OT - DD(3) sleep advice needed

[tmarquez]

DD(3) is my first child and this is always a great place for advice...so I thought I'd ask you guys...

Everything I can find says a 3 year old still needs a nap, but what are your experiences? Let me start off by saying that I've personally always NEEDED a little more than the average amount of sleep, I'd say 9 hours a night. My DH is the total opposite, he only needs about 6 hours a night and sometimes he doesn't even sleep that much, all without ever feeling tired.

I think DD has inherited her fathers sleep patterns! Her "bedtime" is 9:30, which I think is late compared to other kids I know. Her wind down routine is at 8:30 she gets a snack and can watch some TV or play a game, but it has to be "quiet time". At 9:15 we get that emergency cup of water and read a book in bed. 9:30 it's lights out. She doesn't complain about having to go to bed, she goes willingly. Then the problems begin. She will toss and turn...take the covers off, put them back on, take them off...roll around and be generally miserable until she finally falls asleep, sometimes not until 11:30 or 12:00. I've tried having her fall asleep with me in our bed, but she does the same thing. After about an hour of trying to get to sleep she will start to get upset, cry a little, and this just continues.

I wake her up for school at 7:15, and sometimes she complains a little, but mostly she is pretty much ready to wake up.

I'm at the point where I'm wondering if she needs to go to a doctor or something?!

Any advice?

 

[F1Julie]

I think she's fine. As long as she's happy, healthy and growing at a normal rate, I wouldn't worry. Some kids just don't need as much sleep as others. DD5 isn't and never has been much of a sleeper. She only took 1 nap by the time she was about 7 months old and stopped napping all together around 2.

 

[frayedend]

Is she napping now, with that sleep pattern? Most kids are still napping at 3, but not all. My son will be 3 in March. He usually naps at daycare, mostly because they have nap time and there isn't anything else to do. At home on weekends he usually does not nap. It is definitely easier to get him to sleep at night on the weekends. If she is napping now, you can try cutting them out, but if she gets too cranky later in the day then the naps might be needed. Good luck!

 

[diznygirl]

Maybe it's too warm/stuffy? DS is a wiggler - we finally figured out he likes it cooler in his room - so we make sure to turn on the ceiling fan at bedtime. In the summer he also has a stand-up fan. (I said he likes it cool!) This solved the problem. Sometimes we forget about the fans, like now when it's cool anyway, but his room gets warm. If I notice him wiggling it's usually because I forgot to turn a fan on.

Or it could be the white noise.....but he says it's because he likes it cold!

Good luck.

 

[PlaneJoy1]

What time is her nap during the day? It could be going too late for her to go to bed with tossing and turning?

My DD (same age) still take a nap. But we really have to watch the sugar in the evening to get her to calm down. I've also recently found it helpful to turn the TV off about an hour before I want her to go to bed. We spend that time in "quiet play" (books, dolls, etc.) then brush her teeth, read, and in bed. Some nights are better than others, but limited the stimuli seem to help a lot.

Good luck!

 

[scouthawkk]

DD(3) is my first child and this is always a great place for advice...so I thought I'd ask you guys...

Everything I can find says a 3 year old still needs a nap, but what are your experiences? Let me start off by saying that I've personally always NEEDED a little more than the average amount of sleep, I'd say 9 hours a night. My DH is the total opposite, he only needs about 6 hours a night and sometimes he doesn't even sleep that much, all without ever feeling tired.

I think DD has inherited her fathers sleep patterns! Her "bedtime" is 9:30, which I think is late compared to other kids I know. Her wind down routine is at 8:30 she gets a snack and can watch some TV or play a game, but it has to be "quiet time". At 9:15 we get that emergency cup of water and read a book in bed. 9:30 it's lights out. She doesn't complain about having to go to bed, she goes willingly. Then the problems begin. She will toss and turn...take the covers off, put them back on, take them off...roll around and be generally miserable until she finally falls asleep, sometimes not until 11:30 or 12:00. I've tried having her fall asleep with me in our bed, but she does the same thing. After about an hour of trying to get to sleep she will start to get upset, cry a little, and this just continues.

I wake her up for school at 7:15, and sometimes she complains a little, but mostly she is pretty much ready to wake up.

I'm at the point where I'm wondering if she needs to go to a doctor or something?!

