Please help! Almost 10mo and schedule all over

[lilamom]

My almost 10mo schedule is really unpredictable and I'm having a very hard time figuring out what is best.

My ideal EASY would be:

7am: wake
9:30-11am: nap
2:30-4pm: nap
8pm: bed

1) Waketime: we dealt with early wake ups (5/5:30am) for a while and solved them by pushing bedtime back closer to 8pm.  Bedtime is pretty consistently 7:45pm.  I'm so confused... some mornings she sleeps until 7am and has to be woken.  Other mornings she cries out at 6am and is awake.

2) Naps: for the past several weeks her afternoon naps have been *very* long and I've normally woken her by 2 hours.  The past few days she's started stirring or waking from naps at the 1 hour 10/20 min. mark.  We had these short naps for a while at 6 months and I think they were OT.

3) Bedtime-- I want a 7am wake up and she seems to be a 10-11 hr night sleeper so I'm reluctant to move bedtime early.  But is she not sleeping well because she is OT or UT?

To make things complicated, I think she has been fighting a cold and then a stomach bug for the past few days... maybe she is sleeping less because she isn't sick??  SO confused!

Last 24hour EASY:

8pm last night: asleep (after nap from 2-4:30 because had been OT)
6am: cried out, possibly dozed for a bit, fed and then happy
9-10:20am: nap (cried out when woke, then quiet, then jabbered)
2-3:20pm: nap (this is the shortest pm nap she has had in *weeks*

I'm just not sure if she is OT and thus not sleeping as well or that her sleep needs are just less now that she isn't sick...  please help???

Thank you!!

[Ima shel Alon]

Is the illness gone for sure? If not I'd wait a few days till you tweak things.
I don't think she is OT from the naps, because she is giving you an UT nap (1:20h). I would think that if there is OT at all then it's because of the short night. Saying that, you know her best and if you are certain that an EBT (19) will not make a difference and if she is a 10-11h at night kind of girl, then let it be.
The most apparent thing is that you hit the beginning of the 2-1 transition. You can read about it more here: chronological EASY samples, 10-12 months have a read of the key notes, they are important to remember at this age. And there is information about the transition to one nap here: 10/11 month old sleep gone wonky? Read this first! and here: from 2 to 1 nap - how, when and the bumps
The transition is long, you are just in the beginning of it, but you might need to think about capping the AM morning, like is suggested in the links.
Good luck!

[lilamom]

Thanks! I really am beginning to think we are starting on the 2-1.  She is just 10 months, but she did the 3-2 on the earlier side (6.5 months).

Our problem seems to be early wakings and shortish naps (no nap refusals, yet).  My goal is to try to protect 11 hours of night sleep (she is 10-11 hours a night).

I've been doing 2.5 or 3 A in the morning (I know, on the shorter end).  Should I do the longer A and shorten the nap or keep the short A?

[Ima shel Alon]

What you could try is increase the A and see what happens. It could be that she will give you a 1.5h nap and also a PM nap and she will be all right. The def thing to do is to increase A. If you see that you increase it and there are still problems then it *is* probably the 2-1 transition and then I would go for capping the nap.

[lilamom]

That's really helpful-- thanks!

Today we had about 2.75 A in the morning and a 1 hour 40 min. nap then 1 hour 20 min. afternoon nap after 4 hour A.

Bedtime is going to be after about 4 hours of A.

The odd thing is that she was super sleepy this morning-- been happy the rest of the day though.

[Ima shel Alon]

It sounds like you had a good day! Great naps!
What I did, I never counted A before BT because sometimes the PM nap was a bit later than usual and then BT would turn out so late. I just set a time for BT, which was 19 for us and I didn't move from it no matter how the day looked like (unless he was very OT then we had it a tiny bit earlier). Many babies actually don't need a full A before BT.

[lilamom]

Thanks!

I'm totally on the same page with the consistent bedtime-- that's what we try to do here, too!