18 month old sleeping pattern

tadhgmorris

hi any help would be great.

my 1 and half year old goes to bed at 8.30 and sleeps immediately with or without bottle. but i have recently noticed that in the middle of the night she wakes up and stands falls down again rolls around babbles standsup again rambles around the cot. this i know is normal however she does this for 3 to 4 hours most nights. i slept in the spare bed in her room a number of times she didnt know i was there. so i dont believe it was because of my presence. so she is clearly loosing sleep at night. and during the day she sleeps from 11.00 to 2.30 and wake for the reainder of the day

is this normal any advice

regards

tadhg

crazy cat lady

Maybe you could try reducing the amount of time she sleeps during the day so that she is more tired at night?

Also, I read somewhere that putting your child to bed even half an hour earlier can lead to a better nights sleep. We were putting our daughter down at between half 8 and 9 and while she was going down at this time, she would always wake again at 3. Since she has been going down at between 7-7:30, most nights she will sleep through until half 6. Of course she's only just coming up to 8 months and I'm sure this will change!

Another thing, do you have a night light in her room? If so, maybe you could try leaving it off to see if this makes any difference.

Hope this helps

tadhgmorris

no light in the room. but isnt 2 to 3 hours sleep in day pretty normal for eighteen month old.

crazy cat lady

I'm sure it is if the child is sleeping 11 hours at night. I've read about sleeping patterns and habits and everything I have read has said that if your child is not sleeping through the night, reduce the amount of sleep your child has during the day.

Ayla

crazy cat lady wrote: »

everything I have read has said that if your child is not sleeping through the night, reduce the amount of sleep your child has during the day.

I would disagree with this, mainly b/c the child is awake from 2:30 to 8:30 and that means she has 6 hours to run around & tire herself out before bedtime. In terms of an 18-month old, 6 hours is a long time. I'm also a fan of letting a child's body dictate when & for how long she naps, so if one nap in the late morning/early afternoon is what she's happy with then I'd stick to that.

OP - is this something your daughter's just started doing, or has this been a long-term thing? Sleep is the time to process stuff, and maybe her brain's working on something pretty complicated which is causing her restlessness? If that's the case, the only cure would be time...when her brain decides it's processed this info she'll sleep deeper again.

Grawns

My nearly 19th month old is recently growing out of naps. I've tried changing the times but she may stay playing in her cot for 2 hours during the supposed nap time. I think she enjoys the chill out aspect of it even if she doesn't sleep most days.

At night she goes to bed at 7 and sleeps for 12 hours and has been in this pattern for about 6 months now. Sometimes she stirs a bit but she never wakes and cries so I guess it's normal for them to sleep lightly part of the time. Last night she started clapping and babbling while she was asleep. I still have her in the room with me due to lack of space.

All that being said I would think that that a 2 and a half hour nap is way too much and you should shorten the nap to maybe 90 mins and change the bedtime to earlier so you get a break at night. After In the Night Garden, Bridget is running to her bedroom everynight.

RIRI

I agree with Grawns, that a 2.5 hour nap is too much at that age.
Perhaps you could try allowing 2 one hour naps - one morning & one in the afternoon?
Our little lad was never much of a napper, at that age he was on 2 45minute naps a day & he slept through the night from 14 weeks the little star:)
All that said if your baby is not waking upset i'd leave well enough alone, it's good for them to learn to put themselves back to sleep.

best of luck

metrovelvet

They are all different. My son just started sleeping 5 consecutive hours at 18 months.

He was still napping during the day, but he would never be awake for three or four hours in the middle of the night at 18 mos.

vemrob

My daughter is 17 months and recently started doing the same as your daughter. She too naps for about 2 hours in the day. We had no clue what to do but one night I gave her the water bottle which she always takes to bed and then told her to give Buttons, her teddy, a hug. I explained to her that Buttons was a very light sleeper and that she had to go to sleep so he didnt wake up. Much to my surprise off to sleep she went and she has only woken a couple of times since then and each timewe tell her the same thing. Dont know why it works but it does for us.