My husband and I are at our wits end....my daughter has always been a great sleeper. For most of her life, she went to bed at 8:00pm, got up at 7:00am and took a 1-2 hour nap during the day. She never got out of bed once we put her there and was always good at putting herself back to sleep if she woke up, even as a baby. For the last month, we put her to bed at about 8:30pm, but she is up playing in her room or leaving her room and playing in our room or other rooms upstairs, sometimes until 11:00pm. We have always tried to stay away from her room so that she is free of distractions, but we're starting to worry about her not having enough sleep. She still takes about a 1 hour nap and doesn't really seem cranky during the time she is awake. She has also started getting out of her bed, coming to our bed and saying it's "wake-up time" all hours of the night.
This is completley normal. At least it has been for my 3 kids. It is a phase they go through BUT you just need to keep putting her in her room and telling her it is time for bed. She is testing her independence. Good Luck! I would not worry about her not getting enough slepp. She will sleep when she needs too.
We have a small light in my just turned 3 years old's room that is on a timer. It goes on at bedtime and off at a pre-set morning time. He is not allowed to get out of bed until the light goes off. If he needs something he is to call us (we still have the monitor.) If he is out of bed playing we put him back and warn him. If he is out of bed again, there is a consequence. It has worked really well! In fact, he is playing less and sleeping more than he did in his crib! Good luck and God Bless!
Two things come immediately to mind: she isn't growing as rapidly as she was, so she simply doesn't need as much sleep as she did before, or; she is teething molars or has tooth decay that is distracting her from sleeping. Often the only symptom of dental pain is night-waking that is out of the ordinary for the child.
The other possibility that comes to mind is based on sleep-centre research: she's probably always been waking up that much, just didn't get you involved in it until she figured out that she could leave her room.
Sleep patterns of all (undrugged) people go from light sleep to deep sleep and back to light sleep in 30 - 50 minute cycles. Whenever people come mostly awake, they scan their environments to see if there is anything they need (and relief from irritating dental pain may be enough) they wake up fully and seek a solution. If they have no pressing needs, they fall back into a deeper sleep without any awareness that they were ever even slightly awake.
If she's asking for food, it's because she's waking up hungry. If she's asking for something to drink, it's because she's waking up thirsty. If she's looking for your attention, she may be waking up lonely or afraid she's alone (a very deep fear in all people, at any age). The shortest way to deal with it is to meet the need, and she'll go back to sleep.
You may like to lengthen (rather than shorten) or add another period to her daytime nap, as it is insufficient daytime rest periods that interfere with quality of sleep, not too much daytime rest, particularly in growing children.
Welcome to the world of unpredictable toddlers! Unless something's changed in your lives that's on her mind, I'd say that it's developmental. She's far more involved with the world around her, more social, and possibly doesn't even need as much sleep. May be time to change the bedtime routine (an hour later? a special story?) or give her something to comfort her, like one of those dolls or stuffed animals that you can record a message into. Some kids give up their naps at this age, though it seems young and with some children that won't help at all even if she gets thru the day OK without one - it may not change what's going on. Good luck!
All of the others have given good tried & true suggestions that I hope work for you, but I would like to throw one more option in to the mix. Sometimes my children would have an interruption in their sleep pattern for a couple weeks at a time, and sometimes it would be due to pain. Not sharp that they could verbalize, but like teething (are her molars coming in?), or growing pains. We would try a little acetaminophen, to see if pain was the cause of the sleep disruption. Soemtimes it was, usually the teething part, sometimes not. Something is causing her to be distracted from her sleep at night and you can usually figure out what it is and fix it. Good luck
I remember this phase well. It was just a short time ago. Rest assured that my daughter grew out of it.
We would just bring her back to her bed and ask her to stay in her own room and her own bed. Usually she would go back to sleep. Sometimes we would let her have a book or something to sleep with (animal or doll).
Hope this helps.
I stopped putting my daughter down for a nap around 2.5 because of this same sort of behavior. She rarely got cranky without the nap and she went back to falling asleep right after I put her down. She's now 3.5 and almost never takes a nap anymore(sometimes in the car). She's doing great with out it. Maybe keep her up one day and see how it goes. Good luck!
J.; yes, she is at the age when she wants to do more, you might want to cut out her nap during the day , and give her more stimulating things to do, she wants her mind exercised, sometimes reading to them before bed helps, she might also need some schooling,not necessarily out of the home, but she needs to be stimulated mentally , this will tire her out during the night, they outgrow naptimes, and eventually become mature enough to not have it, time to maybe buy some of the preschool workbooks, and have a time before bed to do some work mentally, usually when someone is mentally tired, they sleep better, she wants to see whats going on in her world, my oldest was like this, he did sooo much better without a day nap, she seems to be a bright child , so give her things to do, she probably could use a small chore, pick up her room etc, with your help of course, just have fun and enjoy life D. s
J. - I just wanted to say that I completely understand how you feel! I could have written that exact same request, it describes my daughter to a T. Sorry I don't exactly have advice for you, but just know that you are not alone!!! I asked a question kind of relating to this a few weeks back....you can look in my profile to see the question & responses if you are interested.
J.,
When did the changes occur? Was she sleeping OK before Christmas? Did you, like most of us, have an excess of candy and cookies around during the holidays? All that extra sugar turns our little angels into tasmanian devils. I would remove all candy and cookies which may result in her going to sleep at her normal time and also follow Michelle H's suggestion for getting her back on track if she continues to wake up during the night.
I agree with the shortening or stopping naps unless the child puts themselves down. :-)
She's getting up because she can. She has a short attention span as all kids do and when you put her to bed she looks around and the idea flys into her head... I want to play with that... so she does. :-)
If you hear her up and about take her back in and put her back to bed. If you let her stay up and ammuse herself it sets her up to not going to bed when she NEEDS to...Just keep putting her back in.
How dark is her room? Perhaps taking out the nightlight and putting up dark curtains would trigger her to sleep earlier.
I even keep the monitor under the bed. No light from it then. And you can hear each time they step on the floor. :-)
Good luck.
My middle son did this at around the same age. He did go on to have problems sleeping later, but the wake up and play phase passed. Now I look back and see a pattern of anxiety was starting. We had moved and he had to give up his crib to his baby sister. He didn't fuss about that at all so I didn't make the connection, but now it seems likely. You may look for signs of stress.
Have you ever seen nanny911. She uses the "rapid return" method which worked gerat for us. Both my boys were great sleepers, went to bed no trouble and all of a sudden at about 2 1/2 they started getting up, playing etc. I guess it must be a natural stage because they are 3 years apart in age.
When you lay her down you say good night etc. If she gets out of bed you gently tell her its time to go to sleep. If she gets out of bed again you put her back in but say nothing. You have to consistently do this, teh idea is she is being put back to bed but without any real attention, this behaviour is a form of attention seeking. You basically carry on putting her back into bed without saying a word (even when she comes into you at 2am telling you it's morning time), this may take a few days or even a week or two to get her back into her sleep routine but it will work. The key is being consistent and not giving in. I did this method with both of my boys and it worked great, after a relatively short period of time they were back to their regular routine and have been ever since (they are now 6 and 3).
Good luck, it can be hard and frustrating at first but it really does work.
