16 month old won't nap-help!

[erv917]

For the last two weeks or so, my 16 month old has been refusing to take her nap. This comes on the heels of a stressful few weeks--we were on vacation, then she had an ear infection, then a stomach virus, so there was definitely some upheaval preceding this change. Everything seems to be back to normal health-wise (and I took her back to the doctor who verified that). However, my formerly good napper absolutely refuses to nap!! When I put her down, she cries hysterically. I feel like I have tried everything--CIO for as long as an hour (!), rocking her to sleep, rubbing her back in her crib, sitting in her room with her, even taking her into my bed with me (which has worked, although inconsistently-and it isn't something I am willing to do every day for the next few years at any rate!!).

The other factor that I think might be contributing is that she is showing a lot of signs of separation anxiety lately, something which she never really did at a younger age. This fact especially makes me feel like CIO is probably not the answer, b/c I feel like being left alone in her crib is really distressing to her.

She's still sleeping okay at night, largely b/c I think she is utterly exhausted by bedtime. Does anyone have any thoughts/suggestions? I want my good sleeper (and mostly just my happy, well-rested) DD back!

Thanks in advance.

[toothfairy]

I just had a similar experience with my DD at 18 months. In about a three week period she had very few naps and I believe it was, for her, due to teething. Normally she is a predictable napper and a good nighttime sleeper and this seemed to come out of the blue! Fortunately it was temporary. I kept up the same routine we always had been using for naptime and she began napping again as if she always had. Hopefully for you guys its a short-term thing, too.


Amy

[pinay]

My DD will be 15 months old tomorrow, but she went through this earlier this month as well right after we returned from vacation. I think it was exacerbated by teething and she was getting ready to drop down to 1 nap a day, but it was a rough few weeks. We're now down to 1 nap that typicaly lasts 2 hours, but the best way to get that is to put her down in her vibrating rocking chair with her lovey and a sippy cup with water or milk. I'm weaning her off the vibrations and hoping to eventually shift her back to the crib for naps, but for now I'm just glad she's getting a solid nap in during the day. GL!

[erv917]

Bumping for more ideas??

[mmsmom]

It is most likely just a phase and will work out on its own. I went through separation issues w/ my DS who around 9 months would wake up in the middle of the night when he was previously sleeping through. Lasted a couple weeks, then just stopped. I would just stick to your normal nap routine & keep it consistent. Maybe start talking about nap time in a very positive way... in 15 minutes it will be time for a nap! Yeah! I will read you 2 books (or whatever you do) then I'm going to put you in the crib for a nap... I will be here when you wake up, etc. I found that this positive talk helps me as well... when you are anxious about nap time (as you naturally are when you know it will be a battle) they pick up on it and it will feed their anxiety as well. You may also want to try putting her down 30 minutes earlier... a suggestion from a lot of books. If you try CIO again, it's one of those things where you have to be very consistent and stick with it. It will get worse before it gets better & usually takes at least 3 days before it will start to get better.