeds (althopugh every few days seems to go into panic and asks for milk every couple of hours through the night almost like a catch up), daddy's just gone overseas, we have lots of visitors coming and going, staying with us etc which i know can be unsettling for her too. We've also been encouraging her to sleep in her cot more at night, she does still co-sleep a lot of the time and I'm really relaxed about it, but I am just trying to put her back in her cot after she feeds in the night, sometimes she stays there, sometimes she doesn't and i take her back to bed with me.

I was starting to be able to put her in the cot to fall asleep, as long as I climbed in with her and lay down til she dropped off, but at the moment she needs to feed to sleep until she is in a deep sleep and then i transfer her, anything else ends in wild screaming.

Her night sleeps have been up and down recently too - generally improving from waking every three hours or more frequently without fail, to sleeping for 4 or 5 hours, at a time and not always wanting milk when she does wake up... but the odd night has been an absolute shocker too.

Sorry for the long post.... I just didn't want to miss out any details which could be important. I'm at a bit of a loss, I just want my little girl to be well rested as well as being a bit less run down and exhausted myself too. All my MG friends babies are sleeping much better than DD now, and i get paranoid - am i doing something wrong? What can i do better?

It sounds like you already know what's going on and how to handle it This, that the other affecting her sleep and you're doing this, that and whatever works best.
Do'nt worry about other people's babies and what they're doing. It's no reflection on you. Kids just do this sometimes - even those great sleepers have bad nights.

For the day sleeps, it sounds similar to what my DS did when he transitioned (too prematurely unfortunately) to 1 day sleep. From memory it took him a couple of months or so to get into sleeping in the middle of the day.

Ah, thanks Marcellus, when I was pounding the floorboards at 3 this morning that was a nice post to read.

I'm relieved that you experienced the same with the transition down to one sleep, gives me a light at the end of the tunnel! I wonder whether it's a common struggle... I never heard about it before.

We went thru a similar thing when DD transitioned to one day sleep. Rest assured she now goes down to sleep easily around 12 or 1pm and sleep for min 1.5hrs and sometimes up to 3hrs!

Wow! It sounds like you have a LOT going on in your lives at the moment. Maybe you DD is picking up a little bit that you might be a bit stressed as well with all the visitors and your partner/hubby going overseas, that alone would be create stress as you have extra stuff to do around the house as well as for DD as her daddy's not there to help out. I found that my DD would be up for around the same amount of time before and after her 1 nap....mind you it took a while for me to realise that!! I think it does take a while with your first as you don't know what to expect. I found that she would be up for around 4-5 hours either side of her nap, so if she was up at 8 she'd go down around 1-2pm but then she'd only sleep for an hour or so if I was lucky! Then she'd be up for 4-5 hours after her nap before bedtime. All bubs are different and I think MG can be supportive but can also be a bit competitive with 'who's baby sleeps best' etc. Just do what feels right for your DD and by the sounds of it you already are cause your listening to her and giving her what she needs....in her bed or your bed if she's unsettled. I've been baby led by DD as well, and still co-sleep.....some may say 'who's the parent' but she's 2 now and we have a fantastic relationship bond that I couldn't have imagined and I put it down to listening to her and really letting her sort of lead me in a way if that makes sense?? Anyway trust your instincts and don't listen to negativity because at the end of the day in your heart and your gut you'll always know whats best

Very reassuring to know that similar things have happened with the transition to 1 sleep for others; I wasn't really sure what to make of it. She actually slept for 1.5 hours uninterrupted this lunchtime, so I will have to ask questions on BB more often if the immediate effect is an improved situation!

Softy, I am sure you are right, I think she must be feeling some of the stress that I am feeling given the current situation. It makes perfect sense for them to be up about the same amount of time either side of their nap I suppose - can I ask, would you offer lunch before or after the nap, or did it depend on the time of the nap? I agree about MG too, the beauty of posting on here is that most people are pro-gentle parenting so know where you're coming from and understand the parameters that you are working within a bit better.

Thanks for making me feel better about it girls, I know deep down that i should just trust my instincts, but sometimes it's really easy to waver.

Double post

Argh, it's just gone from bad to worse. The last two days she's really struggled with her nap, 40 mins each day and it was her only sleep of the day. She's overtired and whingey as a result.

Now today she went down at 12.30, slept for 15 mins and has been awake since. She's been alternating between crying, really hard at times, and trying to chat. I've rocked, lay in her cot with her, and fed her again. Now she's playing and practicing walking on her bedroom floor. I am at a loss as to what to do! She had her mmr vaccine 7 days ago and most of the other kids we know reacted to it, so maybe it's that but they all slept more. I don't know what to do. I'm going to take her for a drive, that might work for now....

