EASY for 8 m/o

[Noah's mum]

Hello! I'm wondering if someone could shed some light on why my almost eight month old couldn't stay asleep last night. I've restarted his EASY routine yesterday. We were doing quite well for about a month when he was four months but then we moved a couple of times, travelled and had all sorts of disruptions. Now we're settled at last and I'm trying to get him back into routine for when I return to work part-time in a few weeks.

Here's how yesterday's routine looked:

8:15 Wake up and breastfeed
9:15 Solids
10:15 Sleep in cot (2hrs 15mins)
12:30 Woke up & breastfeed
2:45 Asleep in cot (1hr 30mins)
4:15 wake up and breastfeed
5:30 solids
6:30 bath & bedtime routine
7:00 breastfeed
8:15 fast asleep in cot

So it all went pretty well, with two good naps and a very happy baby all day long. But THEN, Noah woke up at 10:30 pm and took ages to resettle. He just wasn't tired - so I eventually breastfed him again just to get him sleepy. The he woke up again at 3am and again took ages to get back to sleep. And finally he woke up for good at 6:30 this morning. He went back to sleep for his nap at 8:45, so that makes his activity time a pretty consistent 2 hours and 15 minutes.

But I'm wondering if perhaps this isn't enough? Could he be getting too much daytime sleep? Noah always battled with 45 minute naps and will still have very short naps if he's overstimulated. But I thought that by getting him down the moment he showed tired signs, I was doing the right thing, and that the long naps yesterday were evidence of this. But why is he wide awake at night!

I'd appreciate any suggestions anyone might have!

Thanks!

[vadensmommy]

Hey Noah's Mom!
I think it is possible that he is getting too much sleep.  Either that, or the timing of his naps aren't quite right.  Most babies move to a 2hr A time at 4mo old, your lo is 8mo and is only doing 15min more than that, but his last A time was 4hrs.  My dd is 11mo, and is still not doing a 4hr A time comfortably. 

Most 8mo are doing around 3hrs of A time comfortably.  Around that age, our routine looked something like this (I'll adjust for an 8am wake-up - ours was more like 6:30 because I work  )
A 8
E 8:30
A 8-11
S 11-12:30

E 12:30
A 12:30-3:30
E 3:15 - this was a split bottle for us, I found dd was waking early from the pm nap if she didn't get more bottle before hand
S 3:30-5 or 5:30

E 5:30 finish bottle from earlier
A 5:30-8 this was often a shorter A time for us.  If it wasn't this one, it was the 1st one - and it varied depending on her age.  This is still one of her shorter A times which is a bit strange, because most babies it is the first.  DD is just backwards I guess
S 8 for the night

So it may be that he was overtired from such a long A time right before bed, but well rested enough from the naps to make him want to be up more.  Some moms also find that they have to start limiting the am nap to 1hr if the A time between am and pm nap gets to be too long, or if baby only takes a short pm nap with such a long am nap.  Our problem was that dd would fight the pm nap if she took too long of an am nap.  I think I started shortening the am nap around 9 or 9.5mo, but all babies are different!

Hope that gives you some thoughts on what you might want to tweak.  Let me know what you think and how things go!

[Grace's Mom]

For a lo to be on two naps, they really need to be able to handle 3 hours of A time each A time as 4 hours at the end of the day is a whole for a lo to handle.  

Maybe try evening out the day a bit....

8:00 wake
11-12:30 nap
3:30-5pm nap
8pm bedtime

Of course your day may not look exactly like this but it will even things out and will help your lo to not get overtired at the end of the day.  It'll give you about 3 hours of day time sleep at 11-12 hours at night depending on when he actually falls asleep which is just right.  

Also, some days go a bit wonky.  Maybe give your routine a few more days for things to settle in.  With any routine change it takes a good 3-5 days for their bodies to adjust.  The best thing you can do during that time is be consistant and just wait to see how it all smooths out.  After about a week, if things aren't looking any better then you know it's time to adjust.

Melissa

****It looks like vadensmommy and I posted at the same time....sorry if this is the same thing she wrote 

[vadensmommy]

Hey Melissa
Glad to see that I am on the right track, so glad you posted too Always nice to have a mod say the same thing!!
 

[Noah's mum]

Thanks so much for your replies! I think you might be right. It hadn't actually occured to me that two hours wasn't sufficient A time. It's caused problems because it often means he has his last nap too far away from his bedtime, which of course means he ends up getting overtired (he doesn't get cranky but he does get a bit hyper, which I guess must be a sign of overtiredness). I think I'll try a combination of making the A time about 2 and a half hours (he does start to show tired signs after two hours) and making his bed time a bit earlier. We had a disastrous night last night but then discovered this morning that he's cut his first tooth. So hopefully things will settle down soon. At least he is having great naps during the day - i don't think i'd survive with bad nights AND days! Again, thanks for your replies. I really appreciate it!

[vadensmommy]

Hey Noah Mom!
Hope that he makes the adjustments well.  If you still find you are having troubles even once you get to the 2.5hr A time you can always stretch just a little bit at a time.  There is a link in the FAQ's about transitioning from one EASY to another, but it can be a bit confusing.  It is from BWSAYP, and suggests that you concentrate only on the morning time slot since that one can often be the shortest.  You would work on adding 10-15min at a time every 3 days or so till you get to your ideal A time.  So just another thought!  We usually do things cold turkey because dd does better that way, but with A times, many babies fare better with the gradual approach. 
Keep us posted on your progress!!