BabyWhispererForums.com
SLEEP => Night Wakings => Topic started by: jessmum46 on December 31, 2014, 08:41:54 am
-
Any and all help appreciated, I don't know what I'm missing here.....
DS is 7 months tomorrow, independent sleeper pretty much since week 1. Absolute dream sleeper overnight until around the 4 month mark, then teeth, rolling, hunger sent things a little haywire. And although we have got back down to one NF (which I actually don't think he needs, but still better than 2-3) we almost always have other NWs. We have a set routine to fit the needs of our family but I thought he was doing pretty well with it really, certainly goes down easily for naps.
Routine is usually
WU 6/6.30
Nap 9-9.45 capped
Nap 1pm for usually 1h40-2h
BT 18.15/30
We sometimes have early evening cries but he can usually self-settle these. The main issue is a waking somewhere between midnight and 1.30am which usually needs a bit of help - but very minimal ie return lovey, maybe reposition if stuck on crib bars then leave him to it. He will settle for 15-25 mins, then repeat. This goes on for up to an hour and a half when he will either go back off for 2-3 hours or sometimes will not settle at all without a feed. It doesn't happen every night but more often than not over the last fortnight at least. Daytime routine has been pretty consistent over that time.
I'm trying to push his NF and get rid of it so at the moment it's around 4am unless I'm having real issues settling him earlier. He has four milk feeds in the day and three solid meals, I know he's young but he was starving from 5 months and is much happier overall with some decent food. Milk always before solids.
He has six teeth already, the top ones are still moving down although they are fully through the gum. He's pretty dribbly right now. And also getting over a cold (again).
So.....routine? Discomfort? Prop of some sort? (Though I don't know what....). I would love a proper sleep!
-
How do you feel he is in the evening hun? Do you think he may be tad OT before BT? Looks like he's getting decent naps in there albeit a little ahead of his age. At this age DD could only go 2.5hrs to BT even if it followed a nice long nap.
Do you think he could cope with an extra 15mins for that second A so you could take 15mins off the last A iykwim? The night sleep in total seems adequate and I wouldn't want him waking any earlier for you.
So nap at 1.15pm for 2hrs then hopefully BT at 6/6.15pm. Could try for a few days and see? Wdyt? Xx
-
He isn't cold is he??? Just with the weather :-\?
-
1.5 hr nw between 12-2 sounds like it could be UT to me (especially the trying to resettle for a bit, but then waking again).
DS1 was sleeping through with only a df at this age (dropped df at just over 8 months), but he used a pacifier and every night he needed it replugged. It was quick but he needed it just once, every night. So it could be that he just needs some interaction at some point, but the constant rewaking sounds like a routine issue, and not a prop. Discomfort would be harder to settle on our end, so if it's a quick resettle, I would consider discounting that, although a long nw without resettling, just general awake was discomfort for us (so maybe?). Hunger could be an issue, but since he's eating well during the day, it's unlikely at this age - although you could try implementing a df and see if that makes a difference (we start the df at 5 months and it takes about 3-4 days before they stop waking at the previous nf time).
-
Thanks for replying :-* feeling rather fed up of it all today, something about talking to friends with newborns that are sleeping far better - as was B at that age!!
Liz I don't think he's cold, though can certainly try an extra layer. It's been going on too long for that really, looking back we really haven't had that many good nights at all since October :(
So some evenings I would say he is OT by bedtime, but others he seems ok. He is hard to read though now in terms of tired signs. We have been consistently on two naps for just over two weeks now having been going back and forth for probably a month prior to that. Dropping to two naps has pretty much sorted out the EW issues we were having but nights remain bad.
I can try to push the second nap later but not sure he'll manage it tbh, he's already doing 3h15 A time after a 45 minute nap. Well some days he probably would, but today he didn't settle as well as usual at 1pm (only 5 mins fussing, but usually no fuss at all) and slept 1h25, woke in a foul temper. So will def be OT by bedtime, sigh.
