11 month old, EWs have gone on FOREVER. Ready to give up!

[smahalik]

I agree 100% with the fact that I feel lucky that Jack sleeps so many hours at night!!  I have friends whose LO may sleep till 8 AM, but still wake up a couple of times through the night.  Or LOs don't even go to bed until 11 PM.  When I complain to people that Jack's an early riser, they ask how long he sleeps and I tell them 10.5-12 hours, they're always amazed.  I try to remind myself of this at 5 AM:)
Jack went through a period (during disruption due to family visits) where he was waking every morning at 4:30!!  That was SOOOO painful.  After the family was gone and things were back to normal, I did W2S and it worked like a charm, BUT I had to experiment to figure out two things:  1) how long before  his waking to go in and 2) how much to wake him up.  For Jack, 1 hour prior to waking works well.  And I had to wake him up quite a bit to have it work.  If I just rubbed his back so that he turned over or heard his breathing change, that wasn't enough.  I would actually lift him out of the crib, rock him (standing) for minute, and put him back.  95% of the time he would go right back to sleep on his own (the other 5% was painful).  If you have a habit waking, I would highly recommend trying it.  It only takes a few days to find out if it works.  BUT if it's not habit and really just a problem with OT or naps, etc, then it probably won't really help.
Thanks for the message, I hope we both get this worked out!!!!

[smahalik]

Just wanted to provide an update, as things are still very up and down from one day to the next.  So Saturday he woke at 5:15 AM, napped from 8:50-9:45 AM and then 1:30-2:30 PM, and went to bed at 6:30 PM.  Yesterday he woke at 5:30 AM (getting better), napped from 9:30-10:30 AM, then had a rough afternoon and wouldn't nap until 3:30 and woke after only 20 minutes!  We put him down at 6:00 instead of 6:30 to try to make up for this terrible nap.  But, no surprise, he woke up at 4:30 AM this morning.  I went and laid with him in his crib and think he finally slept again from ~6:00-6:30 AM.  I don't even think I can go anywhere today because of the huge bags under my eyes. 
It seems pretty clear to me that this afternoon nap is really our big obstacle.  Especially since I'm only allowing him to sleep for ~1 hour in the mornings.  And he's really never been a very good afternoon nap taker, he's always taken much better naps in the morning.  It just seems like we'll have 1 or 2 good days, make a little progress, and then have a bad one and go all the way back to the beginning (or worse...4:30).  Is there ANY other thing I can be doing differently?  If I can't get him sleeping better by the end of this week, I'm just going to have to resort to moving his bedtime to 8:00 pm so he'll at least sleep till 6:00 or 6:30.  *sigh*

[*Liz*]

You know I am going to say this - but shifting bedtime backwards without moving all the naps will make for a very OT baby - now it just depends how well he handles OT but for Jacob this would meant screaming for 45 mins to go to sleep, several NWs and a total of 10 hrs sleep. It wouldn't just mean 10 hrs sleep from 8-6 instead of 7-5  .

Your other option is to start moving back the morning nap to get a full 2hr nap, and then squeeze a quick catnap in the afternoon. That might be a better option if he favours his morning nap, and even if he goes to bed OT he will not get as OT as is total amount of sleep in 24hrs will be more.

((hugs)) I was up at 5.30am this morning as well. Honestly - these babies  - how dare they grow new teeth!!

[anna*]

I know you're feeling desperate, and of course you will need to try whatever you feel will be best for your family, but when I would put my LO to bed at 8, he would still wake up at 5-5.30, but just more OT from having a shorter night. I'm sorry I don't have a magic answer for you, only that time will (eventually) iron things out and this is just a crazy, awful age for sleep.

[smahalik]

Of course I knew you would respond that way;)  But at this point, anything later than 4:30 or 4:45 is better, no matter what the bedtime.  Thanks again for your responses, ladies.  We'll see how this week goes. 

[mimi1017]

Hello! Wondering how is it going? Would like to tell you what finally has worked for me after soo long of a habitual 5:30 ish wake up.  I was trying to extend her A times, pushing back her bedtime, etc.  Finally, I realized to stop to extend her so much and listen to her.  She sleeps 3 hours after morning wake up, 3-3.25 hrs. before second nap, and 4.25 hours A time til bedtime.  I decided to do W2S like you suggested, but at 3am one day and she calmly put herself back to sleep in 45 mins. and then woke at 6:15am.  Since then I follow those A times and she is in bed 13 hours from wake up.  If she goes more than that she wakes early and I have to put her down at 2.75 hrs. for first nap to avoid OT.  I only cut naps if she goes back to waking early, so she could make it up at night, but I make sure she is in bed at 4 hrs. A time before bed time.  Hope it's working out, or that some of these suggestions work.