My daughter has been a fairly consistent 11-(sometimes less)-hours-of-sleep-a-night baby. The main problem I have with this is that her 13 or more hour day that is the result of her 10 or 11 hour night's sleep may be what is causing her early wakings??
It doesn't matter if she goes to bed early or goes to bed later, the awake time doesn't change much. Her bedtime changes depending on her catnap. If she refuses to catnap, then we get her to bed super-early, sometimes as early as 6 PM. If she does catnap, then she'll go to sleep later - anytime between 6:30 and 7:30 on average - but her wake up time remains usually between 5 and 5:30. I've noticed that when she does get in a catnap that getting her to bed after that is often challenging. I think the catnap may throw off the natural rhythm that would be in place if she were awake for only 12 hours total during the day. Does that make sense? In other words, if she were awake only 12 hours during the day, she wouldnt' need the catnap. She'd be able to make it to her bedtime.
So please tell me how to change this pattern. I feel like there must be some solution that I'm overlooking. Here are 2 sample days' schedules. These days ran back to back chronologically. I am beginning the first day's schedule with the time she went to bed the night before:
bedtime the night before: 6:15 PM
wake up: 4:55 AM
first nap: 7:45 to 9:10
second nap: 11:55 to 1:30
catnap: 4:20 to 4:55
bedtime: 7:00 PM
wake up: 5:30 AM
first nap 8:10 to 10:20
second nap 1:05 to 2:20
catnap 5:15 to 5:40
bedtime 7:30 (would have been earlier but she wouldn't settle down and sleep)
Sorry for such a lenghty post. If you have any input for me, I'd really appreciate it!!!!
