BabyWhispererForums.com
SLEEP => Naps => Topic started by: Tabathagucci on August 11, 2016, 21:46:37 pm
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Hello! I'm having some trouble with the 3-2 transition and also having some night wakings that may or may not be related to the naps.
Background, 6 months today, low sleep needs, mild reflux under control by diet, sleeps elevated, swaddled, darkened room with white noise. Based on help from the EASY forum I discovered that she has to be REALLY tired in order to transition on her own. Otherwise I have to resettle with the paci. Depending on how tired she is, sometimes that involves a single quick paci replug, others it's 20 minutes of replug with hand on chest. Generally the more tired she is the easier it is to resettle. She also seems to be in her 6 month growth spurt since she's been demanding to be fed every 2-3 hours instead of every 3.5-4.5. According to wonder weeks, we are on the tail end of leap 5, 9 days left. We also just stared solids 1-2 times a day. So lots going on!
We've had to push A times a lot and fairly quickly because she is low sleep needs but since I've had a 3 hour A time, we usually get a solid morning nap (transitions on her own, or needs one replug), but the pm nap has been more spotty. She has transitioned on her own for pm but only once and it's a toss up as to whether I can resettle her or not.
Here is our EASY on a good day when she's not in a growth spurt:
Wake 6:30
E 6:35
A (3 hrs)
S 9:30-11
E 11:05
A (3 hrs)
S 2-3:30
E 3:35
A (3 hrs)
E 6 pm
S 6:30 (wakes around 30-40 mins, needs paci replugged usually only once and right back to sleep)
Wakes around 3 am (has gone till 3:30/4 or even later a few times) to nurse and back down till 6/6:30.
Recently she's been waking earlier and earlier for her night feed, it's been around 2, but last night was 1:30. I usually try (and succeed) to hold her off till 3 am because if I nurse her any earlier I tend to get an early wake up (5/5:30) and often won't go back down after nursing. When I do hold her off she spends much of this time awake in her crib sucking on her paci.
When she doesn't resettle for nap 2, we do a 30 min stroller nap 2 hours after she wakes and a bed time about 2-2.5 hours after the stroller nap. If we are out and about, she tends to fall asleep in the car at about the 2 hour mark no matter what time of day. If this happens, we do a stroller nap and bed time as above (at 2 and 2.5 hours respectively). The low A times are in order to keep the day from being too long.
Anyway, sorry so long and would love any advice on how to improve this! Maybe just wait it out?
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Hi that routine looks good!
A lot of us on the birth club thread found that when going to 2 naps the am one was the more established one and the 2nd one took longer to become more reliable and was more like 7 months before they settled into it.
Personally I think you just need to stick to what you're doing and wait for her to settle into the routine and to come out of the developmental leap she's in as that often causes lots of sleep disruption.
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Ok great! Kind of what I was thinking but good to hear it from someone else! 😊
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Things are still much the same, but she's starting to sleep long at night, till 4 or 4:30 (yay!). She's still having some wake ups but resettles very easily until that time. Only issue is, I've been having a heck of a time getting her back to sleep after nursing. She'll usually fall asleep during feeding, but when I burp her she wakes and is hard to get back to sleep unless I nurse her again and then doesn't want to unlatch and go back to the crib. Any suggestions or is this just something that passes?
Also, she falls asleep if in the stroller or car at the 2 hour A time mark, which makes it hard to go anywhere for very long. And she seems to get hungry before her nap, but if I nurse her she starts falling asleep. I remember most of this happening with ODS, but that was almost 5 years ago. Assume she'll grow out of this as well or am I doing something majorly wrong?
Thanks!
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Have you tried not burping her for NF? Usually LO are relaxed enough when drinking in the night that they don't take in much air.
Falling asleep in the car etc before naps is all very normal so nothing you're doing wrong at all! It's just one of those things unfortunately and when they are little with lots of naps it does make getting out and about a bit more tricky.
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I will try not burping tomorrow, I used to not burp but lately she's been super fidgety during and free night feeds so I've been trying to burp. Last night I put her down after feed and she kept fidgeting so I tried burping her and she let out a huge burp. It still took her some time to settle after that but seemed less restless. I will try tomorrow and see how I goes tho! Too late tonight!
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One more question, is there a rule of thumb about the latest the 3rd nap should be? I've been giving her a nap if bed time will be before 6 pm, but that still seems early! I know it depends on the baby, but just wondering if there's a general guideline.
Thank you!
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That's pretty much what I did with both of mine.
