Rachel just turned a year and learned how to walk. She has suddenly decided 6:15 is a good time to get up in the morning, and is happy for about 30 minutes then is a cranky mess until naptime, not letting me do anything unless I am holding her or letting her climb me. This does not work well for me (or Asher). She now wants to nap at about 10:30 for 30 minutes or so, and then nap again at 3:30-4, which also does not work well because I don't want her to be awake until 10 at night, only to start the cycle again at 6:15 the next morning. She used to take one nap midafternoon, usually somewhere between 1.5-3 hours. She'd go to bed at 7:30 and wake at 7:30 in the morning. She is clearly overtired.

Yesterday I decided I was not going to let her sleep in the afternoon, and put up with the crankiness for a reasonable bedtime. She still fought that like the devil, and once she was out man she was out. Is this just a developmental thing I have forgotten about? I wonder if she is so into walking that she just doesn't want to sleep, she would instead prefer to practice walking around. Or am I just not being stern enough about it? Last night I pseudo rocked her and sang to her because she was fighting nursing, and she screamed and cried. After doing that for a few minutes she zonked out on me. Open to any advice. Even if the advice is to just stick it out and follow her lead, as hard as that might be to hear. Thanks.

I think maybe that's around the time Piper dropped her morning nap. It's hard to remember exactly, but that sounds about right.

I dunno. I assume you're trying to get her to go back to sleep when she wakes so early. I guess I got nuthin'.

Sleep issues are so hard!  It definitely sounds like a developmental milestone thing to me, Sommer.  I would give it a couple of weeks, without intervention, and see what happens.  If she's still cranky and overtired, then it might be a good idea to get a really firm schedule in place to help her ease back to one nap per day.  It may just pass on its own, though, once she's gotten over the novelty of walking. 

Thanks for the advice. I really want to follow her lead, but boy am I exhausted and just really need that parenting break at the end of the day.

Luckily, the past two days she has slept until at least 7, which is a much better time for her to wake up. Now Asher is waking up early again!

Sleep is a such a hard parenting issue. You want so bad to "do something" and it seems to be the area where you just have to let it be and wait it out.

Yes, indeed.  Sleep was our *hardest* issue by far.  Brynn woke up on average 3 times per night until she was TWO YEARS OLD!!!  I had many days of thinking I might die!  But the truth is, like you said, nothing we did made any difference.  It was hard, but I had to just try to remind myself, this too shall pass. 

So maybe some relief at 2? You give me hope. Sleep is the only pre-baby thing I long for. I'm on the computer right now knowing that I should be sleeping, so on that note, good night.

That's the toughest part about it Shannon - I stay up late because it is my baby free time and I love it so, but then I am so sorry all through the night and in the morning too. And then rinse and repeat the next night! About once a week I have to go to bed early. And Asher started sleeping much better after he was night weaned (18 months or so). He has gone through periods of time of night waking, but for the most part sleeps through the night.

We are starting to have sleep issues again here.  I have no idea why.  DS is waking between 5 and 5:30 in the morning (for the past several days) and will NOT go back to sleep.  It is $%*^ DARK out!! WHY ARE YOU AWAKE?!?!? And he's been crashing again between 8-9, and then needs another nap around 3-ish, and then has a hard time going to bed at the regular time.  He had been down to one nap a day for quite awhile, and now has put himself on this messed up schedule.  What's worse is when he gets up that early, it wakes up DD, who, frankly, handles it less well than he does.  Yesterday DH had to work, and by 8, she was in total meltdown, screaming and throwing toys around the playroom, which is very out of character for her.  This morning, they were both up by 5:30, I was at starbucks by 6:30, and we took them to the park at 7.  We came home, and they both passed out before it was even 9.  I don't know what to do to get them back on a normal schedule.  I don't seem to be able to keep them asleep first thing in the morning, and it's almost impossible to keep either one of them up until regular nap time.  

I can kind of vaguely remember being pregnant with DS, and DD was still night waking, and I kept saying "If I don't get some sleep in the next (months, weeks, etc) then I will never sleep again", counting down through the whole pregnancy.  She does well now, for the most part, and probably would be okay, if Mr. Early Riser would cut it out!

omg, that sucks soooooo bad. Is there any way that you could close her door early in the morning so she doesn't hear him? Maybe put the monitor in her room at night so you can close it and you will know when she wakes up? She takes her sleep seriously and knows she needs it, so I am sure she is having a rough go right now - which of course means YOU are having a rough go right now. Wish there was something I could tell you - maybe it is short lived? Although I do remember a time when she was the one that was getting up at 6, maybe you just have the morning larks.

I'm not sure what I can do about her.  She has a pretty big complex about her door being shut (after locking herself in once, LOL), and I'm pretty sure it would totally freak her out if she woke up and tried to come into our room and couldn't get out, even if we heard her and got to her quickly...we all know how she hangs on to stuff! I can hear her now..."You were just locked in here! You were just locked in here on your own!"  And, on at least one of these occasions, I've given up and scurried him downstairs, but her spidey-sense went off that the "day" had started, yk?

