I have a 15-month old daughter who has always been a light sleeper, but about three months ago decided it would be 'fun' to stop sleeping through the night and sit in her crib awake for hours (often between ~2am - 4am). She TRIES to go back to sleep and rarely is fussy, but just can't seem to get herself to sleep.
Background:
At about 13 months she stopped sleeping at her afternoon nap and would only sleep during her morning nap. We rolled with this for a while, but eventually decided to move her to 1 nap/day, slowly moving her morning nap to about 12:30pm. She usually sleeps <2 hrs at this time. Her bedtime was 7:30pm.
When she started waking at night we tried inching her bed time earlier and have recently been putting her down at 6:30pm, since that is the usual approach when babies are sleep deprived (ie, the theory is they don't sleep because they are so sleep deprived). For a long time, we attributed it to teething, but she still wasn't sleeping with Tylenol or Motrin.
We have always been vigilant about good sleep hygiene. We always put her down awake so she learns to put herself to sleep. When she is up at night, we never go in the room, unless she throws out all of her pacifiers and realizes she doesn't have any left in her crib (NOTE: She only get's her paci's at nap/bed time).
I hate to admit it, but at the advice of her pediatrician, we've also tried low doses of benedryl to no avail. Oddly enough, as a last ditch effort, the pediatrician recommended we go to a child psychologist that might be able to help. It seems not matter what we try, we just can't break this 'cycle' of sleep pattern. Adjusting her schedule, her diet, and pain meds (tylenol/motrin) just hasn't seem to have worked.
We're 3 months into this pattern and struggling with our own sleep at this point and at our wits end. Has anyone else run into this? HELP!!!!!
UPDATE TO HELP ANSWER SOME RESPONDER'S QUESTIONS:
Yes, she has a sound machine in her room that offers white noise.
We've thought about ditching the pacifiers (and expect that's what the psychologist would tell us and then bill us $150).
She gets outside every day to the playground to run around.
Her room is very dark (with a small nightlight)
I would try to move the nap later in the day so she's sleeping til about 3:30 or 4 then put her to bed at 7:30 again if you can.
Also, have you tried some soft music or white noise in her room at night?
She sleeps from 6:30pm to 2-4 am? 8 to 10 hrs at a time is fantastic! With a 2 or so hr nap time she's getting 10-12 hrs of sleep a day which isn't bad. Shift her nap to a little later in the day, and shift her bed time to 7:30 or 8:30. She'll still wake up 8-10 hrs later, but you might be ready for her by 6am.
Is her room dark? You might need to black it out. This way she wont be stimulated by anything when she opens her eyes and hopefully she'll just fall back asleep.
My daughter is 12 months and she sounds exactly like your daughter! This is something she just started doing in the last couple weeks. I do go get her and nothing I do helps her fall back asleep. I even bring her into bed with us and she just is awake for 2 hrs. It's very frustrating. A couple other friends said their babies did this same kind of thing when they reached a new milestone and after a while they stopped doing it. I'm not that worried about it bc I figure she'll be doing something different at night with time. I'm interested to read the other posts.
At 15 months, 11 hours a night is standard sleep. So your daughter is on track! My son is also regularly up from 2-4 in the morning (he's currently 20 months old, and this has been going on since he was 11 months old). It's part of his sleep pattern. He goes down at 8, wakes up at 7:30, and at least 3 nights a week, is up in the middle of the night. He gave up his afternoon nap when he was 12 months old and we pushed his nap back to about 12:30, and he sleeps 2-2.5 hours. He takes a paci at nap and night, but I don't think this has anything to do with his sleep patterns. It sounds very similar to your baby!
We put some board books in his bed to entertain himself when he wakes up in the middle of the night, and taught him to call us only if he needed us. Our pediatrician said it's not unusual for kids to be awake around this time, and said especially if our son wasn't crying, we shouldn't worry about it. So we don't. I've never tried Benadryl, but I know at this age, it can make some kids hyper and make it harder to sleep, so if it isn't helping, I would stop. Try putting a few (quiet) things in your daughter's bed for her to play with when she wakes up in the middle of the night. Then, stop worrying about it. If you wake up and hear her talking to herself, good for her! If she cries, then go in and see her, but if she's just fussing mildly or chattering to herself, leave her along and get yourself some sleep! She'll go back down when she's ready, and she'll call you if she can't. Good luck!