I honestly can't decide if he's just horribly OT overall which is why nights are a mess. And somehow he is usually managing to do long naps in the afternoons but they aren't enough to break the cycle. Or whether he in fact has just had a really unlucky run of colds and teeth so OT build-up as well as discomfort. Or whether the fact I still feed at night sometimes could be an issue?? Or in fact as Goldmom says could it be UT? Would make him very LSN though....
Thanks for being there to listen x
-
He seems to have a very long night to me - from the perspective of my lsn boy anyway. Could you take bedtime a bit later?
By six months we were on two naps with a 7pm bedtime and roughly 6am wake.
-
We've had long nw, but in the am hours. They've gone away with his napping now at his babysitter of 1.5 h total day time sleep ::). Which may come back to bite us, but the long uninterrupted nights are pretty restorative, I think he was more OT with long (good) naps and disturbed nights. Yesterday we did 4.5 hours A before bed after a 1 hour nap (and 30 min am nap), so my theory is there's no such thing as too much A time before bed ;), he was even playing nicely on the floor after 2.5 hours - when I normally would've given another nap if he'd slept so little during the day, and only really seemed to be getting very tired after 4+ hours. (I'm totally not advocating 1.5 hrs of daytime sleep at this age, but I'm just throwing this info out there, DS2's sleep is still a work in progress ::))
At a younger age, 2 hour naps for DD would disturb her nights, so I did have to cut back to make sure she never slept that long in one go, but that was closer to when she was 5 months; a long am nap at 7 months would just completely eliminate a second nap at this age (we weren't in the midst of 2-1 yet, so we didn't want this).
A cranky baby after waking from a nap is horrible, hugs and good luck making it through the day.
-
Well tonight we'll see....total of 2h10 day sleep in probably about a 12h15 day....wish us luck!
MJ&N - did you have two long naps with the 11h night? Or one long and one short?
-
I think it was two long ones, but we were in the realms of ews too. I can't remember a lot of the detail tbh, it's just what popped out of your post to me.
-
No problem hun :-* it's actually nice to forget all the early months sleep shenanigans!!
-
It certainly is!
-
Happy new year everyone!
Ok, well after what seemed to be a bit of a disaster of a day, we had our best night since forever. Yesterday was:
WU 6
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.05-14.30
BT 18.15
Slept soundly until 3.15am, cried but self-settled. Woke again at 4.45am (so 10.5h exactly, clearly an OT night) and chatted until 5.10am when he started shouting/crying. I fed him then and he went back off, and we all overslept and woke up at 7.15am! Oops...today could be a bit silly....
So I guess discomfort/hunger not an issue at that 1am hour as that would presumably still have happened last night. Maybe it really is UT? What do you think? And if so, what would you change about our usual routine?
-
Yay for the good night! :)
The wake at 4:45 is just a little past when you normally would've fed him? Could be he woke from that and not OT?
If yesterday gave you a night you liked, you could consider just capping that second nap to 1.5 hours after the 45 min am nap. At 7 months I don't see that being a terrible amount of daytime sleep.
-
Could have been hunger that woke him....though he was happy to mess around for 25 mins in bed before yelling for me whereas I'd have thought he'd have yelled earlier if he was starving. He didn't feed like he was desperate - perhaps I should have tried to resettle without a feed. The cries at the 9h point too were what made me think OT.
Capping both naps scares me a bit.....especially as I'd also probably have to wake him in the morning too to keep things on track if he made it to 6.30am. Doesn't really give him any space for a longer sleep if he needs it one day?
-
I'm warry of 2 hour naps :-\. You could possibly try to push out bt if you keep the longer naps.
-
I think I'd push bedtime, if it were me. Might make life feel a little less rushed in the evening, too?
-
Later BT could work with us, guess we'd have to push gradually though. Would you move the rest of the routine forwards too? Otherwise it's a long time 3pm to BT....wondering if the first A which is shortest atm needs to be lengthened? Or would you just stick with 9-9.45, 1-3 (ideally) then push on to 7pm??
