8 month DD fights 2nd nap AND is EW

[_James_]

Hi,

I've seen a previous post regarding 8mo old's fighting their second nap, so I apologize for a duplicate (https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=124134.0). Our situation is slightly different as DD is also part of the Early Wide Awake club.

Our day starts at exactly 5:15 am. DD (Phoebe) is wide awake, cooing, giggling and talking. The rest of our day has been as follows. She is on a pretty good 4 hour routine, except for lately where she fights and screams when put down for nap #2. She wakes up happy 99% of the time.

Wake: 5:15a (play in crib until 5:45)
E: 6:00
S: ~8:00a (consistent 1.5 hour nap)
E: 10:00 (again, play in crib after waking)
S: ~12:00 (cries for an hour)
S: 1:00 (1.5 hours)
E: 2:30
S: 5:15p (catnap 30 min)
E: ~6:00p
S: 7:00p

Things we've considered or read about include: starting 2nd nap later in day (apparently may also help with EW), more "A" time before first nap, or a combination of both. Little Miss is so exhausted, it seems hard to extend these A times.

May I ask for the community's thoughts?

[brenda2]

hey james and welcome!
well you're getting 2 x 1.5 hour naps so that's great!!  i think your LO is ready for a bit more A time and to drop that catnap, which usually happens around this age.  you should ideally aim for a 12 hour day, and since your day starts at 5 am    this means a really early bedtime, until you can shift her day a bit to wake a touch later. 

i would aim for 3 hour A time and drop the catnap and in bed about 12 hours after she gets up:
5:15 awake
8:15-9:45 sleep  (a  little later than you were doing)
12:45 or 1 -2:15 or 2:30 sleep
5:30 or 5:45 bedtime

once you have that schedule working consistently you can try to shift the day by 15 min every few days until you have closer to a 7 to 7 day if that's what you want.

HTH

[_James_]

Thanks for the suggestion Brenda. We will try to aim for a 12 hour day. Assuming we get there 5:15a - 5:30p, how to you gradually move the whole schedule towards a more "reasonable" waking hour?

Do start at the back end, and put her down for the night 15 min later?
Or do you start from the front, and leave her in her crib 15 min longer?
Or do you just move all wake/nap/bed times by 15 min later?

Thanks very much for your help!

J

[brenda2]

i would see what happens...if she gets caught up on sleep the EWs may sort themselves out...hope so!!

otherwise i would stretch all A times by 10 or 15 min every few days...or if she does a long sleep that would do it too (just let her sleep up to 2 hours to get to a slightly later bedtime).

usually they say don't take them out of the crib until it's time to start your day otherwise they get used to waking up and getting up so early.  but you can't leave her in there for 2 hours!!  so you could keep her in there for a bit longer every morning and see if that works too (never did for me...)

[_James_]

Thanks again Brenda.

Things have really gone wonky this week. Day before yesterday was like normal (awake at 5:15a), but she fought and fought the second nap. I put her down at 12:45p after just under 3 hours of A-time. She was definitely OT! She cried and fussed until my wife came home at 2:00. It was a loooong 1.5 hours. Finally, DD had a rest for 1.5hours.

We didnt get a catnap in that day, and we moved bedtime up to 6:45. She slept through until ... 6:00am! What a milestone and a success. Too bad it didnt last. This morning it was back at 5:15a.

Yesterday and today, we put her down after 2.5 hours of A-time to prevent the OT at second nap. This seems to have backfired as the naps were now only 1 hour. Back to a catnap at 4:30-ish.

One step forward, two back. 

[brenda2]

well, great you had a  long "sleep in" 

if you're getting only an hour nap from her i would keep extending those A times.  i think once you have extended your A times and droppped the catnap your EWs will sort themselves out like they did afew days ago