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Ok I'm at my wit's end. She woke at 1:15. I don't normally feed till at least 3 so I gave her the paci and she lay quietly but awake for a while. I had to replug a couple times but she was calm so I left her. I finally fed her at 2:30. She was restless feeding for a while but finally fell asleep. Once she was suckling but not swallowing for a while I unlatched her. She was ok for a few seconds but then started fussing. Gave her paci and that didn't help so I just put her back in crib with paci and she's laying there wide awake. I've now been awake for almost 2 hours in the middle of the night.
Is this normal for the 3-2 transition? Is this the developmental leap? I can't keep doing this...I'm so tired. Sorry for the vent...
Update: after all that she slept from 3:15-6, 9h40m overnight. Truer nursing her back to sleep and got 30 mins of restless sleep before she unlatched and wouldn't sleep any more. Feel like I'm messing this all up.😟
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Hey
Don't be so hard on yourself, you're not messing things up, sounds like just one of those nights. Could be a number of things- developmental, hunger, nap transition..etc.
Try not to stress about it, hopefully it's a one off. Carry on as you are, keep a log of your days if you want and come back if you still feel the nap routine is impacting on your nights.
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Thank you! It's hard when I'm so exhausted to think logically about all this. So we haven't had a really good nights sleep in over a week. It seems if we have 3 naps she wakes early (1:30 or so) and I keep putting her back to sleep until 3 then feed her and put her back down but getting her back down has been increasingly hard. If we have 2 naps, she sleeps well for the first part of the night but then wakes between 3 and 4:30 and I'm lucky if I get her back down for another hour until 6. So it seems no matter what I do we have bad nights. Plus it's been hard for me to tell her exact wake up in the morning either because I've nursed her back to sleep and she sleeps on and off until wake up or because when I finally get her back down I'm so tired that by the times she makes enough noise to wake me up it appears that she's been awake for at least a few minutes but I have no way of knowing. I've been using 3 hour A time from the time I see her awake and it's been working ok for the first nap but I've been having to resettle her more instead of her sleeping through and not sure if that's because she needs an A time push or because she's overtired!
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Yes the 3-2 is such a juggle with 3naps giving UT and 2 OT!
Are you doing early bedtime on 2nap days?
And on 3 nap days how short is your 3rd nap? I cut both of mine to only 10-15mins for a 3rd nap at this point in the transition.
She'll get there soon
Xxx
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On 2 nap days I do her bed time about 3 hours after she wAkes from her nap. It looks like her A times might be moving past 3 hours. After several days of difficult resettling for second nap, I pushed the A time a few mins and was much easier to resettle and she even slept all the way through once.
Her third nap us usually 25-30 mins. I can try to cut short but it's often hard because she's undertired so her sleep is restless and hard to tell when she's officially asleep!
I tried it burping her tonight and she ends up waking up every time I try to unlatch then is restless with the paci in my arms. Last night she got so restless I just put her down and she fell right to sleep. Tonight she started crying when I put her down so I burped her (she let out a big one) then stopped crying but now been fidgeting for 30 mins so far after I put her down.
She seems to be resettling a little easier (even if just a tiny bit!) each night so maybe she's just coming out of the developmental leap!
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Question...how do we handle late wake ups? She slept until 8 today by some miracle and her normal A time is approaching 3.5 hours, but by 10:45 she was all over the place so I put her down so her A time was only 2h45m. Otherwise her nap would have been at 11:30, which seems so late! Is there some sort of general rule for these types of situations? Maybe I just watch her signs and wing it but wondering what others do! Thanks!
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Hi
Late wake ups are sometimes catching up on sleep (I think) so the first nap often then happens close to usual time (perhaps a little later) rather than after full A time. So yes watching for tired cues around or shortly after usual first naptime often works.
HTH
Xxx
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Thank you! That's basically what happened, we had shorter A times all day and it all worked out ok.
On another note, our naps have fallen sort a bit so it looks like I need to extend A times to
3.5 hours. I've gotten to to 3h25m but still getting short naps with sporty chance of extending so going to try the full 3.5 hours tomorrow. I've been getting night wake ups starting around 1/1:30 am though instead of 3/4 am. Amy thoughts on what this could be from? Imagine it's related to naps...
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Hi
Is your LO around 7mo now? 3.5hrs would be high end of average, but possible if she needs higher than average A times typically. See how you get on.
Could shorter naps & NWs also be related to anything else? Developmental leap? Teeth? OT?
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Hi! She's always needed higher than average A times, usually 20-30 mins more than the average. I don't see any teeth and she's between developmental leaps. Not sure about the night wakings but I think she may be used to having her naps around the same time each day and if she wakes later and I use the same A time she gets OT and takes a short nap. I'm not 100% sure but looking at her history
(I track it all online), I appears if I put her down anytime from 9:44-10:15 she sleeps well but if it gets much later even if I use the same A time I've been using and has been working, I get a short nap. Does that sound crazy??
