8 1/2 Months 30 min Nap HELPPPPP

[smarrero]

My 8 1/2 month old is down to 2 (sometimes 3) 30 min naps and now has started to wake in the 5am hour!!! I need your help!!!  He has been sleeping through the night (7:30pm - 6ish) for about 1 month now but three days ago he started to wake at 5am and we are going nuts!!!!

He has never been a napper and I know that we need to work on this because 30 min naps are not good for anyone here!  I do not know what to do...I think I have tried everything...I have tried keeping my hand on him for past 30 minutes to hold the twitching, holding him, napping with him (sometimes works but not lately)....what should we do to extend the naps?

He usually will go down 2 hours after his wake up time.  then 3-4 hours after his wake from his first nap and then 2-3 hour after his wake from his second nap..something like this

6:30/7 am Wake

9 am - 9:30am Nap

1-1:30pm Nap

4:30-5pm Nap

7:30 Sleep

What should I do? We are going crazy and like I said now he wants to wake up at 5am and there is no getting him back to sleep.  Please Please help, techniques, tips anything please...

[Alison_3]

My son is 8.5 months old too and we had a 30 minute nap yesterday afternoon.  I think I read somewhere that a 30 minute nap means undertired and a 45 minute nap means overtired.   I think at this age, the A time should be about 3 hours so I would try extending the awake time in the morning.    I know some moms go for the same morning naptime no matter what time their lo wakes. 

If you extend the awake time, hopefully you can get a little bit later morning and afternoon nap and then cut out the catnap.  The catnap is a killer for us.  Ds wants to stay up late if he gets a catnap and then wakes up super early in the morning. 

As for extending the naps... once my ds is awake, he's awake and there's no going back!  I'm sure the wonderful ladies here will help you out with that one!

[skatty]

In our case short naps and early wakings mean overtired. I have been advised if DD has a 30 min nap her A time should be no more than 2.5hrs  for the PM nap, this has helped to have her not OT for the PM nap so she sleeps longer and then because it is such a long time to bed it's then an outrageously early bedtime (5pm tonight!) Whenever I have put her to bed earlier she has slept later into the morning, the other night she slept 13 and a half hours  Early bedtime works immediately for us but I think it's advised you try any new change in scedule for at least 3 days before you decided it doesn't work.

I always do wake to sleep for naps now, for us it doesn't work whe DD is very OT  but once she has been gaining some sleep she will often sleep longer.

Good luck, I hope you get to sleep later tomorrow 

[skatty]

I just want to update that after the 5pm bedtime my LO was up at 6am, (13 hours) she is now having her AM nap which she wakes up from at 30 mins on the dot if OT and she has been sleeping for 47 mins, the longest this nap usually is is 37 mins (one of her cycles) so as you can see it's true, sleep begets sleep! Give it a go 

[smarrero]

Thanks, I am going to try the activity time shorter and bring the bed time earlier 2.5 hours after the last nap.  Hopefully this will work, I will update.  Thanks for the advice!

[skatty]

Hi, how is it going so far?

Katt 

[smarrero]

Well not so good...at least not yet... we are now having alot of mini naps throughout the day arghhh! He woke up from his last nap at 3pm...so this means his bedtime would be 5:30 or 6pm?  Or should I stry to squeeze in another mini nap so that he can go to bed later?

[skatty]

I know this is a late reply but I'd have said early bedtime. I don't think having lots of short naps helps because it just reinforces the catnaps. I have been going through a very similar situation and I just put my DD down for two naps and then get her to bed early. It took a few weeks but she finally started napping longer and sleeping later in the morning as her body clock got used to having only 2 naps a day. If my DD has a short nap, like yesterday, I keep her in her pushchair (where she naps) for the whole of the nap time and then we go for a walk and try and do low key things until bedtime to avoid OT if possible. She went to bed a little early at 6pm and had a NW at 2am but this is a big improvement on her NWs and she still slept until 6.15am, if this had been a few weeks ago before the early bedtimes I am sure she'd have woken at around 5am as wll as having numerous NW in the early evening.

I don't think you should worry about putting DS down even as early as 5pm, even if he still wakes at 5am at least he's had 12 hours and banked some of the OT hours which should help his daytime naps last longer because he wont have the OT jolts and your day can start moving up again. Good luck, I am sutīre you will find this will work if you are consistant, it has worked for us and I was soo sceptical