Agh hugs Balmaingal!!

If it's any consolation, my DD was never sleepy after any of her vax... She was grumpy and whingey!

Could definitely be the vax making her grumpy... Bad timing that it's happened right around when you are trying to work her sleeps out!!

Could you let her play for another hour or two and then try to put her down again?

Big hugs. Hope you have a nice drive...

Maybe try for an earlier nap time? She might be overtired already by then.

Gee kids are frustrating sometimes! It sounds to me like she needs lots more sleep. I have always found that when my boys are the most tired they are the hardest to get to sleep. If she is unsettled at night aswell then I would be trying to get her to have as much sleep as possible during the day, forget about routines until you can get her night sleep back on track and you know she isn't sleep deprived from that.
DS2 did this recently after we had GM staying and then he got sick. I have only just got him back sleeping through the night... he was just too tired to sleep soundly. It took a few days of putting him to bed any time he looked tired during the day and basically just trying to catch him up on all his missed sleep.

Thanks for your ideas - i'll be back later to read them properly, just got DD to sleep (yes, for the first time since that post...) so I need to do some chores before I can sit down and indulge in a little frivolous Internet browsing!

Thanks again for your suggestions ladies. I felt like banging my head against the wall when I wrote that post earlier! We ended up going for a walk, and in hindsight I wish I'd gone for the drive option, but the environmentalist in me was saying it was all wrong! I walked for about an hour and a half and she didn't sleep! So i gave up, did my shopping came home, gave her dinner and put her to bed.

OP - I think you're right, I'm sure the vax is playing a part in it, and to be fair apart from the initial 8 weeks vax DD has never been sleepy after hers either.

Marcellus/Berrme - I can't believe I couldn't work it out, when it was slapping me right in the face... I am absolutely sure that overtiredness is playing a huge role in this, so thank you for pointing this out to me! We'd been to the park this morning and on the way home she wanted to go to sleep but I was talking to her to keep her awake because I wanted to get her out of the car first. She perked up when we got home so I gave her lunch too and it was about an hour after she'd been trying to go to sleep that she actually went. In reflection I wish I'd just let her sleep in the car and gone for a big drive or parked up and read a book or something. And the two previous days she fell asleep in the car on the way home and I transferred her to her cot, so no simple straightforward 'normal'days. I also think i am maybe putting her down too late at the moment, i probably should have tried to move her morning sleep gradually and let her find a natural time instead of jumping in there with one lunchtime sleep.

Tomorrow is going to be a simple and restful day at home. I like your idea of just putting her down whenever she looks a bit tired Berrme, instead of getting hung up on one sleep, two sleep, bedtime at seven yadda yadda yadda! My poor bubba, I just need to give her the right opportunities and think this out a bit more carefully.

Yep, try not to stress too much and just go with whatever works at the time. She'll survive. Trust me

This sleep lark just seems to be going from bad to worse

The day after I last posted she had a 30 min sleep in the morning followed by 2 hours (first 30 min in her cot then me holding her) and I thought great, this is looking a bit more positive, even if I did have to hold her. But since then she's managing 30 mins tops in her cot and will sometimes go back to sleep if I hold her, or else I'm having to drive her around, and that doesn't always work either.

I'm sitting in her room holding her now, she's been asleep for an hour, but i haven't been able to put her back in her cot since he woke after 20 mins. Last night it took me 1h20m to put her to bed and I came out of her room and cried with frustration. DH is back now, I know controlled crying is on the tip of his tongue, but I think he knows that my reaction to that wouldn't be pretty! My friend reckons it's still a reaction to the mmr, as most kids we know had a reaction around the 10 days to 2 weeks mark.

I started a food/activity diary this morning to see if I could see any patterns, but other than that I'm stuck.

If you've read this far, thanks for listening! Not sure if anyone cn suggest anything else, I'm just venting really I think

It cuold be any number of things. My only real advice is to try not to try so hard
If she won't sleep, just let her be awake. I know she needs to. I know she's knackered and overtired, but it really isn't worth the effort. I gave up on day sleeps with DS from around 10 months or so. By 16 months he was into a fairly predicatble routine - just happened eventually. There are few things worse than spending an hour (or two) to get them to sleep for only 30 minutes.
The only time I really kept trying was at bed time - it was better when it was only once a day.

Hang in there. It will get easier

Am I starting to sound a bit neurotic

I always find with babies and sleep, if they're sleeping well it feels like a fluke and there's no chance it'll last, but when they're sleeping badly it feels like it'll be like this forever!

nah, you just sound sleep deprived.