Yucky EWs in 13.5m

[nicolemca]

Oh the horrible early mornings  DS is 13.5 months now. We've been trying to switch to one nap and he has only had a few days of one nap over the past two weeks. Two days it was great and one day it tanked with one hour of day sleep. With him waking at 445-515 it's been hard to always keep on one nap. He started waking early two weeks ago when our clocks went back an hour,  we were able to adjust bt to normal (used to be 7-730) but the mornings didn't seem to follow. Now we have ebt as the day is way too long. He is teething his first round of molars and has started daycare over the past three weeks. He is waking happy though, chatting clapping, so I'm thinking he's not waking from pain. Separation anxiety is in full swing but it doesn't seem to affect him in the AM on waking or during the occasional NW. He is generally STTN, which started about a month ago (so happy about that!!). He SS and if he wakes at night we do WIWO. Whe he wakes up at the crack of not even dawn we usually let him alone to chat and go get him when he starts to fuss or cry. He can usually entertain himself for about a half hour and our hope of him putting himself back to sleep hasn't been realized!

Our good days on one nap:
5 wake
1045-115 sleep
6 bt

On two naps:
5 wake
10-1020/1030 nap capped
230-345/4 nap
7/730 bt

There have been a few days of trying to go for one nap and he'll only sleep an hour so it ends up looking like this
5 wake
1045-1145 sleep
330-4 hopefully nap if APOP (stroller or car)
At the beginning of the transition we always had to cap the am nap because if he had any decent am sleep he'd outright refuse an afternoon nap

Any thoughts??

[tarakay]

Tagging along - DD2 is 14.5 mos old and we are struggling with the same thing.  Holding on to 2 naps because I'm leery to shift to 1.  I think DD1 was around 15 mos when we went to 1 nap.

DD2 wakes between 5-6 am (sometimes earlier).  Will play happily for 30 min then starts to get mad because no one is coming to hang out with her!  Here is our routine most days:

Wake 5:30
Nap 10-11:30 (always wake by 11:30 no matter how long the nap was)
Nap 3:30 - 4/4:15
Bed 7/7:30 depending on nap

She fights the afternoon  nap quite a bit and tosses at bed some nights but is otherwise super happy.

I'd love to get rid of the EW - that probably won't happen until we transition to one nap though?  We are struggling with going to one nap because of how early she wakes up.  We aren't able to do an early BT most days  because of our work schedules.  I guess we probably will just gut it out for a few more months? Good luck to you too!

[tarakay]

Oh.... and I wouldn't feel like you NEED to stay with 1 nap every day, just like us.. very hard to do when they are "waking with the chickens"!  Some days can be 1 nap days and others be 2 nap days.  I know a lot of people alternate for a while before they fully transition to 1 nap.

I honestly think the worst part is how excited they are to be awake at 5:00 am?!   

[nicolemca]

Just wanted to bump this up as no reply yet from a moderator. ...

[*Becky*]

Hi,
So he is waking at 5am regardless of whether you do 1 or 2 naps - is that right?

[nicolemca]

Yup he is. 

[*Becky*]

If he is def teething I would try a DF meds around 3am to see if that helps with anything.
He is still pretty young, I would usually say to go for 2 naps with the hope of a more rested BT and so less of an Ewing but if it is not making any difference then I am not sure. What I would say is his am A time is v long for his age, normally I would say more like 5-5.5 at the most so it could be that he is OT by the time the nap comes around and so it is not as long as you want or need to get through the day.
I would imagine it is OT caused by the transition to 1 nap plus some teeth in the mix and possibly SA like you say due to changes in his day...what do you think?

[nicolemca]

Thanks for the reply Becky! We've decided to try the transition to one nap because we were having to cap the am nap to 20mins then he would still need 4-4.5 hrs to get a one hour nap at best in the afternoon so his day sleep was becoming really poor. He's always been on the high side for A times. He actually took one nap yesterday,  woke after an hour but I was able to get him back down and he slept for another 1.5 and woke this am at 6. Hoping is wasn't a fluke!! Is an EW a product of OT or the need to tweak the naps? In the past any time we had consistent ewings it was time to cut or drop a nap and after the transition wake times went back to normal..
what could a good easy look like with one nap and wake time of 5?

[*Becky*]

ok well in that case 1 nap def sounds the way to go. That is great he resettled for the nap, I would try to do that as and when you can and then hopefully he will start doing it himself. When DD went to 1 nap she did 1-1.5 hours for quite a while, probably a good 2-3 months and then suddenly we were having to wake her after 2 hours or more.
EWings can be caused by OT, that is the main cause really but also can be due to too much day sleep, discomfort and also just some lo's like my DD are natural larks.
I would keep doing the resettling and hope he gets a good nap in. Then if he is up at 5am a 6pm BT is about right and then once he hopefully starts waking a bit later you can push the nap slowly until you get to about midday. x

[nicolemca]

Ok. So when they wake early from that one nap if they don't resettle back to sleep did you offer a cn later in the afternoon or just sebt?? Lil man is up right now after 1.15hrs sleep and dh is trying to resettle as I type this. Good to know this is typical. And I'm also wondering how much we should stick to the one nap system...daycare seems to tire him out much more and he's taking two solid naps there.

[nicolemca]

I should mention he's at daycare 2-3 days a week so still at home on our routine most of the week. He went back down!!!

[*Becky*]

oh good

From what you have said it seems 2 naps is becoming a bit of a struggle so I would probably just work on resettling and as much as you can do 1 nap.