-
You can try it, see what happens and go from there. DS always had a pretty long A until bed - until he got to one nap and then had an extremely long morning.
-
Well you know my OT loving LO, we do 3-7 as awake time all the time ::). (We do 2-7 sometimes too, but I don't like doing that). If you aren't having EW issues with a short am A time, I would just leave it with the long A time till bed.
-
Ok we will try....I'm discounting yesterday as the late WU made everything a bit silly. We had our usual messing around for an hour or so 2am ish last night but (drum roll....) no night feed!!!!! Yay ;D now to stick to that...
Today we did WU 6.15, naps 9-9.45 and 1-3pm, I woke him from both. He seemed to be losing the plot completely by 6pm though ??? But nevertheless pushed on for a bit, asleep for 6.30/35ish which is latest for a while (it's usually been closer to 6.15pm) so will see what tonight brings.
-
I know your building around a toddler routine as well….but I would agree…perhaps pushing everything out a bit - first nap, capped, then second nap (although I would let this nap go long as needed) and after a good 2 hour nap, I think 4 hrs A is manageable at 7 months for some kids. perhaps a little snack or something to keep his attention elsewhere :) best of luck! keep us posted!! congrats on no night feed!
-
Thanks Emily :)
So not sure if I would call last night better or worse to be honest. What do you think? We had NWs at 21.30 (ss), sometime after midnight (had to go in once) and 3.30am (ss). Then awake 5.45am so I fed him and he went back off until I woke him at 7.
So plus side, I only got up the once and I don't think the midnight-ish waking was as long as some of them have been. Not entirely sure, I fell asleep ::) but still 3 wakings and an early start, though not 'technically' an EW I guess.....
-
I would stick to it for a few days to see what happens. The only thing you're doing differently than usual is the 15 minutes later bt?
-
I'm going for a bit later BT and also trying to push out the second nap just a touch. Last night wasn't bad, a bit unsettled but we are doing better at not having to intervene. Will report back in a few days when I've tweaked a little more. Thanks for checking in x
Interestingly I looked back and DD was doing 3h20-30 A times, even up to 4h at times at this age so maybe I have LSN kids?!
-
Ha, just found it Catherine. Count me in as a LSN theory believer. I was capping both naps at some stage and ... had the best ever nights those times. I was even waking him at 7am those days! We did max of 2,5 daytime sleep and 12,5h day. 20min first nap, up to 2h second one. I strongly believe that with early morning nap, they need to have a place during day when they get tired, YK? With equal A, they get tired slightly every time and with this routine I believe they need one longish A.
-
Thanks Marta, wondered if you'd pop in!
So.....DS STTN last night!!! First time since October. 6.30pm BT, sounded like he was in light sleep from about 5.20am but not properly awake until he yelled for us at 5.50am. So a good night although start of day earlier than usual. Probably because he had consolidated sleep for once! And tbh that's as much night sleep as could be expected with 45 mins & 2h yesterday.
So looks like we need to work on about 14h sleep in 24 which fits with what you said Marta - 2.5h day sleep and 12.5h day.
Will keep you posted....
-
Yay!!
-
Keep it up! So glad it's a small routine adjustment issue and not discomfort.
-
DS1 would have easily handled that routine at this age :). He was 3.5-4hrs A time. So was DD really.
I think BWer does expect a lot of sleep.... If you were to look at other methods it would be a perfectly normal routine for the age iyswim?
-
Agree with Liz:). There are many recommended routines and some recommend even 3 naps till 8/9mo but even (baby sleep site) but altogether less sleep. If think that Tracy also never said exactly to the minute how much sleep they need. She even has a great example of a kid in BWSAYP sleeping from 8pm till 6am and she says it's fine:).
-
Ladies, things are still not great after that one tantalising STTN. Still these long unsettled trying to go to sleep but messing about NWs. If I'm right it's UT I'm probably not pushing hard enough ::) but could you please look and give me your thoughts? I was trying to work on pushing out BT first before deciding whether to cut day sleep but now I'm not sure. At the back of my mind is always 'am I making a horrible mistake and he's just OT?' I woke him from all naps unless otherwise stated....mood is ok in the day for the most part.
