10 mo EW

[Anmarnad]

And here I'm back again... My DD is 10 mo now and is now in the "wonky sleep" phase. I did read EVERYTHING about it here on the forum 100 times but I still need your help.

So what happens is this. She goes to bed quite easily at 7:30pm and sleeps without a sound till... well, today it was 5:20, yesterday 5:45, and she will not get back to sleep any more no matter what I do.  She is quite determined. Alternative is multiple  (2-3) short NW and then sleep till 6:30/6:45. I don't know which option is better any more :-). She seems VERY tired during the day and it's a struggle to keep her up long enough sometimes, while I feel we should keep her up even longer.

This is how our day looks like ( she is at the day care so some things are quite fixed).

6:00-7:00 wake up and BF ( ideal wu would be around 7 and that's how the first nap got fixed)
7:30 breakfast
10:30 nap

12:00 BF/ EBM
12:30 lunch
3:30 nap

4:30 BF
6:00 dinner
6:45 bath etc
7:15 BF
7:30 bed

Any ideas? Thanks so much!

Anna

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there Anna, as you have already noted it could be the start of the 2-1 and you've obviously already read the sleep going wonky at 10-11 months post.

You have a couple of options and it really depends how well you feel your LO deals with OT. She's already managing 4.5 hrs A in the morning, could you try pushing it out a little and see if you get anywhere towards a long lunchtime nap - perhaps push out by 15 mins at a time and hold for a few days before moving again if you're not getting much improvement. You may find some days you don't get a good nap. Your choices then are to try and squeeze in a CN (probably 30 mins ish) before heading for a normal BT, or trying for an early BT.

Have you tried EBT before, if so, did your DD tack sleep on so the night was longer and the WU normal?

Another alternative would be to cap the first nap to say 45 mins and then try for a longer nap in the early afternoon. I never tried this personally as my Dd did her best nap in the morning - it seems as though yours does too which is why I've suggested the above. What do you think?

[Anmarnad]

Thank you Naomi and of course WELCOME! :-)

So. DD decided to start her day at 5:00am sharp. Yep. She did try to sleep a bit more but didn't succeed. She went down for a nap at 10:10 and slept till 11:50. She didn't wake up totally happy but didn't want to sleep any more. And then she was exhausted by 3:30 pm and slept only till 4:20pm. So this is where we are. I will do normal bt I think... What a day. I'm really worried about what's going on.

I'm also not sure if she ready for 1 nap, or maybe it's me who is not ready yet. I did start the day with a very open mind and let her let me know when she is tired ( we were doing set naps before, as suggested by Ali and that was working great until now). And given her sleep patterns now I just didn't know how to even start with that 1 nap.

Do you have any explanation for what she is doing? She used to sleep so well when she was younger... And now I cannot put a finger on what has happened and why.

[Buttonbobs]

Sorry, I wrote a lovely long reply earlier, but it's gone! Oh well,
I wanted to say that I really think your LO is ready for one nap. You're getting two not restorative naps of less than 1.5hrs & although you LO is managing(just), over time this will lead to more OT not less. When LOs are ready to go to one nap they may well sleep more hours in 24 and take longer naps than ever before.

I would really go with pushing that first nap back a bit - do it a little at a time (15mibs) if you're worried about it. Keeping pushing back and holdin for 3-5 days until you get a long nap. You may find that morning WU follows the nap forward so you're getting a reasonable wake up. Then the nap will move eventually towards noon and beyond.

For the first little while you will need to try for a second nap  - even if it's a short CN type nap just to tide you over until BT.

And, thanks for the welcome

[Anmarnad]

OK, I get it. I think it will be a bit of a struggle but I will do my best. Yesterday for instance she was up at 5 am, demanded BF ( only one side as she feel asleep in the process, which got me thinking) and then slept till 6:15. and then at 10:00 she dragged me to her bed ( she can walk when held by hand), grabbed her rabbit she always sleeps with and didn't want to leave her bedroom, so I put her to bed. And she slept till 12:00!  Today she did exactly the same with wake up at 5 and sleep till exactly 6:15. I'm starting to think we have a new habit...
She is at the day care, so I think I will start next week when we go on holidays - I prefer to come back with a new schedule rather than getting stressed that the good ladies there do something else than I ask for, especially that it will involve searching for a new solution which requires consistency...

In the transition period - when would you put the first nap? Say she wakes up at 6:00, should I keep her up till 10:30/10:45? And how to schedule the BFs then? Usually I feed when she wakes up, but if she goes for a nap later and sleeps longer she will have a long time without milk?  Or wake up due to hunger?
Or am I thinking too much? :-)

[Buttonbobs]

So you could fix a nap based on your ideal WU of 7 and the 4.5 hour A you know she can manage (at least it seems so from your first routine posted above). This would get you to 11.30. I appreciate that she will show tiredness prior to this as she is used to napping so you can either push out towards 11.30 by moving nap forward say by 15 mins every 3/4 days and holding there before moving again, or you can go ahead and move straight to 11.30.

The second method may lead to more OT in the short term but if you LO can handle that you may get results a little more quickly. But there is no right way - it just depends a little more on you and what you think will work for your LO.

As for food, you'll still feed on wake up, but if you're worried about hunger waking her up, you can either offer a top up feed shortly before the nap (although not feeding to sleep of course) or you can offer a larger mid-morning snack, more like a lunch. Lots of parents find that for a while when transitioning to one nap, you can sort of offer two lunches, one before and one after the nap, although they might both be smaller than a full lunch. Does that make sense?

[Anmarnad]

Just a little update from us. My DD has 1 nap a day now and it works like a charm!!!! One day she just woke up at a more normal hour than 5 am and I jumped in with 1 nap and she took to it like a fish to water. No going back now... And after a couple of shaky nights we have now a bit more consistent 6:45 wu which is excellent. Cannot be more happy.
Thanks so much for  pushing me to do it!

[Buttonbobs]

I'm so pleased to hear this. Thanks for coming back with an update