Hi, I need help with my 13month old routine and early wakings that have been going on for about a month now. My son is Angel/Textbook with slightly low sleep needs overall but does not handle OT well. Our EASY has been like this for about 4 weeks:
WU: 5:30 (6am is the goal)
Nap: 9-9:30 (wake him after 30 min and don't put him down before 9am)
Nap: 1-3pm (usually have to wake him after 2 hours)
BT: 7pm (in his cot between 6:45 and 7pm and falls asleep between 7 and 7:30)
I've had problems with early wakings before every transition and usually I can tweak the routine to fix it, but I'm not sure where to go at this point. I don't think he's ready for 1 nap. It takes him 5 to 10 minutes to fall asleep for both naps, so to me that says he still needs them. BT usually takes longer, up to 30 minutes (all independent sleep). For about 4 weeks before the EW started (so about 8 weeks ago) we reduced his first nap from 45 min to 30 min.
When he wakes in the morning, he's not crying, wakes happy and talks to himself or plays with the zipper on his sleeping bag until I go in around 6:15. Generally in the past if he early wakes due to OT he would wake crying.
So if he's not ready for 1 nap, should I decrease the first nap to 20 min or decrease the 2nd nap to 1 1/2 hours? Alternatively, should I consider putting him to bed later since it does take longer for him to fall asleep at night? My fear with that is that he's always been an early night kind of guy. In the past, we've put him to bed as early as 5:30pm on bad nap days and he used to sleep 13 hours some nights. So going past 7 makes me nervous..
I should add that he's just getting over an illness and I've gone back to work in the past couple of months. I see him in the morning for about 2 hours after WU so it's crossed my mind that he's waking up to see me? But I never go in before 6:15 and he sees me for 2 hours in the morning and an 1 1/2 hours at night and never cries when I leave, so I don't get the feeling he's missing mommy that much.
Appreciate your help!!!
