My 17 month old is wide awake at 1am!! HELP??

Beth - posted on 04/08/2010

Oh, also wanted to add that my son still take 1.5-2 hr naps each day. I've read babies at this age need about 12-15 hrs in a 24hr period so he's right in range.

Beth - posted on 04/08/2010

The best thing you can do is not go into the bedroom. If your child is expecting to see you every time they wake up, they will want to wake up more to spend time with you. It took us over a year to realize this and now that we have, we are all better rested and happier! They may cry, but its only for a little while and they will never remember it again.

There are a bunch of tips (plus details on why babies need uninterrupted sleep that make you feel better about not running to their room at every sound they make) in a book called "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Dr. Weissbluth. I followed the book doing exactly what he said and within a week we were on a great schedule!

My son now sleeps from 7:30pm to 7:30am and never wakes up in the middle of the night. And I know if he ever did, something has to be wrong (fever, BM) because its so unusual!

Annette - posted on 04/07/2010

Not so fun:-0 Key advice: One much shorter nap & activitiy to make her tired.

We just started waking our daughter up at 6.20am. She takes a nap for anywhere between 40mins -1.5 hours. I don't let her sleep longer than that.

her nap time is earlier i.e somewhere between 11am adn 12pm. And no nap after 2pm.

the weather is nice now, so I take her for a walk in the afternoon. She loves it:-)
She's ready to sleep at bedtime and waks once for a few mins and then we don't hear a peep til we wake her the next morning.

Best wishes!

Claire - posted on 04/07/2010

Either skip her nap entirely or move it closer to lunchtime so she has plenty of time to wear herself out again for bed. We've found that the days our son skips his nap are followed by the nights he sleeps all the way through in his own bed :-D

Deborah - posted on 04/07/2010

Hi,

My son does this once in a while but only one night then back to normal, he did it at the weekend at 3am and was chatting away (on his limited vocab) for ages, I went in eventually and he was trying to play tickle with me and beep my nose! I put him back down and left him, luckily he was not crying much but we were in a caravan and he was in the same room as his big brother so I was worried about him waking everyone but it was only me that he woke, luckly me.
I can only suggest leave her too it, unless she is crying then dont even go in the room, quite long naps so maybe try and reduce them a little each day (ten min at a time) and see what happens, they are all different and need different amounts of sleep but thats what I would probably try, good luck.

Debs x

Melanie - posted on 04/07/2010

We went through the same thing a couple of weeks ago. We were just returning from a trip though and my daughter was cutting molars. I went in there the first couple of nights and then realized that was probably the worst thing I could do. I remember quite well my youngest brother doing the same thing and my step Mom would actually get him up and take him to the living room and let him play in the floor. 2 nights of little sleep was enough for me. The next few nights, I just checked in on her when she would wake up, change her if she was wet and make sure she had water and a book or something in her bed. At first she would scream for 30 minutes or so. She eventually went back to sleep and after a few nights she was back to sleeping.