Any advice?

Are you sure you are not talking about my DS3? While night time routine is different, his "bedtime" is about the same (I always feel bad, especially since my 8 year old cousin has to be in bed by 7:30!). I wish we could get him to bed earlier, but we don't have much option on the bedtime because of work schedules. And morning wake-up is usually around 7.

Bedtime itself is usually not a problem. It is 15-20 minutes later that he gets up and comes out of his room. Some how in that 15-20 minutes he always seems to have a "bad dream." With a little coaching, and some extra hugs he is back in bed. Sometimes that is the end of it, other times this continues for a couple of hours! He does toss and turn a lot while he sleeps, I know that. We can't let him sleep with us too often because we wake up with bruises everytime .

His daycare does have a nap time after lunch every day. Does he sleep during that time? Sometimes, yes, sometimes, no. But he always has to stay quiet and on his cot so his friends can sleep. We can always tell the days he doesn't sleep at all (most days he naps for less than 30 minutes). Not only is he very cranky, but he also passes out on the way home. There have been many nights that I would love to just pull him out of the car and take him directly to bed. I am always afraid he will wake up in the middle of the night screaming that he is hungry. And the last thing I need is for him to tell his teachers at school that he went to bed without dinner

On weekends, we try to get him to nap. Try being the key word there. After 15 minutes or so, he comes running out of his room all proud of himself telling us that he took a nap. Boy does he get angry when we march him right back in. He just gets way to cranky in the afternoon/evening without a little extra sleep. On weekends, we have the ability go get him to bed way earlier than normal during the week if he doesn't nap well and is too cranky in the afternoon/evening, but we try to keep to the same schedule as during the week if we can.

We sometimes have some problems getting him up in the morning, but not often. And on the weekends, if we haven't gotten him up by 7:30 he is in our room trying to wake us up. No clock in his room, just his internal system telling him he's not sleepy any more. So I am not concerned with him not getting enough sleep at night. He usually ready for just about anything (meltdowns for not getting what he wants when he wants it is another topic of its own). It is just the afternoon/evening that he slows and gets cranky if he doesn't have some kind of a nap. Much to his dismay, I do not intend to give up on trying to get him to nap . He is definately a happier boy after taking one, even if just one of his 30 minute power naps, that's how I know he still needs them .

 

[100AcreWood]

My dd (3) takes naps occasionally. She also doesn't require a ton of sleep just like dh. My only suggestion is try changing something in the routine. Maybe find some way to make it 1 1/2 hour shut down (bath, relaxing TV show, stories in bed). My dd also takes a long time to fall asleep. Fortunately not as long as you described but definitely longer than it should. I understand it's frustrating especially when you need a little time to yourself too. A friend at work is dealing with the same thing with her almost 4 year old ds. His bedtime is 10:30pm. I laughed because I still had to be in bed by 9:30 at 14!

 

[Minnie824]

DD is 4 and has not napped much for over 1.5 yrs. She (as her 1.5 yo sister) went down to 1 nap at 9mos. The difference is, younger DD is a great sleeper. The 4yo napped fine on vacation. Sometimes, on weekends I make her nap with me, but then usually shes up tossing and turning as you said til 10pm. For us it works better to just not do a nap and have her go to bed earlier. She used to stay up til 9, but that wasnt working, so we moved it to 8. When we did that, she actually started sleeping longer in the am as well...til about 7:30-8am. Why don't you try getting rid of the nap and having her go to bed earlier?

 

[tmarquez]

Thank you everyone!

She does take a nap at school, well they have a quiet time after lunch and I do think she sleeps most of the days. On weekends at home, I usually don't force her to take a nap and she is ok, doesn't get cranky or anything. There are times that she has a really active day and she will just crash out in front of the tv, when this happens it's usually around 3 or 4pm so I wake her up after 45 minutes or so...otherwise we'd be up all night!

I think I'm going to ask her school to excuse her from her naptime and see what happens. It would be so nice to have her in bed and asleep at a decent hour...then I could sleep some too!

Like Diznygirl said, she does like it cold in her room. She will only sleep in a summer nightgown and we always keep her ceiling fan going. Our AC (live in FL) is always set to 76 so it's never hot in the house.

Thanks everyone for sharing!