[Tesseract]

So DD is 22 months. Since night weaning at 14 months (not by choice, more because I was going to have a mental breakdown) she has slept through the night. We have a solid bedtime routine: dinner, bath, PJs, story/breastfeed, bed. I usually feed her to sleep in her bed (mattress on the floor). She will not have a bar of DH during the evening routine, only wants me, which is fine because I work fulltime and love having the time with her.

Usually it takes about 40 minutes from story to sleep, a bit long but I don't mind. She is usually asleep by around 8 pm. I know it's late...but she's never been much of a sleeper.

Anyway we had a few late nights over the break and now it's like a scene out of the exorcist! She will. not. go. to. sleep. before 9 pm. Last night it was 9:30pm. She is tired (rubbing eyes, yawning, ratty) by 7 when I get her ready for bed. We read stories and have a breastfeed on the couch, after a few stories she says "walk to bed, carry dolly, milk bed" and happily trots off to her room. She lays down, asks for a song, a pat and a breastfeed. She dozes off but then just as she's drifting off she sits up, flops down, bangs her head on the wall, wakes up fully, cries, asks for more milk, chats to her toys...and it goes on like this. I remain clam, I pretend to be asleep, she cracks it. I give her more boob, same thing happens. If I say milky needs a rest (sometimes my nipples get sore) she losses the plot. If she's calm I tell her I'm going to the toilet and I'll be back, she screams for me the entire time.

When she finally passes out she sleeps in till 8:30am. If I was a SAHM I would just go with it. Unfortunately I need my hour in the evening for chores/DH/me and we need to get moving in the morning.

Her nap is about an hour, and she really needs it, but resists it as well. Naps happen in the pram.

Bedtime can't really be moved earlier. I just want it to go back to how it was!

So, what should I do?

[tick]

Wake her up earlier in the mornings. It'll be bad for a few days but it should help. Do the nap a little earlier perhaps, or wake her up from it maybe. My crappy sleeper was totally phasing out the nap by 22 months. On the plus side, she'd wake later in the mornings and be out like a light at 6:30pm in the evenings......

[kelliev]

Could she be getting her 2 year old molars? My excellent sleeper had some weird sort of insomnia when getting her 2 yr old molars. She wouldn't complain of pain but would be awake for hours on end in the middle of the night unable to sleep. I found Brauer's Children's Sleep or Brauer's Calm to be excellent in settling her. First I would be trying to work out what's waking her as she seems she wants to fall asleep but can't. If nothing seems obvious I would try waking her up earlier in the morning to get her back into her routine and last resort would be to try dropping the day sleep.

[meggs1]

I have had to "reset" my DS (15 mo) a few times after holidays/jet lag. I've usually managed by cutting short his day nap and upping the activity and getting him super tired.

Natural light is supposed to help reset the body clock, so maybe wake her at 7 and get her straight out in the morning sun for a few days. Then have a few super active afternoons over the weekend (swimming is good) to get the exhaustion levels up before bedtime.

Good luck.

[divineM]

Sympathy OP. my DD is also 22 months and after a late night on NYE (nothing drastic - went to bed at 9 rather than 7.30) we have been having problems. Bedtime is ok but she's been waking overnight screaming for us and is resisting her nap. In our case she has done this sort of thing before so we try not to panic and it eventually passes. How long has it been going on for you and has it happened before?