4/1:
WU ?6.30 but heard at 6
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.10-15.10
BT 18.30
STTN
5/1:
WU ?5.50 but heard at 5.20
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.10-15.10
BT 18.35
NW 3.45-5.20 (fed at 5)
6/1:
WU 6.50 (woke him, we overslept a bit)
Nap 9.10-9.50
Nap 13.10-14.50 - woke himself
BT 18.35
NW 3-3.40
7/1:
WU ?? Heard at 5.15, 5.40, fed at 6, may have dozed a few mins afterwards
Up at 6.35
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.10-15.10
BT 18.45
NW 02.45-04.15 (fed at 4)
Today:
WU 6.35 (woke him)
:( :( :(
-
Needs a longer A to bed..... So if you want the 6.30pm bedtime the first nap will need cutting to 30 mins I guess :-\.
Is he hard to wake??
-
Thanks Liz.....I'm happy for BT to push out to 7pm so should I carry on that way first? In fact I should probably just jump to it right? And then if still issues cut the morning nap to bring afternoon one earlier to allow longer A to bed? He's not too bad to wake, I'm just in denial ::). He will pretty much just go to sleep when put down for bed so how he settles is absolutely no indication of how tired he is.
-
Megan was like that - always just slept on body clock and then woke at night >:(. Took me ages to realise/admit it as well >:(.
Yeah just shift bedtime first and see... If he is ok with jumps then yes just do it ;).
-
I'd shift bedtime out too. That first nap could be early as well - but maybe worth trying one thing at a time.
-
I'm joining the party, if I may?!
We had very similar issues with Jack at this age. And for a while afterwards I'm afraid. I've never been quite sure what made them stop, but they did stop suddenly just after he turned one. I think I figured out in the end that we got less when he had more A time but they didn't really go away til one week we got really tough on resettling at night (we got quite strict with WIWO). We obviously had some long nws as a result, Jack slept later in the morning and then cut his day sleep to around 45 minutes / 1 hour. Since then we've only had one nw to settle I think. I'm pretty sure the drop in day sleep was a major factor. At 7 months I think jack was doing around 2 hours, though like I say, we still got some long nws so it was maybe still too much.
In terms of things to try, I agree that it's worth trying a later BT. I've found with Jack that a 13 hour day works best for us. Like you, if we weren't having long nws we had ews, so we've had to keep BT to 7ish. Jack was also on about 4 hours A at this age if I remember correctly. I think we settled on a short AM nap and long pm nap. Although jack prefers longer mornings over long afternoons, I still had to give him one long A somewhere in the day, so we did a short UT morning nap (30 minutes I think), then about 3hrs 15 to a long nap in the afternoon. Though a long nap for him was only 1hr 20-40. He then needed about 4hrs til bed I think. I know at one point at around 8 / 9 months I realised he couldn't sleep past 2.30ish in the afternoon without it affecting nights.
He's always settled straight to sleep for naps and BT as well btw. I think it's just him. And although jack has never done mega naps, lily (also slightly lsn) did. I always had to cap her naps except for just after transitions. I think some LO's are good at self regulating and some are good at napping! And some are good at both if you're lucky, but not mine!
-
Hi LL&J, I kept thinking of your J and was hoping you'd pop in to share your experience with Katherine!
Katherine, Didn't you used to get nw's at around 1 to 2 AM? Now they've moved to around 3? Actually they look like they're gradually getting earlier and earlier in the night (started at 3:45, next night at 3 and next night at 2:45) - there may be a reason for that gradual shift.
I know with one of mine (can't remember which, but I think it was DS1) I got rid of a 1:30 nw (I believe I was feeding at that time) and first he woke later at 4 am, but every night he gradually shifted back to the original nw/nf time. (I'm vaguely remembering this phenomenon, but not exactly). I think we just had to keep resettling to stop the nw, since it had been a habitual waking/nf (I think this was when we moved his nf to a df, so I knew he wasn't hungry at night then and now he was waking habitually; or this may have been DD and she was having at least one other nf earlier in the night, and I was trying to stop the second nf - and if it was her we did this at around 7/8 months).
