Sleepless nights

We have had our share of sleepless nights (and days!) lately and I can't figure out why...

Naps. The boys have been on one nap a day now for a couple of months, with the occasional lay down in the afternoon. My husband typically puts them down at about 9:30 or 10 am, but this isn't working. Miles will finally fall asleep by about 10:30 or 11, and Austin holds out until after noon. They play in their cribs during that time. My husband does not seem to understand that they need to push their nap later because it screws up HIS morning routine... (another story.. he still purees food for them). Anyway, I think I need to intervene and push their naps later. My question here is now that they're sleeping through their lunch time do I feed them a snack before and after their nap instead?

Nighttime. We put the boys down to bed at about 6:30 and they will often play in their cribs until about 7 and sleep through until between 7 and 8 am. Lately though there's been a lot of waking. Particularly with Austin. He's cutting his eyeteeth, so I know that's part of it. He's also had a bit of a cough at night that we can't really figure out... it's only been going on for about 4 days and seems to be improving though, so I am not that concerned. He starts crying multiple times in the night. It's for lost soothers but then he wants to get up and play. Miles often wakes with the noise during all of this and needs to be picked up for a quick cuddle before he goes down too. So, what do I do here? CIO means both kids will wake up. Going in to soothe him means that he knows he has my number and will get up a million times. Could it be that he's waking because he's going through some developmental stuff? He just started walking full time this week and he seems to be figuring out how to communicate things differently (not talking yet, but on the verge). Is his little brain just so full of stuff he can't stay asleep?

 

Developmental, the slightest wrong temperature, and they feel like it are all reasons they wake. I feel your pain because we are still at maybe 4 days a week of sleep, the other 3, one or the other wakes up. We had a period there where Henry would just wake at 4am, cry out (loud enough to wake us) and go back to sleep. I have 5 year old proof it gets better but OMG there are days I think a listing on ebay is going to happen. I have no advice other than to ride it out.

 

i think that with the boys being on one nap a day it would definitely be better to move it more to the middle of the day. when we first transitioned i gave them a snack before their nap between 10:30am - 11:0am & lunch as soon as they got up. now that they nap at 12:00pm we do lunch before & a snack after (usually about an hour after they get up).

as for the night wakings, it's hard to say what to do. we had a rough time with the girls between 16 - 20 months. i don't think we had a single night in those four months when both of them slept through the night. between teething, illness, switching to one nap & switching to toddler beds, i think it was just one thing after another & it just kind of spiralled into a bad sleep problem. eventually though, they did start sleeping again. for me it was better to get up & check on them because i felt that they genuinely needed comfort at night during that time. there were a few times i came close to losing my mind though - there was one stretch in particular that they both started waking around 2:00am & staying up for hours! i usually tried to keep my visits to their room short & business like - no lights on, no talking, little eye contact. basically a check & calm, then back into bed. usually they would be quiet for a bit, and then start fussing again & i would repeat. a couple times when it was really bad & i just.needed.to.sleep i brought whoever was awake into the living room & turned the tv on on mute. :blush: thankfully, that didn't turn into a regular occurence.

we did do CIO with the girls close to their 2nd birthday though because they started dinking around at bedtime - it was just constant "needs" (tucking in, reading another book, a glass of water, poopy diapers) all of which they were asking for because they realized it was a good way to stay awake for hours past their bedtime. and they were awful during the day because they were so tired! so we had a chat with them & told them that from now on, after we tucked them in & said good night we weren't going to go back into their room. we had one really bad night (i think Danika cried on & off for a couple of hours before falling asleep) & then they were fine again.

so, i think how you handle it sort of depends on how you're feeling & what sort of energy you feel you have for dealing with night wakings & why you think they're waking. i don't think there's really a right or wrong approach, just whatever is practical for you & yours. well, and consistency!

 

It definitely sounds like the nap needs to be moved later. That is exactly what our two did when we realized they weren't going to take an AM nap anymore and we moved their 1 nap to noonish. We usually eat a later breakfast by the time they nurse, change clothes and get downstairs, so they are not ready for a big lunch before nap. They have a snack before nap and then a lunch after nap at 2-3ish.

As for the night wakings, no new ideas here. We deal with this a little bit with DS but he's not fully awake so if we rub his back he falls back to sleep. One idea might be to get rid of the pacifiers since losing them at night seems to be part of the issue. It might lead to a few rough nights at first but better ones in the long run.

Good luck figuring it out and hopefully everyone will be sleeping more soon.

 

I would definitely move that nap later. We do lunch around 11:30 or so and nap at noon or so. My kids sleep anywhere from 1.5 - 3 hours.

As for the nightwaking, we are dealing with the same thing here. I am not sure what causes it, but I would say that 5 our of 7 nights one or both kids wakes up and it's often multiple times a night. Half the time DD is looking for her water even though it is in the same spot every night. Last night they woke 5 times in one night. I go in and check on them quickly and then leave.

 

I would also do a later nap with a lunch or a snack beforehand.
There are so many things that could be causing the night waking, but I think from what you are describing, it does sound like he is trying to achieve some developmental milestones here. DH and I did do CIO with my DD and eventually got to the point as long as she was not crying, we left her alone. This was our second round of CIO with her and I think she went through this around 14-15 months.

 

Last night was a little better because we gave Austin some advil before bed for his teeth, and he managed to stay asleep until about midnight and then was just up rustling around a few times. He cried once where I had to go and check on him. I am exhausted though! We have to do the while CIO routine every time they get sick because their sleep gets all screwed up.. I am not prepared for it agina right at the moment . Right now they're having a morning snack (it's just after 10 am) and I am going to put them to bed in about 45 minutes.. I figure that it might work better to push the nap back gradually. It is very loud here right now though!