She absolutely is a kid who is all about the sleep.  While I was making dinner, she was sobbing in the learning tower, "You're just really tired!"  Um, no kidding!  I'm hoping it's just short lived! It wasn't such a big deal when she was the early riser, since it was either just her, or Will was so little he just slept wherever, but man, right when I get them on a fairly solid schedule....arrghh. 

Just goes to show I will never get this parenting thing all the way figured out!

Hmm...I think this was about the age when I decided I didn't need to follow her lead so much on sleep.  Actually, I was visiting a dear friend out-of-town, a parent that I admire, and she helped me realize that at some point I had to take charge of the sleep thing just to make sure (for DD's own good) that she did get enough sleep.  Not in a lock-her-in-a-room-and-listen-to-her-cry way, of course, but just in an I'm-the-loving-parent-and-YOU-need-to-sleep sort of way. 
At my friend's suggestion, I noted DD's cues for what times she seemed sleepy and got the best rest, and then I instituted a fairly rigid sleep schedule around her own best sleep times.  She had (and still has) one nap, starting around lunchtime.  We had a big bed in her room that I put rails up on, and I would just lay there with her until she fell asleep.  Dark room, white noise, all the nursies she wanted, but I would not talk to her or engage with her at all (except to gently repeat "now is time for sleeping"), and I wouldn't let her leave the bed.  Some days were easy because that was when she wanted to nap/sleep anyway, but a couple days were hard because she wasn't used to *always* sleeping at that time.  I remember a couple days took about an hour of her just crawling around on the bed and flopping here and there, before she finally just settled in and slept.  But after a week or so it was really easy, and she just expected sleeptime to happen then.  I'm not sure how that would work out for you, with your older DS to watch too. 
But really I think once they reach a certain age, the kids actually need predictability and a routine that they can count on, so that they can feel secure about their world and reach out creatively in other areas.  Schedules get a bad rap because of the evil stuff they are associated with when people try to "schedule" little baby nursing newborns , but I think that predictable routines and rhythms are actually quite good for toddlers.  Just my opinion!

Sommer - I remember Novi going through a similar phase. I'm not sure how old she was , but she must have been close to a year or so.  As she was sleeping in a pack-n-play next to our bed then, we would try to ignore her for as long as possible. If it was still too early, I'd nurse her and then put her back to bed with minimal interaction (as was our routine for night wakings). I don't know if that worked in particular, or if it was just a phase, but her early wakings didn't last too long. Maybe a week or two. But it did wreck her nap schedule and was a very rough period for us all. She did revert back to two naps, but, again, that didn't last. So, I guess my advice would be to try the ignoring method (provided she doesn't start screaming and waking up the whole house anyway) and just try to wait it out. If that doesn't work, I'd try to keep her up from her second nap and do a really early bedtime, just to help with the sleep deprivation. That worked for Novi most of the time as well, although she fought going to sleep like a hellcat at bedtime, which is of course no fun at all! I'm sorry you are in sleep hell

Erin - would DD tolerate a white noise machine or loud fan in her room, to potentially drown out the sounds of ds' early wakings? Just a thought...Sorry you're in sleep hell as well

We're actually doing a lot better.  DS has been sleeping until 6-6:30 (an acceptable waking time in our house ) and DD has been doing ok with that.  He's still kind of trying to take two naps a day again, (which totally doesn't work for us!), but I think he's phasing that out again too.  DD has been at summer camp all week which is throwing a monkey wrench into our schedule as well...BUT things are MUCH improved this week.

The funny thing is, last night DS slept from when he went to bed at 8 until 4 w/o waking, but DD kept waking up and crying about being in her own bed.  She's been coming in our room in the middle of the night for the last few days, but that's really just kind of funny, (she says stuff like, "You just don't like to be left in your own room.  You wish you could be in here in our bed")

Can we get that emoticon that's drinking the cup of coffee?

So Rachel, you night weaned at 18 months? That's exactly where we are right now. I have just been trying to push back the first night feeding later and later, and we had our biggest success last night. He made it till 5:30! Which was 8 1/2 hours! But then he was AWAKE for about an hour, then he nursed and fell back asleep till 8:30. So I guess, after all that, my question is, what is a typical full night of sleep for an 18 month old? I know all kiddos are different, but I'd like to have appropriate expectations. I hear stories about kids who sleep from 8 till 8, but I guess right now I shoud be grateful for 8 1/2 hours.

Shannon, I night-weaned Brynn around 20 months, and it made a big difference!  She was never 8-8 (still isn't) but she slept for 7 hours IN A ROW for the first time after weaning. I  was really anxious about decreasing her calories like drastically, but she did fine.