I don't know if that info will help you, but maybe it'll just shed some light on the nw. If you are feeding sometimes just to finally get him back to sleep you may be enticing him to wake just in case he does get it. Or it could just be that it takes 2 weeks to get rid of a habitual waking/nf and you have to wait it out just a few more days. I know when I wean a nf I will try to do anything possible to resettle without feeding (any other APOP) and only feed if I'm so desperate (which you probably are - huge hugs).
The other thing I'm think of is if the nw is getting to the later part of the morning, is that the morning nap may be starting to cause problems by being too early, but I don't think your nw's are in that early part of the morning yet which would indicate that problem.
-
Blah. Short night came to bite us in the bum - 1h15 unsettled nap :(. BT? WU was 6.35am, WU from nap at 2.25pm x
-
Yes, I meant to say that because being very strict with WIWO helped us too, that I probably wouldn't feed at nws at all. Hard when he's still having one at 4ish though - I always felt I had to be consistent and either feed at nws or not. So if you move BT back and maybe try extending his A time a bit, then by the time you've tried that perhaps he'll have dropped his nf, or will drop it with encouragement. A df never worked for jack so we were on one nf at 4am at 7 months too. He dropped it by himself before he reached 8 months. Once that's gone I think it's really worth trying PUPD without any feeds or anything. We also had to make our time in jacks room while we resettled much shorter and much more boring to make it really work.
Anyway, just another thought, prompted by goldmom's post....
ETA: Posted with you but I'd probably try and push to 6.45 for BT cos at least then you'll know where you are and hopefully he'll shift his BT quicker if you stick with it, but I tend to push Jack more than others cos I know he can generally handle it.
-
I think DS2's last nap ends at 2:30 most days at his sitter. We still do bt at 6:45/7 (although DS2 always seems to do 11.5 hr nights, so he fell asleep last night at 6:50 and was up at 6:20 this morning). However, I do notice that he needs to comfort suck/nurse earlier on these days. So he seems extra fussy at 6 or 6:15 and I feed him then for longer than it would normally take him (trying not to let him fall asleep on me...)
-
Well after getting up from the silly nap B was totally happy all afternoon ??? Delirious?! But we made 18.45 bedtime without much drama....should rule out an UT waking from too short a last A time at any rate.
-
Hope you have a good night tonight.
-
Yes, that's what I always think when things go wrong. At least you know where you are then! Fingers crossed for tonight x
-
Ha! V brief cry around 10pm, short chatter just before 4am then slept until 6.25am! I'll call that STTN ;). I'm going to have to accept this long A/LSN thing aren't I?!
Oh yes, and no feed :)
-
Yup ;). My DD needed a super long A to bed, although overall I would say she isn't that LSN. She still sleeps a 12 hr night now, whereas DS has been 10.5-11 for a long time now.
-
Hurayyyy:)
Are you planning to cap the nap or rather pushing BT? What time J has her BT?
-
Yay! I keep reminding myself through all the short naps that I want long naps but I need undisturbed nights.
-
Yay!!! I'd call that sstn as well, for sure :)
-
Following along hoping some of this great advice will help with DS :)
-
Well my plan had been to keep naps same, move BT to 7pm (J goes to bed at 6.30pm so that works fine) and then if still NWs to cut am nap, bring pm nap earlier and allow longer A to bed.
But....obviously after a good night he didn't want to nap at 9am ::). So it was a touch later, 9.10-9.50 (I woke him after 40 rather than 45 mins) and he's just faffed about going for his nap at lunchtime too. So probably should have cut the morning to 30. I suspect it'll be a short nap now as he didn't really seem tired and tends to just settle when tired enough/OT.
I'm thinking if an ok night tonight, from tomorrow 30 mins morning nap?
