14 month old - not sleeping

[lane0413]

My daughter is 14 months old. She has never been a good sleeper and it feels like it is getting worse. First, I'll admit that it is all my fault. The rocking chair and I have become her prop!
She is teething really bad this week so I know that is to blame for her not sleeping well but she honestly never sleeps well even when she is not teething.

First of all, She never falls asleep without rocking--For naptime, she always fights it hard- crying, kicking, flailing, etc... at  night she drinks a bottle and then rocks to sleep without crying... If we put her down in her crib right after she falls alseep, she will stand up and cry to be picked up. Usually we pick her up and rock for a few more minutes and she will go on to sleep when we place her in her crib. SHOULD I LET HER CIO?

She has slept through the night before, but  most nights, she will wake up 30 minutes after she falls asleep. She stands up and cries and will not settle back down until we go in and rock a minute.. Every night varies. Some nights he wakes 1-2 times per night others she wakes EVERY HOUR! Like this week when she has been teething. Something has got to give.. Any advice?

This is her daily routine when she is at home with someone.. it varies on her 3 daycare days.
6:30-7ish- WAKEUP
7:30-8 Breakfast then sometimes a morning snack if she was a picky eater at breakfast.
9:30-10:30ish Naptime - sometimes she will sleep 30 minutes sometimes 1 1/2 hours (so somedays she not wake up until 12...depending on what time naptime started. )

12-12:30ish LUNCH
2:30 snack
between 4-5 I fight her to take a 30 minute nap.. I have tried cutting out this nap but if she doesn't get it she is extremely ill until bedtime..

6-6:30 Dinner
7:45 bath
8:20 bottle and bed


ANY ADVICE OR CRITICISM IS WELCOME!

[Shiv52]

Hi hun

{{{hugs}}}

I don't think you need to let her CIO.  There are gentler ways we can help her (and you!) get some proper rest.  Looking at your routine I think your LO is very OT by the time bedtime comes around and I think that is the cause of a lot of your NWs.  Obviously the other issue is the prop of needing rocked.  When she wakes in the night she is probably expecting that to get back over. 

Here is some info:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85130.0

1 year old                                                              2 naps, 1 of 1 hour and 1 of 1.25-1.5 hrs
                                                                                11.5hrs at night

                     The transition to one nap usually occurs in the 12-18 month range

18 months old                                                        1 nap - 2 hrs
                                                                                11.5hrs at night


Combined with this info, LOs of 14 months will have an A time of 4.5-5.5 hours, more sometimes if they are on one nap.

So that being said, looking at your routine I think your morning nap needs to be later as the stretch to bedtime is really long.  She still needs that afternoon nap if she's to make it through to bedtime.  Your other option is to move to one nap.  The other thing that sticks out is your LO is doing a 14 hour day/10 hour night which means she would need more daytime sleep than normal to get through the day.  NWs are a common symptom of being OT. 


Our routine at 14 months was:

8am Wake up
1pm Nap  (2.5/3 hours)
3.30/4pm  Wake up
8.30/8.45 Bed

So our A time was more evenly distributed throughout the day.

With two naps based on your routine it would look like:

7am Wake up
10.30  Nap (1.5 hours)
12 Wake up
4pm Nap (45/1 hour)
5pm Wake up
8.30 Bed

Does that make sense?  Overall I think she needs more A time in the morning to push that nap later.  Nap refusal can be a common sign that they are ready to move to one nap but I couldn't be sure that your pm nap refusal is definately that as I'm unsure if its OT.

In terms of the rocking, here's a link to some approaches you can do to help with that: 

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=80750.0

To be honest, I would try and tweak her routine a bit and see does that help.  Its hard to do sleep training at the best of times let alone when they are OT and not recommended when they are teething/ill.  We had a terrible habit of rocking to sleep and in the end we just put her in her cot and stayed right there and ssh-patted until she slept and then faded out.  Took a while but it worked in the end.  We had tried rocking until she was almost asleep and then putting her down in the hope of putting her down a little more awake every few nights and it didn't work out for us.  The minute she knew she was going into the cot she started screaming.  It was easier I thought when we just started going straight in to the cot after a cuddle. 

Have bombarded you with a lot of info.  Hope it helps.  keep me posted.  Am on my way to bed so apologise if its all over the place. 

Siobhan x