Good night sleeper, not so good day sleeper

[faye]

I wanted to ask for help about my 1 year old who doesn't want to sleep much through the day. She's a good sleeper at night...although, the times she wakes or stirs and doesn't go back to sleep, I think I've got the most difficult baby!

Imogen slept with us from day one! I remember lying in the hospital bed on the first night with her next to me in the plastic crib, and crying because I felt she was lonely, after having been so close for 9 months. At around 6 months, it was a very natural development, but it seemed that she didn't want to be cuddled to sleep or even sleep next to us. We decided to get a cot, but positioned it right next to my side of the bed. She had her own space (and we had ours back) but she was within arms length if she needed comfort. Gradually, we moved the cot away from our bed and eventually into her own room. She's gone through really good sleeps at night, and really bad ones.


My partner and I have differing issues on her sleeping...he co-sleeps through the day (on the weekends) but I put her in the cot. He comforts to sleep at night whereas I try and leave her to comfort herself. Monday's are the worst, because all she wants is to be cuddled to sleep. It doesn't work for me, she just thinks it's play time and then I get frustrated. One day it took 1 1/2 hours to get her to sleep, that's when I started the controlled crying in her cot. I really didn't want to do it, but I was getting desperate and when I kept hearing from friends and reading books that it works, I had nothing to loose.

I can honestly say that I don't have trouble getting her to sleep, maybe one crying session every two or three weeks, but it's keeping her asleep that's the issue. She's having two sleeps a day, but I'm lucky if she'll sleep more than 1 1/2 hours in total. I thought that maybe she's on the change over from two to one, so I'm trying one big sleep today. We put her down at 12pm, she's already woken up once, but went back to sleep after lying her down again. I just get frustrated when she doesn't sleep...I don't know the answer! As I'm writing this, she has woken a second time (every half hour). I've tried to comfort her, but she is crying and so visibly tired. I just don't know how to keep her asleep!

[Chickadee]

I don't know how much it's contributing to your dd's daytime sleeping problems, but I think you and your partner need to decide on a more consistent approach. I can understand your problem with co-sleeping, my dd also thinks being in my bed means play time!

My dd also switched from 2 naps to one at around 1 year, so you've probably guessed right. Unfortunately you can probably expect at least a couple of weeks of transition, when she'll need only one nap on one day and then two the next, and she's more likely to be tired and grumpy during this time. Sometimes when dd wouldn't sleep and was obviously still tired I'd just bring bedtime forward by an hour or so and that seemed to help. Or I'd put her down for a very late 2nd nap (4pm) but only let her sleep 45 minutes and then a slightly later bedtime that night. You almost have to go back to basics, reading their tired signs and being flexible about when sleep happens.

As far as keeping her asleep, she probably already knows how to do this and does it every night. Try not to stress to much about it right now while she's transitioning on her naps, and work on it later if necessary.

[MummaBear03]

Does your daughter need a daytime sleep still? My daughter outgrew her naps by 8 months. Up until then she was only sleeping for 10 minutes at a time anyway. Maybe just go with the flow and let her tell you if she needs a sleep, I'm sure you'll know whether she needs it or not. Babies don't follow some book written by some author that's never met your family before, they do what they need to do. Good luck, and enjoy the nights. I co-slept with DD until she was around 2 and don't regret it, would do the same again in a heartbeat. She led the way with feeding and sleeping, all I did was encourage her to sleep at night and she just did. But she had no day sleeps so it made for long days.