Jakobsmom, good to see you :). Our DSs sound similar....
-
Yep, I agree. I'm pretty sure that's what we were on at this age with Jack.
-
Hmm interesting. Thank you for the welcome Katherine :). I too am going to try the 30 minute am nap with a pm nap no longer than 2 hours. What are your A times like during the day? DS seems ok with 3.15 am, 3.5 before second nap and 4 to bed. It seems crazy.... That being said we are still working on the correct balance.
-
Kirsten - A times are 2.5-3h (sometimes a touch longer if wakes early but that's based on 6-6.30 WU), 3h20-25ish and then we're trying for about 4h last A give or take. Capped 45 minute first nap and up to 2h second nap. Haven't yet shortened the first nap as the last three nights have been better, some short OT wakings or cries that I didn't have to go in for but no long NWs :D. Probably just need to hold steady for a while here and then tweak again if the long NWs start up...
-
Glad things are improving, we are still having 60-90 minute WU anywhere from between 1.30 and 3.00. Reading back through your post gives me some hope as so far tweaking naps has not made any difference. He can have 2 x 2hr naps if an early WU, and then a long run to BT or sometimes has had only 2 1/2 hour sleep and so needed a short CN. The main issue, I think, has been a longish morning nap of 1 1/2 - 2 hours. Doesn't usually impact on the second nap and had been allowing a nice long A time of 2.45hrs. I am thinking that this might be too long and so today we have capped at an hour (don't want to jump too quickly). Will let him have 2 hours later if he wants and hopefully this will see him through to BT. Just not sure how long he's going to last this morning :-\
-
Bears mum - I know you have your own thread so won't go into too much detail here but just to say at this age a CN can interfere with nights as can too short A times.....2h45 isn't very long really ;) and your NWs still sound UT.
B is pretty grouchy right now, he's getting more consolidated night sleep but has had shorter afternoon naps the last few days and been exhausted by bedtime. Probably need to tweak something again....though equally he is trying to crawl, possibly teething again and about to hit another WW ::) never a dull moment!
-
Well I guess the grouchy was OT.......today has looked like this:
WU 6.30 (not a bad night, a bit unsettled around 3.30/4)
Nap 9-9.40 (I woke)
Nap 11.50-13.40! Was horribly grouchy and fell asleep in the car, would not be woken so transferred to bed (first time ever)
Does anyone have any thoughts/advice for the rest of the day? I have to get DD from nursery around 4.30/5pm so that's the window for a CN in the car if he'll take one. Or EBT? (Though will be a long A time). Kind of a rock and hard place situation.......
-
Wow, that's a rough one. I can't believe he's so tired...something must be up. I'd let a cn in the car if he takes it - then a regular 7 bt; otherwise ebt at 6:15/6:30.
-
My ideas Katherine what's happening:
- are you in 6th WW? we usually have A downgrade at the end of stormy period which are followed by jump in A; btw happened to me two weeks ago when going through 7th leap.... Blaaaa!
- crawling makes him very tired; also happened here couple of weeks ago when he started
If you can I would do a short catnap and normal BT. Without CN I would also push for as normal BT as possible as he slept for a nice amount of time today so there is nothing to catch up with during night:).
-
Thanks girls, we'll take his lovey, make sure he's full of food and crank the heating up in the car ;)
Marta I think we're just about to head into ww6. Certainly his fussiness fits with that though equally could just be OT from pushing his routine quite quickly. Really hope he'll go for the CN actually today, EBT will be a pain as I am on solo BT duties and DD won't handle a late night after nursery today...
Eta - he's gone for the CN, barely in the car 10 mins before crashing out at 16.20 ??? Am going to give him 20 mins then aim for normal BT if he's ok. Not like him, he's either v OT or something else is up :( let's hope it doesn't all backfire with horrendous NWs...
