My 4 1/2 year old daughter is getting to the age where she naps less and less, which I figure is totally normal. The problem is that on the days that she does not nap, she wakes up multiple times at night, often incoherant and having nightmares. I stick to a pretty consistent schedule, and ALWAYS put her upstairs for a nap during naptime, but often she will sit in her bed and talk for up to two hours! To me this means that her body does not need a nap any longer during the day. But at night it is a whole other story! We put her to bed early on the days she does not nap (7:00-7:30), she goes right to sleep, and then within 2 hours she begins waking up crying or screaming. Sometimes I can calm her down quickly, but other times I cannot. Last night she woke up 5 times. I don't think she is doing this on purpose, because when she does get a nap, she does not wake up at all! Both my husband and I are beyond exhausted and need some ideas! What can we do? Thanks in advance!
Ask her about the "nightmares", if she doesn't remember them, look up night terrors. The good news there is they usually are out grown pretty quickly after preschool age. Sorry I just have a second.
C. G
I wouldn't think the waking has much to do with naps or not. She could however be overly tired which can sometimes disrupt sleep. I would think at 4 1/2 she is done with naps. Maybe an earlier bedtime? If she is laying there for two hours talking to herself then it is time to stop the naps. Maybe the some days napping and some days not throws her off?
I don't know but if you see a clear pattern, try a different bedtime routine, happy stories, full belly, snuggles and all that. Night terrors happen on and off until they are older I believe.
I really don't have much advice other then to maybe just stop naps completely and get her into a new bedtime routine and see if that helps.
See if you can find out what is scaring her, if she is out of it, she is probably just having night terrors and those come in phases.
Try putting a night light in her room, a sound machine of white noise to help keep her settled. Good luck.
I know this is hard to watch and deal with. My two oldest, a boy and a girl, have both gone through this stage. With the first we were perplexed and worried, but reassured by others that it would pass, and it did. When they would have an occurance we would just talk to them calmly and lay them back down in bed after the terror had passed. We didn't try to wake them completely because it was too difficult most of the time.
Neither one of them remembers anything and they sometimes laugh at some of the odd things they did and said when we talk about it. I don't think you should worry too much at this time. Sometimes they do escalate into them getting out of bed, mine both did. This is when you need to make sure they cannot get hurt or out of the house. We would put up gates after they were in bed so that they were not aware of them being there and put extra latches on the doors too high for them to reach.
Many children experience this and all seem to grow out of it. Stay calm and try not to expose your children to situations that would cause them to feel anxiety. Try keeping the television off in the evenings and reading some calming books before bed time. Play some soothing music and keep as many lights off as possible. We even went so far as to get them ready in their rooms with only the hall light or a very dim lamp on. These things seemed to help and they quickly grew out of this stage.
Sounds like she is transitioning between napping and not napping. Can't quite remember when my kids stopped napping, but I know it was no where close to 4 1/2 (much earlier), so you have been lucky. I don't think she is faking it at all. Generally a kid that wakes up is so disoriented that they could not fake it without getting an Academy Award!
There are many things that can interfer with the sleep cycle, so make sure her room is free of baby monitors, TVs, clock radios, etc. I've learned that electromagnetic fields can interfer with sleep. Turn off your WiFi router at night too. The darker the room, the better too.
There is also a sleep system by Nikken that has amazing results (even in double blind studies). Small kids can do OK on a pet pad too. www.nikken.com/sleepcenter You can contact me for more info, research and pricing too (always show you the cheapest way to get anything). I had horrible sleep issues until I tried it.
Just know that as the body and seasons change, so do the sleep patterns.
Good luck!
S.
All of my children had transition issues when they started to eliminate their nap, so I think it's pretty common. Certainly your daughter's situation sounds distressing.
Mostly we just wait it out for several months during the transition and we're as careful as possible re: schedule.
Also, there's a transitional phase that can kick in at the beginning of full-time school (might come home cranky/exhausted for 1-2 months), and also at the beginning of the next couple of grades (from the sheer stress of the new expectations perceived by the child). Lots of love!
I know naps are a big part of how kiddos process emotions when they are little, and not taking them can really disturb sleep. It sounds like this is one of those lousy transitions that you just have to patiently live through as their little brain adjusts to the change! Good Luck--and hang in there. It will get better.
Hi K., I have two girls that did the same thing but have since grown out of it, but I expect it to happen again. They call it either night terrors or sleepwalking without the actual walking. My pediatrician gave me information on it and you can actually re-train their brain to stay asleep. I don't remember all the details as when I have to do it, I have to call them to remind me how to do it. It is a very intense schedule but it works. We also started dimming the lights about 1-2hrs before bed time (depending on what time dinner was) and sometimes a litle warm liquid helps. Good luck to you. I know it is a struggle but hang in there.
I have dealt with night terrors and mares for many years. they occur when the children are more stresed or not getting enough sleep. Try puttingher to bed. at 6 and reducing quiet time to one hour. Mine stopped napping around three and it is hard to even get quiet time these dasy (ages 3 and 4.5). But they do sleep so much better. You might push back to 7 bedtime later after her body adjusts. It took several weks for us but I couldn't fight the nap time and stuff anymore. It is actually sort of nice to not have to run home every day riht at one pm. We usually have quiet time at 2 until 3 or so.