Hi A., I don't have an answer to your question. But I do have 2 out of 3 kids who seem to be nocturnal. I too followed all the rules, and when they were babies/toddlers/preschoolers rarely got enough sleep (although I should mention, I am not a good sleeper myself). They were not fussy, cranky, unhappy, just WAKEFUL, and at 18 and 13, they are STILL wakeful (middle child at 16 is an excellent sleeper, always has been). I will also say, they are ALL fantastic students, no behavioral problems, social issues, and do not seem to even NEED the amount of sleep all the experts say they need.
Only thing I can offer is time goes by, she WILL grow older, there will be a time when YOU can sleep through the night, even when SHE doesn't!
Hang in there, and NAP whenever possible!
ditch the paci, it'll hurt for few days and then you'll never remember having it. 6:30 might be a bit too early. I know if my kids go to sleep that early, they are ALWAYS up in the middle of the night. and lastly, is she getting plenty of outside play time? my kids always sleep better when they've had good time outside with fresh air and sunshine. good luck, I know sleeping issues are soooo hard1
I think, like one other on here, that she's sleeping too much. I have a 7 month old grandson that is currently staying with us (along with his Mom while she recovers from surgery) and he doesn't go down until 9-10 and wakes up around 6AM and not always straight through. If she's sleeping from 6:30 to 2AM she's slept a long time. I would shift her afternoon nap to around 2 and then put her to bed no earlier than 8. See if then she wont sleep through the night--or at least until 6 or so.
Best of luck to you. It's amazing how little sleep we get when they are little huh?
My son had this same issue and around age 2 our pediatrician put him on Melatonin and now that him and his brother are in separate rooms and w/ the melatonin he went from barely sleeping to sleeping 7/730-7/730 :) Benedryl has never made my kids sleepy they have it on the rare occasion that allergies flare up fast and bad.
What would happen if you ditch the pacifiers altogether. Maybe she's waking up and then fiddling around with them, which interferes with putting herself back to sleep? I know it would stink at first, but maybe it's a longterm solution? Our daughter does that sometimes in the middle of the night too and we've only once or twice gone in there, thinking something was wrong and of course it wasn't. Good luck...
While I'll say I don't agree with just throwing the pacis out the window so to speak (most disagree with me on that), she sounds a lot like my daughter. If she's not crying and just playing by herself, what's so awful? My daughter would scream until someone would be with her to play at all hours of the night. Both of my kids have a fan on low for the humm in their rooms. I have a 2yr old son and a 7yr old daughter. My son, for some time was waking up at night to play in his crib. I gave him a 'stuffed friend' to 'talk to'. The only time I went to him is if he began to cry.
I found out a few years later that my daughter is on the hyper active side which may have contributed to her not sleeping through the night and having the 'need' for someone to entertain her. There are still nights she won't sleep all the way through the night, but now she's old enough to handle it on her own.
I asked our pedi about our son playing and chatting to his 'stuffed friends' at night and the pedi said that he'd let us know if there was something he needed or wanted, but he may be going through a phase of learning and sleeping harder when he was sleeping.
However... FYI- Benedryl had/has the opposite 'effect' on my daughter.
shorten the nap to an hour or an hour and a half and/or moving the nap to later in the afternoon.
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hi A.-
i haven't read any other responses so forgive me if i repeat myself.
we have parented this type child!
the worst sleeper of any child we literally knew.
and- she is now a beyond fine; happy. intellegent. a lot of fun. social. 100%+.
she simply requires less sleep than other children, our expectations, or whatever books said.
she was working on her imagination, her motor skills and definately her language skills in that crazy 2-4 am time.
i had to realize i was on the same team as her; and that she was not doing anything on purpose; it was simply the way she was.
my responsiblilty was to give her the best success for sleep as could; give her the skills she needed; give her a safe and loving environment- but i could not make my child sleep.
and PLEASE, please, do not take her to a psychologist.
i want to applaud you for doing so much 'right'; meaning how intentional and attentive you are to your childs sleep needs.
THIS TOO WILL PASS.
sleep patterns are not linear. they are fluid.
she'll get to a better sleep pattern soon.
keep trusting your gut.
you are doing a fine job.
and celebrate this creative intellengent little one you have (and make sure you and your wife are taking care of yourselves and eachother- a non sleeping kid can really wreck the nerves)....
glad you wrote.