-
Just pondering....if anyone has any thoughts.....pushing BT out has in general made the nights better, but he is really quite grumpy and tired by BT at 6.45/7pm (am ignoring today, it was a mess :P) and has crashed out feeding each time. Possibly the accumulated tiredness is what caused today's disaster. I'm wondering if he needs the long A before bed to sleep well at night, but with his current routine has too much A time earlier in the day so is too tired to manage it properly if that makes sense? So would we be better to go back to the 6.30pm BT but say aim for a longer nap 12.30-2.30 and shorten the morning nap (and subsequent A time) to allow that to happen? I don't think he is very LSN even if he needs that long A, I'd have thought he'd be a bit happier if he was!
-
So what is your routine looking like last couple of days?
-
Thanks for being so patient with me! Feeling a bit clueless right now...actually thinking about it we haven't had a 2h nap in the last few days, so possibly that's more of the issue :P but fwiw:
7/1:
Up at 6.35, not entirely sure when WU was as a bit unsettled from 5.15 onwards
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.10-15.10
BT 18.45
Long NW 02.45-04.15 (I guess bt was too early after a good nap....)
8/1:
WU 6.35 (woke him....a short night, less than 10.5h)
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.10-14.25 - had to resettle at 45m & 1h
BT 18.45
Essentially STTN - brief noises but no help needed
9/1:
WU 6.25
Nap 9.10-9.50
Nap 13.15-15.00, was not happy when he woke
BT 7pm
10/1:
WU 5.15, back to sleep 6-6.30
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.05-14.45
BT 18.50
Brief NW 22.30
11/1:
WU 6.05
Nap 9.05-9.50
Nap 13.15-14.40
BT 18.40
Unsettled around 3.30-4ish, needed help
Then today's mess......
Looking at that it appears we got into a mess after that long NW/short night....so maybe he could manage the 4h or so last A time if he does a 2h nap, but really can't with a shorter one. Either way does that mean cutting the morning nap shorter?
-
Was wondering how it's going? (I read about your bad night in the birth clubs). Do you think it's possible that yesterday was just a one off day, or something else like illness or teeth bothering him? With these LO, it's so hard to know.
It sounds like you want to take 15 min off your first nap and add it to your night (earlier bt)? So overall same amount of sleep.
I don't really have any advice, but wanted to add some hugs and vibes for more good nights.
-
Thanks hun, appreciate you thinking of us :-*. It's not brilliant to be honest, he's very very tired by bedtime, we've been trying to do around 4h A after second nap but haven't managed a 2h second nap since a week ago so I think it's just too much. Last night he was losing it by about the 3.5h mark, we pushed on anyway and got a EW today at exactly 9.5h :(. He did resettle eventually but lost about an hour's sleep in the process.
You ladies have been right on in the past with making me push things where needed....a week or so ago we were doing about 3h25 A after a capped 45 min nap and getting 2h. Since then he's appeared OT overall but second nap has been 1h25-45....do you think he's UT for that nap again? I find it hard to see past the overall tiredness to see what needs tweaking.
Oh yes and if it makes any difference to your thinking, I think his sleep cycles are 50 mins rather than 45, so a 1h40 nap is two cycles :)
Thanks in advance xxx
-
Do you think he could do another 15 minutes before that morning nap? Just wondering if that would help shorten the last A time little bit, and potentially make him more tired for that second nap? If you do it and either nap shorten then at least you'll know where you are....
-
He probably could....although that would make second nap later, then I'd end up capping it shorter otherwise we're back to the UT at bedtime problem.....
What do you make of today?
WU 6.45 (12h night but with a 1h(ish) NW 4-5am so about 11h sleep)
Nap refused in cot! In car 9.30-10am
Nap 13.15-14.55 (so 1h40 - 2 sleep cycles)
Going to aim slightly less than 4h A to bed and see what happens.....
-
Go for 7pm BT Katherine, don't put him down earlier as his day started at 6:45.
-
Have done, he was coping ok x
-
Oh yes, I was thinking that if he was struggling with a 4hr last A then you could shift everything later and shorten it, but I forgot you'd recently extended it to try and sort the nws.
