Getting things in order

[Yazzie]

Hey there ladies,

My ds turns 6 months old this Saturday & we've been all over the place for quite a while, so I've been thinking we might be in need of redoing things to get them in order. We have a good system going & I think he's happy & am not really because of unpredictable short naps & NWs. We used to have EWs, but I think we have this under control by making sure he isn't OT by the end of the day.

We have an almost 9 to 9 day, which I also want to move to 8 to 8 & stick with that, so it might be worth reprogramming all together. Been going through TBWSAYP & according to the plan, I'm supposed to stick with the timings, even if he's getting OT??

So here a hypothetical view as how I'd expect our day to be like tomorrow:
E: 08.00 AM
A: 08.20 AM
Solids @ 09.00 AM
S : 10.10

----- If he does what I think he would, he'll be up somewhere between 10.40 ~ 11.00, so according to the plan I should keep him in his crib & try extending till 12.00, which is our aim. I then take him out & follow with BFing & solids after an hour & keep him up till 02.10, although like that he would have been up for about 3 hours..!

Am I getting this right or is my brain becoming to thick..

Hope I get any feedback, really want to start this tomorrow.

Thanks,
Adam's Mom

[sherry lynn]

Hi Adam's mom -
You are reading the book the book correctly, however, you are going to have a very hard day ahead of you.

Are you sure there is no other way you can get him back on track?

Have you tried different A times?

Does your son go to sleep independently? Usually pu/pd is used for prop issues or when  little one is very new to a routine.

[Yazzie]

Thx for the post..

Our only prop is a dummy, other than that I put him down sleepy & he does the rest of the work, hasn't been easy though..!

We're having lots of problems with A times & till now he's barely doing 2.10 & he turns 6 months on Saturday..!..& another point is that I'm going back to work for 3 days a week on January the 3rd & little one will be staying with  my MIL.

Starting next week we will be going over to my MIL, for my lo to get used to being there & for my MIL to *hopefully* learn what we're doing, so I really hope that things would be sorted out by then.

Do you think this would work?

Cheers,
Adam's Mom

[sherry lynn]

Wow, that is a really rough situation.
What temperament is your LO?

To be honest, thing tend to change/fall apart for a while when they start care with another person anyways, so I would hate for you to work so hard on this, and then for it to all change when he goes to your MIL.

Also, I haven't seen a lot of people have success with extending a nap with PU/PD. That might be wrong of me to say, but it just seems that it takes them to the next feed. So I would give it maybe 20 min or so just for your own sanity. And then get him up, do a little bit of low key activity feed him and put him back down.

Do you ever have success with extending naps any other way?

What cues is he giving you at 2h10m to let you know he is ready to go down for a nap?

[Yazzie]

I guess you just confirmed my fears.....I really am worried about this whole change & thing that focusing on getting things sorted @ my MIL's is more a priority @ the moment, than getting our routine sorted, if only I could extend my leave..

As for my lo's tempermament, last time  checked he was Text Book/Angel with a dash of Touchy, so am getting lots of mixed signals here..hehe...his main cues would be rubbing his eyes, moving his head from right to left & just having
that "it's enough mommy" look in his eyes.....So, for instance today he started his cues @ 11.30 AM, having been up @ 09.40 AM, so I waited for the third eye rub, then started prepping for his nap, he was already in his swing having solids @ the time, so I think we were pretty low key. We then did a nice quick walk ard the living room, then sleeping bag & he went down smoothly @ 11.55, so that's actually 02.15h.

We've never really tried PU/PD & the rare times that I can extend his naps are using sh/pat, although we do more patting than shushing here.

Off note, we had a terrible night yesterday....ds was up crying @ 03.00 AM with a congested nose, we tried clearing it, but nothing seemed to come out, till 06.00 AM he just wouldn't sleep on his back, that's how he sleeps, so dh ended up sleeping with ds sleeping on his tummy & every time he tried to put him down, ds would wake up, that's until miraculously @ 06.30 we were able to clear some mucus & he slept fine on his back, of course dh & I were ready to shoot ourselves by then..hehehe, anyhow, he ended up sleeping past his 09.00 AM awake time & into the next sleep cycle, getting up @ 09.40.

Cheers,
Adam's Mom

[sherry lynn]

If he is sick you definitely can't start this weekend   It's not fair to do sleep training if they are sick.

Have you talked with your MIL about this.

Is she willing to try things your way? I know my MIL is very skeptical of sleep training.

[Yazzie]

Oh boy, I feel like everything is against me.....the poor little thing has a running nose & sneezing like crazy & he just doesn't understand what's happening to him..!

I think my MIL knows how much my lo needs his sleep, she saw how grumpy he can be when he doesn't sleep enough, however I'm not sure how much she's stick the routine....This is one of reasons why I decided o do work from home 2 days a week, so that I can sort of keep things under control & help him catch up on any needed sleep.

I have a question, is it normal for my lo to not be able to make more than 2.15 hrs A time @ this age?

Cheers,
Adam's Mom

[sherry lynn]

This may seem weird, but that is actually a hard question for me to answer.
The reason is that my LO was BARELY doing 2 hours A time at 6 months. But, he wasn't napping well either. So I don't know if I just didn't push him far enough. Does that make sense? I tried, it's not that I didn't try, but he just really really struggled with increasing his A time.
Then all of a sudden when he was about 9 months old he jumped to 3 hours of A time in one day. And he started napping so much better. It was really weird.
But, I have seen plenty of LO who are on the low side of A time.

I will say this though. Extending naps was a tad easier if he was more on the side of OT then UT. Now, he couldn't be very OT, just a tad. It ended in disaster if he was too OT.

You could just try extending him even by just 5 min and see how it goes.