This is a hard thing. I take it she is about 24 months? I'm sure, no doubt, you've read and are probably already doing the whole "same routine every night" thing, right? My son was/is HSP and very "nosy" about his environment all the time. We had a lot of hardwood in our house, and it was noisy, so one thing we did was put a white noise maker machine in his room. It just sounds like a small fan and drowns out noise and comforts kids, I would say.

I recall this age being a transition and hard to deal with. My son had sleep terrors off and on, but they didn't last long. After a few days or weeks, they wouldn't happen again for a long time. I'd just keep soothing and leaving. I wouldn't stay in his room very long. I sort of recall trying all sorts of things. Sorry, that's probably not what you want to hear. It does pass though! ; )

I wouldn't shorten the nap, personally. Here are some things we tried:

putting a photo of mom on the dresser with a night light next to it, and showing him he could look at it when he might want to see me.

soothing music in the CD player and let it run over and over

small stuffed animal of his favorite character (Grover) and then we'd make up stories of how Grover was a big boy and how Grover would whisper in my ear that he thought my son could fall asleep all on his own just like Grover did as a little one, stuff like that. Grover had a lot of influence!

kiddie hot water bottle in the crib

I'd put a glass bowl of hot water under his crib and put that soothing lavendar bath gel in it.

on rare occasion, I'd sit in a comfy chair in his room where he could see me and rest while he tried to fall asleep. Like I was *there,* but not in a way that was addicting, like sleeping next to him

for the sleep terror thing, my 2 cents is that the less you are involved then the better. the more I tried to sooth my son, the worse it got. the less I touched him or talked to him, the faster he'd nod off again.


good luck. it will pass!

I know this was posted a long time ago,but lavender essential oils have been a Godsend to us. My son is 8 and I apply some to his chest(to a smaller child you could apply it to the bottoms of their feet) and he sleeps soundly and all thru the night :)