Health nurse coming over today to discuss CC with me, what do you think?

[*Jo*]

Thanks Ladies!!!

wow Carrie, i loved your post! it made me laugh about throwing the phone across the room and your LO laughing about it

Ok, so now im a bit confused about routines, can you ladies help me with this seeing as it may help his naps?

Ok, so my health nurse said at this age he could drop a bottle, so down to 4 a day?? how do i work all this in with a four hour routine?

Stacy you are saying to drop the catnap but if i do then its 4 hours till bedtime how the heck do i work that out?? he wont last that long??

He woke up at 4am again and did this annoying cough like noise for half an hour! it wasnt a cry so i didnt go to him but i certainly couldnt go to sleep. He eventually broke into a cry at 4.40am not a solid one but i was really tired at this point so i fed him, he took the full bottle (100mls, diluted) i tried to pull it out sooner but he started crying. he was back in bed by 4.55am and slept until 7.30am when we had to wake him up.

That last catnap yesterday was late, he woke at 6.15pm so i extended his bedtime to 8pm instead of 7.30 last night. It was only a once off for friday and monday to drive DH to work as i had appointments so thats over now and we wont be doing taht anymore.

Ok, so today has started, i will aim for 2.20hours A time today for the first A time, if you could help me figure out how to do a good routine with a 6 month old where he has dropped a catnap that would be great!

[*Jo*]

the problem is sometimes he wont go down to sleep for his nap until 5.30 which means i get him up at 6pm and then its not very long till bedtime but if i dont let him sleep then he wont make it to his 7.30pm bedtime.

Our wake up time is 7.30am in the mornings, should i be aiming for an 8pm bedtime? oh and he is now teething so thats not gonna help, have given him nurofen but hes a bit grumpy and grizzly today.

he never resists bedtime, even if hes only been up an hour from his nap (which couldnt be helped one day as we were driving home from a friends house at 6.30pm)

[*Jo*]

Ok ladies, i have fantastic news! I was able to really implement "the plan" today and i put him to bed at 2.20hours for his first A time, he went to sleep without a sound and slept for an hour! then he was up for 2.30hours for his 2nd A time, went to sleep without a sound and with the cat in his bed and he slept 1h15mins! so i know i could probably stretch his 2nd A time a little bit more tomorrow but didnt want to push it as he is teething as well.

He is now up and Im loving the fact taht this is working and ive only started trying this today. So now hes been up since 2.30pm should i put him down at 5pm to 5.30pm for a cat nap?? then bedtime at 8pm??? sounds like a good plan to me but im all for being corrected

Oh it feels so good, im hoping this does improve his night wakings hugely!

[cazzieclarity]

Realy pleased you are seeing some improvements, it's fabulous news!

I found that once I extended A with my LO those naps got so much better and fast too. We've had a run the past few days of just 2 naps per day so I'm hoping we are over the worst of the transition period. Another thing that I did to help with the long afternoon A when dropping the catnap was that I shortened it to as little as 5/10mins. I'd let her just have a quick rest/nap in the car or pram which would see her through til bedtime. I've realy found with her that a rest can be as good as a sleep, so I sometimes just give her her dummy and we have a cuddle whilst watching telly -like your LO there's no way she'd sleep unless it's dark, in her room - but the rest does her the world of good and sees her through til bedtime.

I am finding though, that bedtime routine is far quicker now coz she's knackered! no more stories before bed - just bath, bottle, then she's in a coma!

Hope you continue to see the improvements.
Carrie
x

[*Jo*]

It is now the next day and last night we had NO NIGHT WAKINGS! at all!! it was fantastic!!! Of course i was up every couple of hours, cos im so used to having to get up, so used to waiting for him to wake up but he didnt.

Thank you thank you thank you thank you ladies


Mwah mwah mwah (blowing kisses to you all)

We did struggle to make it to 7.30 after that catnap though so perhaps i should let him sleep 45mins there cos it was touch and go, he was grumpy as and he was in bed by 7.15

[*Jo*]

so if hes dropped the catnap soon and is awake 3 hrs does that mean i let him sleep til 4.30pm if his bedtime is 7.30pm??

[*Natasha*]

Well done 

[*Jo*]

so i feed him at those wake up times? which means its not really a 4 hour routine anymore, more of a 4 hour-ish routine? with the 1st, 2nd and 3rd bottlse being 4.5 hours apart, and the last one being 2.5 hours after the 3rd?

[*Jo*]

ok cool.

Man i still cant believe he slept through! I just put him down for his first nap now, so his A time this morning was 2.15hours, he was yawning and nearly falling asleep on me, hes still teething so i know hes a bit more tired than usual. I will try to extend his 2nd A time today to see if that works, only by 10 mins though.

He didnt eat much at his first bottle, maybe 60mls and even that was a struggle to get him to have that, i thought it might be because hes teething? or is that a sign the DF is next to go?

[*Jo*]

sweet, will see how he goes tonight and will probably start doing that tomorrow night

You ladies are fantastic!

[cazzieclarity]

We knocked the DF off when my girl started getting less interested in her morning bottle. she would take 200ml at df and then only about 90ml for breakfast, then she started refusing the DF....again a change that happened very fast in our house.... I can't keep up with her!

As for the 4hr EASY, i've found that since I introduced solids I don't have to be so regimented about the feed times. I've also found that because I know she can go to sleep independently, I will often feed her before her nap in the morning/afternoon if it suits me better. Sometimes she falls asleep on the bottle but it doesn't matter so much now because we've taught her to go to sleep independently.

Fab news about the sleep through. Things are looking up here aswell on the EW front. 5.30am this morning and then straight back to sleep after 15mins babbling and up for the day at 6.30am. It feels wonderfull doesn't it? and it's DH's birthday today aswell!
x

[Shiv52]

So glad it is going well xx

[*Jo*]

well yesterday it went like this

Asleep 9.45 - 11.30
Asleep 1.50 - 3.20
Catnap 5.30-6
bed 7.30

he seemed quite unsettled through the night and would wake up quite a few times but eventually put himself back to sleep.
he woke at:
3.30am
5.20am
5.50am
6.20am
7.30am (i came and woke him up)

Do you think i leet him sleep too much during the day?

[*Jo*]

Hi Stacy, He turned 6 months old yesterday andhe woke up with his tooth popping through, its just a little bit of one but its sharp so its definitly there and i can see it, last night he woke up at 4.30am and wouldnt go back to sleep until 5am after nurofen and a small bottle and even that took awhile for him to settle after that. I did nothing different yesterday for naps. Now today instead of doing 2hrs15 i did 2hrs 25mins for his first A time (he looked like he was handling it ok)and hes woken up 30mins later, is this due to his teeth? hes woken up happy, in fact hes still in his cot now gurggling away happily. if hes only had 30mins sleep i guess his next A time should only be 2 hours?

I had three wonderful nights of sleeping through, hes been right grumpy the last few days, cant leave him alone for even a minute at times, nothing will make him happy and then there are times when hes fine. Hes also been sitting up by himself, he sat up for 10mins with no help from us last night, we jsut sat there watching him and talking to him, we couldnt beleive it, the only reason it stopped was that it was time for bottle and bed...

On a good note, the nurse rang yesterday and i told her the good news and she was thrilled for me, she said theres no need to watch the CC video she left for me to watch if what im doing is working.... grrrr why cant she admit taht she was wrong?

[*Jo*]

Im waaay scared to drop that Catnap! hahaha. i let him go 2hours A time after that and he slept 2 hours, hes about to go and have a catnap in half an hour, im trying not to go over 3 hours sleep during the day as he tends to wake up at night if i do