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No, not crazy...I have done a set first nap with both of mine from quite a young age and found it worked well, then adapted the rest of the days naps according to how long they slept at first nap.
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Ok good to know! And she'll be 7 months on the 11th. Any tips on how to get established with the first nap? She's also been known to have early wakings when first nap is too early so don't want that to happen!
Thank you!
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Any tips on how to get established with the first nap?
Sorry, not sure what you mean? It sounds as if you have a set "window" for it already? If you want a set time you just keep putting her down for the nap at the same time, but, as you day, the set nap does need to be adjusted as her sleep needs change, otherwise you do get EW,
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Sorry for the confusion, I guess I feel like I need to start all over again because we haven't had a good morning nap in a week and I've been using the same A time but putting her down at different times each day, anywhere from 9:30-10:45. He last string of good naps we had was at an A time of 3h10-15m and putting her down between 9:30-9:45. So how do I get back to this? Wake her at 6:30 and put her down at the same time for a few days until she gets the hang of it again? And then I have no idea where to go with the second nap... I'm super confused because I've always just used A times....
I'm also quite frustrated because we had a solid morning nap, a sometimes solid afternoon nap and spotty but ok nights and now both (or all 3) naps are short and nights have been tough too!
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It is frustrating when you have a good routine and then they change, it does feel like constant change for the first 12months, I don't think we had more than 2-3 weeks of stability at a time with DD.
Could you post get last few days in EASY format, please, so we can chat them through?
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I think her reflux has been flaring up, I've been slowly decreasing the elevation angle of her mattress and I think the last notch I took it down is causing some issues. On a good note, she woke at 6:30 am and went down at her "usual" time yesterday and slept a full nap. Will try again today! let me try to get the reflux under control and see how the next couple days go then I'll come back with where we're at. Thank you sooo much for the help and support! I greatly appreciate it!
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Ok, I have her back elevated and for her back on schedule yesterday. We had 2 full naps, yay! First was right before 10 am and the second at 2:15, which seems to be her times she likes. we are still getting night wakings but it may still be her reflux so will see if that improves after a few days. I'll post her EASY if we're still having issues.
In the meantime, I have a couple of questions:
1) did you do the nap at the exact same time every day no matter what time they woke?
2) how do I know when it's time to move the morning nap later if we have it at a set time?
Thanks again!
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Hi!
My DD tended to wake around the same time each morning +/- about 15 mins so it was fairly easy to set the first nap - I think at this age I did it around 9.15/30ish with a 7ish wu. If your LO's wu time varies widely it might be harder to set the nap.
I found our first nap had stayed arums the same start time for awhile..DD is 11mo now and still takes a short nap around 9.45..but we do get EW, which I think is a sign of needing a later am nap now.
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That makes sense! She woke up twice today during her first nap but went right back to sleep after I gave her the paci and she's been asleep for 1.45 total, longer than usual!
How much do you vary the second nap based on how long she sleeps for the first nap? For example, she usually wakes from first nap around 11/11:15. It's 11:40 and she's still sleeping.
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I use A times for the 2nd nap..so if I got a longer first nap, I'd still do the full A time before 2nd nap. How did the rest of your day go?
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I put her down at 2:30, am A time of just under 3 hours and she slept a little over 40 minutes and could not extend so we had to fit in a 3rd nap. Today she woke early at 6, first A time 3h15, slept 1h20. Second A time was 3h15, she slept 45 mins and couldn't extend. Should I keep the second A time at 3h15 mins for another day or two or push it later by a few minutes?
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I'd wait a day or so before extending it again. Pushing her A time more every day can lead to OT.
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Yes you're right! I just hate 3 nap days! LOL Will see how it goes today!
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Ok, same awake time, nap during window she seems to like. 40 minutes, no extension. I looked back through her nap history on our tracker and she's done 3h20m and even 2h30m before but the 2h30 seemed long at that time and I had a hard time trying to resettle her. Maybe she's ready for a little more by now though.
Ok update, I managed to get her back to sleep but took 15 minuntes.
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Ok I still haven't had the guts to put her down at the exact same time every day (for some reason I'm scared I'll get short naps but I get short naps anyway a sometimes)! we've been going down around the same time most days though. However, I'm traveling to Texas in a week (2 hours ahead) and not sure how to handle getting her adjusted to the time change. Any tips? Or is there an existing post on this maybe? I'll only be there for 6 days.
