# My son thinks bedtime is nap time



## msmetana (Jan 12, 2008)

Hi everyone,

I am hoping to get some advice as I feel we have tried everything.

My son has transitioned from 2 naps to 1 nap a day and we usually follow his sleep cues to get him to sleep. For his naps, he usually falls asleep on his own when he tires out after playing and I just read him a story and/or nurse him and he's out like a light.

Bedtime is a bit trickier. We have tried several different bedtimes from 5pm then up every hour up until 10pm! No matter what we do however, our son wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to play for 2-3 hours.

We have tried a routine (i.e. snack,bath, pjs, bedtime story, nurse) but he seems to be only more roused by the bath and bedtime story.

So usually we have to wear him on our backs and he falls asleep.

However, when he wakes up in the middle of the night, nothing we can do (nursing, wearing him, etc) gets him back to sleep.

This has been going on for almost 3 months and we are so sleep deprived.

Finally we just decided to put a gate in our bedroom (we still cosleep),babyproof everything,and let him play while we sleep but he started climbing on our faces, etc so we can't sleep!

Sometimes it has worked and he'd play and fall asleep on his own and let us sleep.

What can we do so that he doesn't consider his bedtime as a nap?

I also tried experminenting with nap times (ie. earlier vs later naps) but I found that unless I followed his sleep cues, it was useless trying to get him to nap vs following his sleep cues we could nurse/read and he'd be out in a few minutes.

I have no idea why reading to him works for naps but not for bedtime, and why nothing works in the middle of the night!

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Monika


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## Muminmamman (Jul 28, 2007)

Wow. This is my son, as well. I don't think I am the person you want to hear from, though, as this has been going on for six months with my guy. I have tried EVERYTHING. Seriously. Everything. The latest thing I have done (out of sleep deprived desperation) is, when he wakes for milk around 10ish, I just let him fully wake so he has his two hour party time from 10-12 and then we sleep from 12-7 (with waking for milk every few hours). I know it sounds mad, but it's the only thing that seemed to work (and is tearless for both parties). That said, I am going to keep my eyes glued to this thread. Good luck, momma. I won't give you this too shall pass business, as if someone else tells me that, to the moon!


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