DD hasn't napped in 5 days....NEED Advice

[HIU8]

DD is 18 months. She, for some reason, has not napped in 5 days. DS never went through a no napping period until he gave them up basically at 2.5. Is a period of not napping normal at this age? DD had a double ear infection that has supposedly cleared up. I wonder if she has another one or if this one never cleared up completely..... She also wakes up at midnight and doesn't go back to sleep for 2-3 hours. This is not normal for her and is happening every 2-3 days. She so need to nap and sleep through the night. This is killing me!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone BTDT?

[SnuggleBuggles]

I can commiserate! Ds2 went on a 2+ week no nap kick in late December (so it really just ended!). The thing is that he was totally happy and good to go without a nap.

He did have an ear infection just before that AND he had a major growth spurt. He would do the same middle of the night thing as your dd and be up for 2+ hours. He didn't do it every night but a few times each of those weeks. Pretty much it was 2 weeks of misery. An overtired baby sleeps worse but how do you make them sleep?? Then all of a sudden things got back to normal. I admit to a few nights of middle of the night CIO because nothing we were doing was helping. He thought it was party time in our room.

We knew he was eating like crazy during the day so 3 nights we wound up feeding him (after a double nursing session didn't help). That at least made him happy but it didn't get him back to sleep.

The good thing is that things are back to normal (knock on wood). I don't know what happened but he's currently napping and he slept fine the past few nights. So, maybe if I can't solve the sleep problem now I can offer you a little hope. :)

We spent most of the holidays out and about so I didn't even bother with trying to get him to nap. Maybe I just wore him out. ;)

Good luck!! It was exhausting but I am hoping like all sleep phases it is just a phase and we are back on track for a while.

Beth

[elektra]

Hi- I am clueless myself and have just broken out my Weissbluth book again. I just posted something similar in the sleep forum about DD (21 mo) who has been waking up in the middle of the night and when we would go to her she would be up, wide awake for 2-3 hours too. She had also had a cold (sounds like more minor than your DD's ear infection) and that is why I was going to her right away.
A few nights ago we just let her CIO in the middle of the night, since it really seemed like we were just getting her more amped up by coming in her room.
And the last 2 nights she has actually slept through the night with no crying.
Oh, and when we did let her cry earlier in the week, it was 10 min max. Much better than us all being up for 3 hours in the middle of the night IMO!
In my re-reading of the book, there was a little tidbit about how nap schedules change at 21 months because of some body clock/hormonal/developmental milestone or something. And DD is exactly 21 months so I wonder if that has something to do with it. Also, she is napping longer during the day now, which I at first thought was her attempt to catch up on her night sleep but maybe it's just the new routine or something.
Have you tried moving her bedtime earlier to help her catch up on some sleep? That's what Weissbluth seems to suggest as the first tactic for something like this.
So anyway, take what you want from my little story, but I just wanted to post because I know that the sleep problems can be so frustrating, disheartening, tiring and depressing! So hopefully even some commiseration is worth something. )