I have been pretty lucky with my daughter. She has always been a good sleeper. There were a couple of times where we experience her reversing night and day, but not very often. Usually if something changed in her sleep pattern, I could pretty much guarantee that she was getting a cold. Even to this day, if she does not sleep through the night or is having trouble sleeping, I know that she is feeling under the weather.
There has been one change in her sleep pattern that has not been related to a cold. Nap strike. Yep, she has been on a nap strike for quite some time now. She really still needs her afternoon nap, but she is just too busy to slow down and take a nap. A couple of times she has just passed out on the couch with a bottle because she was so tired out.
Usually what we have to do now is take her for a drive around nap time. She hates getting into the car because she knows she is going to fall asleep. It is a fight the entire way. But once she is in the car, within about ten minutes she is fast asleep.
It is a hard decision on whether to make her nap or not. If she does not nap she has a little grumpy period in the early evening. But without a nap she goes to bed early and falls asleep quite quickly. This allows me to get a bit of time to myself in the evening, which is really nice.
If she has a nap, then she goes to bed later and is very difficult to get to sleep. This means that I do not get time to myself in the evening, which I miss when I do not have that time to relax and have a quiet coffee. Also, if she does nap, I am usually driving her and getting nothing done because she is asleep in the car!
It is a tough decision because it seems that my daughter still needs her naps. Sometimes I just let her decide if she is going to nap by whether or not she falls asleep on the couch. Other times, if we have to go get stuff done, we all will go so if she falls asleep one of us can stay with her in the car. I pretty much let our day and daughter decide if there is going to be a nap time. I am starting to believe that she is just slowly getting used to not having or needing a nap. I think that we are in the transition time where the nap strike is no longer a strike and just a loss of the nap altogether.
A useful tip that my doctor told me……..
Lavendar helps a baby sleep. Every night before bed, I massage my daughter with oil that contains lavendar in it. She enjoys the time. She learns the names of her body parts as we put oil on her knee, elbow, leg, belly and so on. It also keeps her skin very soft and smooth.