NWs + EW = tiredness all round!

[murphy76]

Hi All,

Our DS is 8mths old and we have been battling NWs and EW for about 6 weeks now, and i just wondered is there any other advice out there. He used to have multiple NW but through only giving him a few sips of water and extending is A time first thing have it down to 1/2 max and he is waking now for the day at 5am. he has been waking at 5-545am for the last 6weeks, having previously slept through to 7am.

His EASY is:

5-530am wakes, wide awake, have tried getting him over again but this is defo him for the day.

E  7am (bottle and solid)
A  530-9am  (3.5hrs)
S  9-1030am

E  11am   bottle  1pm solid
A  1030am-2pm (3.5hrs)
S  2-3pm (usually 30mins-1hr tops)

E   bottle at 4pm (just few ozs) solids at 5pm
A   3pm - 6pm
S   630pm

Through great advice on here we recently extended his morning A time to 3.5hrs (not easy and still v tired for the last 1/2hr but we are getting there!) which seems to have helped reduce his NWs. He is rubbing his eyes from 430pm onwards in the evening but surely we cant put him down any earlier than 6pm? even this is already 1 hour earlier in the past week as we have always started his bath and wind down about 630pm and had him down for 7pm, but with the EW thought this 14hr day was too much and you could tell with him being OT by bedtime.

He sttn 7pm-7am from about 12 weeks old until this started happening. yes he's been teething on off but even when not, this persists.

Apart form the last 1-2hrs of his day his is a very happy and smiley. before we brought his bedtime forward by 1hour he might have just woken at 530am, but i am wondering is it now earlier because he is going down earlier?

the afternoon nap just cannot be extended, we have tried everything and him sleeping in various places, cot, pram, carseat but 1 hour is the most we get from him, and if his bt is only 3hrs later this doesnt seem too bad.

Even this is better than it was as there were 4-6nws per night each night in the past month and fingers crossed its getting better. If this is just the way it is fine, thats life and i know others have it so much worse but we feel so close if there was any thoughts on what we can do i'd love to hear them. I am going back to work soon, so now is definitely the time to try anything.

Thanks!

[mmom]

((HUGS)) It looks like sometimes the last A is sometimes 4 hours on a 30 minute nap. That could lead to OT EWs.  If you can't extend that 2nd nap, could you cut the 1st nap to 1 hour and see if you can then extend the 2nd one?

[murphy76]

Hi Kara,

Thanks for your reply. these days it is more and more only the 3 hours A time before bed as we have begun to put him down earlier in the evening as he is waking earlier in the morning and we dont want to get caught in an OT vicious circle (even though maybe we already are!)

I will definitely try that though. We have only just managed to get the morning nap stretched out to 90mins as previously it was only about an hour, but if this was the case the afternoon may have been longer.

Perhaps if we get 2hrs 30 mins of naps per day, however that is broken up, this would suffice then for DS and be enough to get him through the day?

Am i thinking too much about the roughly 12-13hr day? is an 11hr night enough? should he be going down 12 hours after he wakens, nomatter what time this is, or is it just being silly at 8mths for him to be going to bed at 530pm?

Thanks for your thoughts on this, it certainly gives me a bit of confidence to be trying to do something about it before just accepting thats the way it is!

[mmom]

We never get 12 hour nights.  I never did with either LO!!  Actually, I shouldn't say never, since we got 1 last night.  But they are rare and more of a catch up every once in a while.  So I do think 11 hours is great. 

I hate to see you change things if it took so long to extend that morning nap.   I just know that last A can really throw a wrench in things, if you don't get a good nap.  KWIM?

[murphy76]

Thanks Kara,

we are just playing about with his routine and seeing what works. looks like we will get 1.5hrs in the morning and 1hr nap in the afternoon as standard. and he is now down to 1/2 NWs at most, but a few days last week they were at 3 and 5am and he went over to 6am so not too bad.

he is teething at the moment so i know all bets are off anyway, so we'll see how we go.

im considering extending his bt past 7 or even 730pm again to see if this will make him sleep longer. even with nws if we could get 6/630am as his get up time in the morning then it would be a big help.

[mmom]

I would only extend the bedtime if the last A is reasonable.  You will get NWs and EWs if your last A is too long. If you need to push out bedtime, push the earlier A times.

Be mindful that some LOs just are early risers, no matter how much tweaking you do.