help with morning nap time (8 month old)

[firsttimemummy]

My DS (8 months old next week) was in a really good routine but the last week or so his morning sleep has gone completely off routine and I am not sure how to adjust it.  Fortunately though he now sleeps in his cot and goes down with little or no fuss (recently I was resorting to cuddling him for his sleep as it was the only way to get him to sleep and into a routine, but that;s another story!).

Until recently his routine was

6-7am wake and b/f followed by solids
8.30 sleep (hour and a half, in bed beside me)
11am milk
12 solids
1.30 sleep (hour and a half in cot, goes down instantly with no fuss)
3pm milk
5pm solids
6/-7pm bedtime routine, bath, milk (if a short sleep during the afternoon he goes to bed nearer 6; if slept well, it's around 7)
wakes once early evening for milk feed if fell asleep during milk feed at bedtime



Now he can start showing signs of tiredness any time from 8-10am but he will not sleep for more than 20 mins (and not sure he sleeps but is quiet in his cot, but I think he does nap!).  I have tried various times and getting him in his cot or in my bed but it makes no difference.  He then is usually grumpy about half an hour later so I know he needs the sleep.  It also doesn't work trying to put him back to bed for a second time.

If he was to sleep after his 11 feed, for example, would his afternoon sleep need adjusted too?  Although 11am does seem pretty late!  At the moment he is able to grizzle through the morning on just that short sleep and meal times etc are still fine.  He has recently just started sleeping all night (not even hearing him grumble in the night which is the first time since he was a few months old!) so I guess he maybe gets more sleep in the night.  By his afternoon sleep he is ready to sleep and I think that is cause he crawls around now and is tired - maybe in the morning he isn't physically tired enough?  He also now tends to sleep til 7am instead of nearer 6.

Any suggestions would be fantastic!! 

[~*Nicole*~]

Hi....you may find that your lo will do better if you push your am nap a little bit. Maybe to 8:45 or even 9:00 (although doing so slowly is recommended) I would maybe try for a nap at 8:45 am every day for at least 3 if not 5 or so days to see if the nap gets better/longer. Right now, 20 minutes could be a sign of OT from fighting the nap and not getting enough sleep recently overall. But if you stay consistent with the time the length could improve. If you get a short am nap, I would try for an earlier pm nap to try to get out of the OT thing, which is likely causing you trouble in general. He may have been UT originally for the first nap and it may have turned into OT after a few days, you know? So if he is waking at 9:00 for example (only 30 mins say) the next A time should be rather short...maybe even only 2 hours. So you can do a snack with a brief BF (so he won't wake from hunger) and then a nap again around 11 just for a day or two to try to catch up the sleep. You may even need a CN to make it to bed depending on how long he will nap at 11. If you push him til his 1:30 nap time on too little sleep you'll likely keep seeing this OT nap refusal stuff. If he does well on catching up sleep this way you can go back to your original routine and extend your first A time for a later am nap?

Please feel free to ask any questions as this may be confusing.

[firsttimemummy]

Thanks for that.  He seems to make up for the sleep in the afternoon at the moment. He went to sleep at 1pm and is still asleep now at 3.10!!  I will persevere with a sleep at 8.45 for a few days and see how I get on .....

[firsttimemummy]

Could you suggest a sample EASY routine for my DS and I think the whole routine needs tweaking!  He is 8 months old on Monday.

At the moment his routine seems to be
Wake AND b/f 7AM
9am Sleep (shows signs of tiredness any time from 8 - today he slept 9am to 9.50 but was a struggle to get him to sleep even though he was rubbing his eye etc like made)
11am little bit of milk
12 solids
1.00 sleep (goes to sleep almost instantly with on crying usually).  Sleeping for 2-2.5 hours
3pm milk
5pm solids
bath and bed (as not been sleeping long during the day he is ready for bed between 6 and 6.30 - he is so tired he isn't wanting bedtime milk, but wakens a couple of hours later for it. Again he goes down to sleep immediately)
that is him until 6.30/7am

If you could suggest a suitable routine I am sure I can get him into it as at the moment he is all over the place, and can keep going for hours (which I know makes him OT, etc).  He seems to be teething at the moment which I think is disrupting his sleep during the day - yesterday afternoon I expected him to have a long sleep but he woke with a sore cry (if you know what I mean!) after about an hour and wouldn't go back to sleep.  I gave him paracetamol before his sleep this morning and it didn't seem like a pain he woke with....

Thanks so much.  When I have a guideline routine then I am sure his morning sleep will get better again. 

[~*Nicole*~]

Let's see. Around 8 months, los can start to handle close to 3 hours of A time. So....with a 7:00 am wake up time, you have a couple of options.

7-wake/BF(I'll put BF for all milk feeds)
8-solids breakfast
10-11-nap (wake after 1 hr.)
11-wake/BF
12-solids lunch
1:30/2 (follow tired signs) nap til 3:30/4 (try for 2 hrs.)
3:30-wake/BF (unless this feed has been dropped--then maybe substitute with a snack to extend time until dinner)
5:30/6:00-solids dinner
6:45-BF
7-bedtime ( I am assuming he is not making it to bedtime b/c he is not napping long enough during the day hopefully having 3 hours daytime sleep will be enough rest to get him through)

OR

7-wake/BF
8-solids breakfast
10-12-nap (don't wake and hope for 2 hrs.)
12-wake/BF
1-lunch
3-4:30-nap
4:30-wake/BF (unless lo isn't interested and has dropped the third milkfeed-you can substitute a finger food snack and sippy cup if you want to try that)
5:30/6:00-solids dinner
7:00-BF bedtime routine (or earlier if need be)
7/7:30-bedtime

Some los like their first A time short....so you could stay with the 9am nap, BUT you're lo is waking after 50 mins. etc. which sometimes indicates a preference for a longer A time before the nap. So pushing it SLOWLY to 10 may help that. Like I said before you can try moving it by 10/15 minute increments every few days or so.

IF you do not think he can handle the long A time and is too tired, I would stick with what you're doing until he can handle a bit more b/c you don't want to get him OT. I know some people do 2 two hour naps for a total of 4 hours, like 9-11 and 2-4 (or 10-12 and 3-5-but then bedtime gets later) but your lo isn't lasting until 11 on a 9 am nap so I don't think you'll get 4 hours, but you can try for 3 or 3.5 hours with the schedules above but the naps put you later in the day and get you to bedtime a little easier, but it won't happen overnight b/c you have to go slooooowly.

The last thing is some people find that they change their A's throughout the day and have a short one, medium one, and longest before bed or the reverse, longest, medium, and shortest A before bed. You sort of have to figure out your little guy and what he likes. My daughter always seemed to prefer the SAME A time between each sleep UNLESS it was short, like a 45 min. or 30 min. nap, then her next A would be much shorter, but anything over an hour was good for regular A time (unless teething etc.)

WOW I rambled on. Sorry if that was confusing.