If he's refusing that first nap it sounds like he could do with a bit more A time then anyway though? Depending on how tonight goes, do you think you could try something similar tomorrow to how today went, but maybe with a shorter first A cos hopefully you wouldn't have nap refusals to deal with.... Maybe something like :
WU: 6.30
A: 3hr 15
S: 9.45 - 10.15 capped
A: 3hr 15
S: 1.30 - 3.10 most likely
A: 3hrs 50 - 4
S: 7ish
Do you think something like that would work? Or maybe reserve judgement til you've seen how tonight goes, lol!
-
Thanks hun yes I think the 30 minute am nap is probably what I need to be brave enough to do. Ugh, the thought of capping to that length at this age scares me! Have been avoiding it for probably too long....we'll see how tonight goes and maybe give it a whirl :)
-
Katherine I capped at 30min at 4,5mo if that helps:). And around 6mo I had to cap till 20min.
And than I have no experience with this routine as F went to nursery and everything just went nuts:))).
-
Yeah, we were capping the morning nap at 30 minutes at 7 months, and Jack had his first one nap day at 8 months.... just so you know what might be coming.... ;)
-
We are definitely OT now :(. 7pm BT, lots of cry-outs overnight and awake just after 5.30am. Back to sleep 6.15am after a feed and I woke him at 6.45am. He's only getting around 13h15 total sleep right now, whereas I would have said 14h is usual/what he needs. I have capped to the morning nap to 30 mins today just to see and he's currently 1h15 into his pm nap. If it's anything less than 2h I'm going to do a shorter A to bed, I know that might mean a short day but he's got to catch up somewhere?
Two questions:
- could this all be related to WW/crawling?
- is it possible that all his long afternoon naps are OT and he's just crashing through sleep cycles each time?
-
Katherine,
Firstly I strongly agree that this OT is because of WW/crawling so it's probably just a phase and he will go out of it on a sunny side, with longer A probably. Maybe his short pm naps OT him a bit, but he already had a CU nap/day/nights so he should be back to normal. If he is not, probably some WW craziness is going on!
I think that you will have to work slightly on DS routine as noy only nights were bad, but also your routine with 2h nap stopped working because of UT I guess as second nap started to be shorter and shorter. But thanks to that you knew that less day sleep will mean better nights - but you have to find right balance. In my opinion you should look for more than 15min cut in total day sleep if you want to get 12h nights as 15min cut will solve the N2 being too short but not change much his daytime sleep. You know that he sleeps nice at night after 1:15+0:45 = 2h and not sleeping well on 2:45 - so your great solution is somewhere in between.
So my ideas:
1. You may consider capping N1 to 30min (putting him down 15-30min later if you want). However I wouldn't bring N2 earlier as this way you just neglect the effect you want to achieve with cutting first nap. However I fear it maybe not enough so either hope for 1:45 not 2h on second nap or make your day 12h+ with this solution.
6:30
9:00 30min
13:00-14:45 1,45h
18:30 BT 3:45h
2. You may consider keeping 45min in the morning but push it a touch later and than work on good A to have 1,5h second nap. This gives you 2:15 total day sleep. Of course I would say that A after that shouldn't be 4-4,5h as this can be too much but still you have to aim for at least 12h day. Sample routine as showed below.
6:30 WU
9:30-10:15 after 3h
13:15-14:45 after 3h
18:30 BT (3:45)
3. You may go for long am-short pm nap solution - but here you know that's not the best for you... so :).
WDYT?
-
Marta you are a star, thank you. Really appreciate your perspective :) We essentially did your first suggestion yesterday, still had some OT cry-outs overnight but around an 11h15-20 night.
I'm trying out the 30 minute am nap for a bit.....though DS seems to have a bit of a fever today and is super grumpy tired despite a reasonable night. I'll go with it a few more days and then come back if no joy. Though think we may just need to follow cues for a day or two after the disaster of today - he's a wreck poor poppet :( Actually I'd be better to start a new post in a while wouldn't I? Just aware this is getting long and not wanting to burden you with it. Thanks for all your help and suggestions hun xx