Blame it on teething???

[sebas]

I am slowly going mad with the night wakings and am hoping you can shed some light and help me adjust our routine.

I have a spirited 10 month old DS and night wakings have become an issue and I am sure it is because of our routine.

Currently this is our routine:
6:30am - 7am - wake and feed (120ml)
8:00-8:30am - breakfast
8:30am - nap (30 mins - impossible to resettle or extend)
11am-11:30am - bottle (240ml) - sometimes will fall asleep on this bottle
11:30 - 12pm- nap - 1 -1.5 hrs with resettling at 30 mins most times
1:00 - 1:30pm - lunch
3pm - bottle (180ml)
3:30 - 4:00 nap - 30 mins
4:45 - 5:00pm - dinner
6:30pm - bath
6:45pm- bottle
7pm - bed (is put to bed drowsy but awake and then patted to sleep)

He will usually wake 1-2 hours after being put to bed but can be easily resettled by patting/shhhing and then will usually wake between 11pm and midnight for a bottle.  Over the last couple of days I have stopped feeding him as I found he is waking up not out of hunger but because he simply needs me to resettle him back to sleep (i think I have become his prop - another issue altogether!)

I have tried consolidating his 3 naps down to 2 (1 hr in the AM and 1 hr in the PM) but will only sleep 30 mins at at time and cannot be resettled and then is overtired by bedtime.

His AM awake time is only 1.5 to 2 hrs max (that's why his 1st nap is relatively early 8:30am) but then his awake times lengthen to 2.5-3hrs as the day progresses.

I just cannot understand why he will only sleep for 30 mins at a time during the day (I can only manage to extend his mid day sleep - most times!!)

I am hoping that by fixing his day time and/or night time sleeps they will fix the other one up - IFYKWIM!

Can you also tell me how much sleep he should be having during the day, maybe I am expecting him to sleep too much!!

Please help me as I slowly going insane because of the constant night wakings/lack of daytime sleep!

Thanks

[andibig]

not sure i can help as my 11 month old daughter is doing the same thing. sounds to me he's having the right amount of sleep during the day (3 hrs) unfortunately all split up. sasha has two naps a day both 1.5 hours each but i know some babies may have 1hr in the morning and 2 hours in the a/noon. i wouldn;t worry about putting him down after 2 hours in the morning a lot of babies even at 11 months will need a nap after 2 hours. all i can say is persist in trying to make him sleep for longer in the morning. i did with sasha and it took a few weeks but we got there in the end. Good luck!!!

[teezee]

it sounds like your lo is overtired and not being able to sleep through the night b/c of it. if you extend A time(s) (in the am) some your lo would likely nap better during the day, as he probably isn't tired enough at that point to stay asleep. at 10 months my dd was able to stay up for approx 3-3.5hrs in the am and sometimes as long as 4hrs in the pm. she would have a total of 2-2.25 hrs of naps a day - anymore and she would wake at night as she would not be tired enough at night to stay asleep.

usually when lo's wake within the first few hrs of being put to sleep it is a sign of overtiredness. at this age your lo should really only have two naps a day - i understand that the naps are short but instead of opting for that third 'catnap' imo i would put lo to bed early.

when extending A times do it slowly as lo will be tired as he is used to going to sleep at the 'reg' times - do it 15 min every few days and keep the extra A time low key - reading, etc...

[sebas]

thanks for the insight!  Today he did not appear tired at all at 8:30 so I put him down at 10am and slept for 1.25 hrs (although I had to intervene at 30min and then resettle at 45min, but it's a huge improvement on 30 mins, I will keep persevering).  The thing I find hard now is that his tired signs are harder to read and am simply going by awake time.

Do you think that me having to constantly resettle/intervene at 30min will improve if I persist with this new routine of lengthening his A time gradually?  Up until about 3-4 months ago, he would sleep for 1-2 hrs straight without having to be resettled but now he just doesn't seem to be able to do it without me?  Have I become his prop? 

I can pretty much pinpoint that all this constant resettling started when he started to teeth and now needs it to go to sleep.

In terms of the night wakings, some nights he will wake every 2 hrs, but hopefully this will improve with me learning to watch for overtiredness etc and an earlier bedtime.

I am currently putting him to bed at 7:00 - 7:30pm, do you think that maybe a bedtime of 6:30-6:45pm would be better?  But then wouldn't he wake earlier in the morning because currently he is only sleeping roughly 11 hrs?  I really don't want him waking before 6 -6:30am (for purely selfish reasons!!!!!!)

Anyway, I will perservere and see how I go.

thanks for your help

[teezee]

it 'should' get better as if lo is tired enough to sleep past a half hr or 45 min nap...it may take a bit of sleep training - have you tried wake to sleep?

imo i think that the bedtime is just fine.

keep at it a few days and see if things improve..keep me posted!