3 yo keeps waking 15 mo in the am

amother

Yellow

Tue, Mar 21 2017, 9:39 am

We moved my 15 mo into my 3 yo room about a month ago.
Nighttime isn't as much of an issue because the 15 mo goes to sleep later than the 3 yo. The 3 yo wakes up earlier, though, and wakes the 15 mo up in the morning.
15 mo is cranky all morning until her nap (sometimes until 1!) and it's driving me crazy. When 15 mo sleeps in my room (she'll crawl in sometimes in the middle of the night), 3 yo plays by herself until 15 mo wakes up, and then they play together until they want breakfast.
It's been a month and 15 mo schedule is still not adjusting to 3 yo. We thought when we moved her in she'd start going to sleep earlier and waking up earlier. Not happening...help!

myname1

Tue, Mar 21 2017, 10:07 am

I have 2 about the same age. Why is your baby up until 1 if she's cranky and exhausted? That seems like a good reason for her to be up late. My kids go to sleep at about 6:30 and wake up 6:30/7. Then the baby takes a nap from like 10 to 11:30. A couple of times I let her sleep later in the day instead (or in addition), and she was always up crazy late at night. So now I really try to get her in for her nap as soon as she seems a bit tired, and try to keep her up the rest of the day. I've put her to bed as early as like 5:30 if she was very tired and we were ready. But usually she seems tired at like 4/5, but then perks up again and goes to sleep really nicely (Baruch Hashem, please no ayin hara!!) at 6/6:30. So my advice- try to get her to nap as early as possible and see if that helps break the cycle. Maybe try going for a walk or drive or something to help her fall asleep at first. Or I guess you could try waking her even earlier if that will help her get an earlier nap and everything else.

amother

Yellow

Tue, Mar 21 2017, 2:04 pm

I have no clue why she naps so late! She's so grumpy but she just won't sleep!
Granted some mornings she will nap earlier, other mornings she gets a second wind after kvetching and fighting sleep for 4 hours.

water_bear88

Tue, Mar 21 2017, 2:10 pm

How much exercise does she get in the mornings? I've found a strong correlation between how much walking outside (or physical activity with other toddlers) and how fast mine go down for their nap.

amother

Yellow

Tue, Mar 21 2017, 2:30 pm

The struggle with these mornings is that she is so obviously in need of a nap that I don't want to go out to the park or on an outing because I think she'll go to sleep soon and I'd rather not lug around the stroller for no reason.
And she does nap at 9/10/11 some mornings. Just other times she doesn't and I wait around for her...
(I don't always find that the outings tire her out any sooner, truthfully. When I have something scheduled or the 3 yo needs to get out and we do, the 15 mo sometimes naps when we get back, sometimes doesn't.)

water_bear88

Tue, Mar 21 2017, 11:46 pm

I don't mean necessarily with the stroller- you may need to physically wear her out. It's tough when there are errands to do, I know. Did she recently drop from 2 naps to 1? Any drop in naps causes a short period of chaos afterwards, IME.

amother

Yellow

Wed, Mar 22 2017, 10:21 am

I know...we usually just do the stroller to get to the park/play date where she runs around with the other kids.

And no...she dropped her second nap AGES ago. I feel like she's on the verge of dropping her first nap (gulp!) - today's the second time she skipped it recently.