Sophia is 12mo old and has never slept well since birth. It's so bad right now that she will fall asleep in her jumperoo as well as be rubbing her eyes only an hour after a nap.
She wakes around 4am for the day, she thinks, I manage to get her to sleep until 5 when I still keep trying to keep her in bed with me to no avail so we are up. He nights are bad, waking every hour so it's a comulitive deprivation. She's ready for a nap around 8am but I stretch her out to 9, she SHOULD be able to stay up for 4hours wouldn't you thinik? She'll sleep on average for 2hrs but sometimes only 1hr and as long as 3 so there is no pattern so-to-speak. She has decided that she doesn't need her afternoon nap but I am still able to get her down a few days a week. Days when she does not get her pm nap, she's ready to go down at 7 and has her first waking at 8pm then again at 9.
After 12months, I feel as though I have read/tried everything but I am coming here for advice in case I have missed something. With prayer and working on my attitude and expectation set, I have been fine with this but at times I see it as a problem like when she is ready for a nap only an hour after a nap. So any advice would be SO helpful. TIA
So you said that she is ready for a nap by 8 or 9am, but is that her only nap of the day? Is she then up until bedtime? Good sleep begets good sleep, so it's no surprise that her nighttime sleep is messed up. Do you wear her in a baby carrier, like a wrap or sling? That might help her fall asleep. You can wear her around noon, after she eats lunch, to lull her to sleep. Of course, you'll have to work up to this, stretching her AM nap later. Or, maybe she's not ready for one nap a day and you can try wearing her in the afternoon, too.
I think if it were me I wouldn't try to stretch out times between naps at all right now. If she's ready for a nap an hour after she's had a nap--let her. She's not really on a schedule anyway and, in my experience, the more sleep deprived kids are the worse their sleep is. It should be the other way around--they should be so tired that they sleep more--but it's not. So, personally, I'd go for a week or 2 and just let her sleep whenever I could get her to until she started seeming more well rested. Then I would start trying different ways to have a sleep schedule. HTH!
OK, I guess I wasn't clear, sorry. She "descides" to wake at 5am, is ready for a nap at 8 or 9, I stretch to 9:30, she'll sleep for 2hrs on avg but sometimes wakes only an hour later and can sleep as long as 3hrs. She "use" to go down for her 2nd nap at 3pm. So she's up from 1st nap around noon and "use" to go down 3hrs later. Down for the night at 8pm. This is pretty standard for a baby. I say "descides" because she doesn't know that she needs to sleep longer and I try but she won't go back to sleep. I say "use" to because she won't go take her 2nd nap most days.
Yes, I wear her as much as she'll "let" me. Her princess doesn't "prefer" to be in a sling. I've tried 5 different carriers/slings. She likes mama's hip and arms so that's what I do all day long.
The bottom line is she is waking every hour AND wakes up TOO early, won't nap long AND won't nap AT ALL. It's her nights that are so bad. If the child would just sleep, she'd be able to stay awake longer than 3-4hrs. At a year old, she SHOULD be able to do this.
Ah, but just because she's ready doesn't mean little miss no-nap will actually go down. See, she's rebelling against any kind of sleep. That is my problem. She wakes every hour most nights so no wonder she's tired only a few hours after waking. As far as naps, she sometimes won't sleep beyond an hour then skips all naps for the rest of the day. No wonder she's so tired. She's a mystery. She is nursed down and it's not really that hard to get her to sleep for her first nap or at night. The 2nd nap, for some reason, even though she is rubbing her eyes, she won't go down. She needs the nap. If she skips the 2nd nap, I have to put her down for the night at 7pm. That's fine but she wakes up an hour later, then an hour later, then an hour later. I have read that babies do this but I have not read anything other than sleep training to get them to stop this. She CAN go as long as 2.5hrs but it is rare. If she can do this, then why does she "have" to wake every hour? I'm baffled. My doc is no help.
Why does she wake? Well, over the last year, it's been teething and milestones. Now, I believe it's habit. I believe that she has given herself a sleep disorder.
