Would he be under tired if he goes to sleep quickly with my hand on him?
Could be - they learn pretty quickly how to please mum
S 3-345 - this was a battle to get him down he seemed tired but wouldn't let me leave.
Did he then sleep 45min and wake on his own?
A few questions:
- Has your LO always been on the high end of sleep needs? As I read through your EASY, I had to remind myself he's 9mo, not 6-7mo.
- Are the NW's new or have they been there always? What is his behaviour like at the 4am-ish waking?
- When and what is he eating? That can have a pretty big bearing on NWs at this age.
I'm a bit concerned that he's hanging on to this routine out of habit and things are going to go to pot pretty quickly for you if we don't increase those A times. Seeing him with an OT waking with just 10mins more A time suggests he's either a kid who likes shorter A times than average (that's fine - nothing wrong with that, just need to know so we don't recommend crazy-long A times for him) or he's very habituated to this 3hr A time (that, we can just push through with a few days of resettling). I think its most likely that he needs more A time and that you will probably get 30min wakings for the first 3-4 days of an increased A time because he has become so used to these short A times. The things that point to this are the protesting at nap time, taking a while to go to sleep and the 45min nap after 3:15 in the afternoon. He may well need different A times at different times of day but I suspect he's doing a decent nap off 3hr A time first up in the day because he's not sleeping particularly well through the early hours of the morning because he doesn't have to. Definitely GW is a good way to go with sleep training - I just think a lot of your issues will be resolved by a more age-appropriate A time and the NFs may go once he's tired enough for good night sleep.