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I guess I still need advice on getting her on a scheduled nap too. Do I just start putting her down at the same exact time every day no matter what time she wakes up? And how many days do I do this before it either works or I give up? I'm so worried she'll be overtired or undertired that I haven't done it yet!
Sorry if these seem like ridiculous questions... But thank you in advance for the help!
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Well, I did a set first nap but tbh DD was appearing tired around the same time each morning so it was led by her. Lots if LOs don't do set naps until 1yo. If your LO prefers A times stick with that..following tired cues is often the easiest way to go. If you really want a set nap then yes put LO down at same time every day..I'd give it at least a week, but it sounds like your gut feeling is that it's not for you at the moment
Re travel..no personal experience, sorry..maybe try a a separate thread in General Sleep as I've seen people asking about adjusting for travel there.
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Thank you!
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I'm back! LO is 8 months now. Things have been fairly smooth but wondering if we need to tweak things a little with bed time. Would like a slightly later bed time and wake up in the am, especially as weak have daylight savings time change coming up next month. Here is our EASY, which can shift 1/2 hour either way depending on wake up:
Wake 6:30
E 6:45
A
S 9:45-11 (sometimes 11:15)
E 11:15
A
S 2:25-3:55 (sometimes she sleeps longer, but I usually wake her by 4)
E 4
A
S 7 (wakes between 2-4 am for nursing and back to sleep)
In the last week I've put her down later at bed time because of family activities and she seems to have slept better (sometimes she wakes and need paci replugged but these two nights she slept right through) and woken for her night nursing later but wakes about the same time in the am. She's very dependent on routine and tends to get OT if she's put down past a certain time for her nap so I've had to use a combo of A times and actual time for her naps. Wondering if she's just used to going to bed between 6:30 and 7 so she's acting tired but really needs to be put down later and if I do put her down later consistently every night if she'll adjust her wake up after a few days?
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That looks like a good routine for an 8mo. I know a later Wu would be nice but a BT around 7 & Wu around 6-7amis actually really typical & trying to change it when LO isn't ready can cause problems with worse night sleep rather than better.
There's a link here on daylight savings if you're worried about that:
How to Adjust to Daylight Savings
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Ok thank you! One more question, if I put her down after 3 PM she just doesn't nap on the matter what. Is it weird to wake her up by certain time during sure she has a good afternoon nap?
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Ok thank you! One more question, if I put her down after 3 PM she just doesn't nap on the matter what. Is it weird to wake her up by certain time during sure she has a good afternoon nap?
No, not weird at all. Lots of people cap the first nap to maintain the second one. It's often the start of the 2-1.... In which case it might be time to start a new thread!
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Oh my! She's only 8 months but I seem to remember having to do the same with my son 4 years ago. I just had to tweak A times by a few minutes to get longer naps but hoping we'll stay put for a little while now!
Thank you!
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WRT daylight savings, if I put my daughter down for her first nap anytime after 10:10, second nap 3 and bed time 7, she sleeps 35 mins for her nap and wakes up before 6 in the am. So daylight savings is making me nervous! In this situation, do you have an opinion as to whether it's best just to get it all over with and out her to bed an hour later or try to adjust slowly?
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Different people do different things. I've always just done it all at once as I've never been organised enough to do it gradually. I find it's a long day the first day with EW & tired grumpy baby (& parents) but because you shift everything they quite quickly adapt.
I try to keep in a dark room until "normal" wake time & get meals, naps and BT as close as possible to new normal time. It sometimes means doing stuff a little early and some grumpiness but I found it settled after a day or 2.
I'm dreading it too as my DD likes a 5am wake up, the thought of 4am is not nice!
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4 AM does not sound fun! Hopefully it will be a fairly easy transition for both of us!
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Ok I'm hoping this is just developmental because according to the wonder weeks app, we're right in the middle of a leap, but naps have completely fallen apart. I lengthened both A times by 5 mins and started getting better naps but now that's not working anymore and she's waking up at odd times. Used to be if she needed more A time she would wake at 40 mins. Now she's waking at 45, 32, 30, 37, 50... And she's waking more at night as well. She might be teething but I can see anything coming through. Do they usually have sleep issues with every leap???
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Yes sleep disruption at every developmental leap is pretty typical. Development leaps and disequilibrium periods: what they are and tips to help LOs
There is also a very difficult sleep regression around 8-10 mo. Both of mine have had really long, upset NWs around that time (sorry).
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Ok good to know! Thank you so much! I don't mind too much as long as I know it's temporary and there's a reason! LOL We've always been able to get back on track quickly after these periods thankfully.