EW fixed by W2S?

[kim&savannah]

OK--I've been consulting BWSAYP and it sounds like Tracy recommends trying W2S if they are waking insanely early.  Well, since the time change, its been between 5 and 5:20 or so.  Now, it isn't exactly the same time each day, so is that going to be a problem?  I just think there is a chance it might work since one day he woke at 4:45 instead and I fed him and he went right back to sleep until 7.

So, that is my next question.  If I go in at 4, should I feed him then since he's used to eating at 5?  I've just recently (in the last week) weaned him off his "df" (he always woke for a feeding around 10:30/11) so he now goes from 6:30 to 5--and I've been feeding at 5 in hopes that he would go back to sleep but since the time change, he doesn't so we've been starting our day way too early (and it usually wakes DD so then we have 2 cranky kids up hours before the sun.)  I'm just unsure that the W2S will work if he's hungry at 5 because he's used to eating then.  But I'm pretty sure that if I did a df at 4 am he'd probably sleep until morning, which would be heaven!

What do you think?

~Kim

[Layla]

W2s is usually for habitual wakings to if he's waking up at different times in the morning then it might be a problem  .

If you do go in at 4pm then I would do w2s (like stir him) rather than feed him cause then the milk feed might become a prop.... I would probably stay away from milk in the morning but thats just me. What does the rest of the day look like? With the time change did you try to shift his day slowly or did you do the whole hour at once? It can take about 3-4 days for them to get used to the new routine...

[kim&savannah]

Well, this a.m., he woke on his own at 4:30 and still didn't want to go back to sleep, so scratch that idea.

He's never been entirely predictable so there are no exact times for things which made switching a little odd.  It wasn't like I could move bedtime 15 min. at a time because his bedtime varies depending on his wake time and then his naps, etc. . .  And its been 10 days or something, so shouldn't he have adjusted?  My 3 year old is also still waking at 5--its driving me nuts!!!  Neither of my kids have ever been predictable like that and I don't feel like trying to force them into a strict schedule (and never felt like that was what BW was about), although maybe I should try and we might actually see some improvement around here   ANYTHING would be an improvement over what we have going on these days.

I was just hesitant to take away that early feeding as we just in the last week cut out the 10:30 pm feeding, and it was only a month ago or so that he was also eating around 3 a.m.--his night feeds went on way longer than I'd wanted, but anyway, that's where we're at right now.

So, typical day with a 5:30 wake time:

5:30, BF, try to PD until 6/6:30
7:00 breakfast
9:00 nap
10:30, up, BF
12:00 lunch
2:00 nap
3:30 up, BF
5/5:30 dinner
6:00 bath or play (we don't do bath every night)
6:30 BF, rock, song
6:45 bed, asleep by 7:00

This is not exact, but a pretty good estimate.  He takes 2 1.5 hour naps--I've started waking him at that point if he's trying to sleep longer since I feel like he's not sleeping enough at night and trying to make up for it with naps, but I don't want longer naps, I want him to sleep at night when the rest of us are trying to! 

He's usually gone to bed between 6:30 and 7:00 although pre-time change, his naps were moving later and later (he'd basically stay up 3-3.5 hours before each one and was waking closer to 7, so naps were at 10 and 3), which meant bedtime was more like 7:30 or 8.  But that means even with the change, he should just be right back where he used to be and shouldn't be waking until 6 or so.  I'm just so lost on this one.

And we're leaving Friday for Thanksgiving week, so whatever is going on is just going to get worse--esp. since we're heading west so it will be an hour earlier!!!!  I was really hoping to have taken care of this before that so we wouldn't be looking at a 4 a.m. wake up.

Thanks for trying to help.

~Kim

[Layla]

Yeah... I think shortening daytime sleep would help too. I am not sure how comfortable you are from shortening the morning nap but I have found that if the morning nap was too long then the wake up hour was ridiculously early... so maybe start with cutting it down to 1hr & in a few days maybe even down to 45mins.

So you could try somehting like this:

9-10 - morning nap
1:30-3pm - afternoon nap
6:30pm - bed

Then hopefully in about 3 days or so the extra hour will add onto night sleep & then he "should" be waking up around 5:30-6am... in which case you could try shifting the whole day forward by pushing the morning nap from 9am to 9:15 & then 9:30, the pm nap from 1:30 to 1:45 to 2pm with bedtime around 7pm

Or if you aren't comfortable shortening the morning nap (as with some cutting the morning nap leads to short pm nap as well) then you could let him sleep 1.5hrs in the am but push the nap out to 9:30am & extend the A time in the afternoon to about 4hrs & let him take a catnap... so something like this:

9:30-11am - morning nap
2:30/3-3:15/3:45 - afternoon nap
7pm - bedtime

If you see that he is struggling to stay awake until 9am then do it gradually (15mins).

What do you think?
Layla

[Ethans Mommy2]

I too have an early waker, and I was wondering what W2S means???  It's ususally between 4:30/5:30 when he wakes...

[Layla]

Ethans Mommy - what does his day look like?

Wake to sleep is when they are waking up habitually at the same time every morning & you go in to them about an ahour before they wake up to stir them. Doing this often gets them past the wake up time.

But alot of times waking up that early is due to overtiredness rather than habitual.

Post back
Layla

[kim&savannah]

You know, I think that it would totally be worth it to try shortening the naps--not sure which one, but  I guess we could try the a.m. one first.  That would be most useful to our schedule anyway since DD has quiet time in the pm but mornings, we're just waiting for him to wake up so we can get out of the house.

I've never really had a good napper so this is all new to me and I didn't realize that 1.5 hours was too long for 2 naps at this age.  Esp. since I'm having to wake him so he isn't taking a 2.5 hour nap about half the time.  But if it will get us more sleep at night, I'd give up naps completely!   ( i know that won't work either, so I won't try to keep him up all day ).

He'll be fine with a later a.m. nap--he usually plays pretty happily in the a.m., even if he's yawning the whole time.

~Kim