Mom's Experience: How We Dealt with a Sleep Crisis in a Week

My son was one and a half years old, and we have long forgotten about sleep problems. Anton quickly fell asleep, slept soundly all night in his crib, and during the day, running up and tired, he could calmly go to his room himself and go to bed. But at one point, everything changed dramatically: we had a “sleep crisis”. The regime that we have been establishing for many months has begun to fail.

It all started with the fact that my son, who usually woke up at 9 a.m., suddenly began to get up at 6. He came to my room with my husband, climbed up to my side and tossed and turned for a long time, trying to get some more sleep. But we couldn’t fall asleep, and both of us, sleepy and displeased, got up and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.

When this happened for the first time, I hoped that he would go to bed earlier in the afternoon, but this did not happen. Anton rubbed his eyes for a long time, but did not go to bed at all. It seemed that he was ready to do anything, just to not sleep: he asked to cover him with a blanket, open it, change his pajamas to a T-shirt, grab it on his hands, pour compote, open the curtains, close the curtains and so on to infinity. As a result, he became nervous, began to wave his hands and even hit me in the face. We haven’t had this before! My patience snapped and I left the room. Anton started a real hysteria, he ran out after me and roared for some time fell asleep on my bed.

While Anton, exhausted by tears and screams, was sleeping, I (by the way, also terribly exhausted) tried to calm down myself and climbed onto the Internet. After reading the articles on children's sites, I realized that everything that happens to my child has a specific name - a sleep crisis of 1.5 years.

Causes of Sleep Crisis

My psychologist friend told me about the causes of the sleep crisis. At the age of 1.5 - 2 years, children begin to feel their needs more strongly, and they usually differ greatly from what mothers want. But you never know what she wants - said I won’t sleep, that means I won’t, and it doesn’t matter that I’m used to sleep at this time! And if she insists, I’ll take and hit, at the same time, and check the limits of what is permitted!

Undeveloped speech exacerbates the situation. At this age, children usually still do not speak very well. The child is perfectly explained by gestures, but knows very few words. It happens that I do not understand him, and then he begins to get angry.

Around the same time, a growth spurt can occur in a child. Over the past six months, Anton’s growth has not changed much, and over the past couple of weeks he has grown by as much as five centimeters and has significantly gained weight. He had more strength, and according to the psychologist, this was precisely the reason for this behavior at bedtime: he simply did not have time to waste all his energy.

How to deal with the crisis

The expert advised: before undertaking a night's sleep, it is necessary to adjust the daytime. And we started with preparation.About 2 hours before bedtime, we went outside, and our walk was very active: we played the ball, chased, rolled down the hills, made snowballs and again played the ball. Then, for several days, frost hit, and we were active at home: we danced, jumped on a trampoline, practiced on the Swedish wall. On the first day in an hour of such entertainment I was exhausted in full. But not Anton! When I fell onto the bed with almost no strength, he jumped over me for a long time and could not calm down.

After an hour of activity, it was time for quiet studies. For half an hour or an hour, we painted, sculpted from plasticine, built a tower of cubes and read books. I saw that Anton completely calmed down and began to rub his eyes, but as soon as I spoke about the dream, the tantrum started. It also happened that he was capricious, shouting and protesting against falling asleep when his eyes were already closed. I could not do anything about it - I could only endure, and stroke him, lying next to him, until he finally fell asleep.

Four days later, I noticed the first improvements. We suddenly reduced the time of active games: less than an hour after the start of outdoor games, the child calmed down himself and asked him to read a book. Before going to bed, he behaved calmly and no longer cuddled my face, splashing out unspent energy and aggression. And finally, he fell asleep: not in his bed, but next to me, but without tantrums.

Improvements were observed every day, and after a week the child began to calmly go to his crib, as soon as I said that it was time to sleep. And he stopped jumping up at 6 a.m. It seems the crisis is over.

But even now, after almost a month, I am afraid to cancel the alternation of activity and quiet activities before bedtime. I’m just trying to quickly redo all my affairs and devote an hour to playing with my child: first moving, and then drawing and reading. No, no, the thought flickers: what if the crisis just hid? ..

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