6 mo. old EASY - can't get it right

[C_mother]

Yes - we are 7 months in just over a week (hard to believe).  I just bumped the first A from 2:30 today, but have had the second A of 2:45 for 4 or 5 days. Hopefully, I can nudge them a bit more soon and bid farewell to the CN!  We are still getting 10.5 - 11 hour nights (from a kid who did 12.5 - 13.5 up until a month ago)...but I am really, really hoping that they will lengthen again.  Our days are long, so I really can't expect anything different from him until I adjust his routine   For now I am being self-interested and enjoying my normal night's sleep.

I think that you are right about the building OT. I wonder if maybe you could try coming up with a routine that is about average for his age and then doing some clock-watching -- the way that Tracey describes the transition for a 4 mth old?  I think there would be OT, but if he is OT now, then it may be the only way to get him on a routine?  Just brainstorming here, but I think that you are right about the bad nights making things worse.  It does seem like he is tired from the bad nights, which messes up his naps, then nights. yikes!!  I will take a look at the book tonight because I think that there is a section about doing an overhaul for older babies...

Hope that the rest of the day goes well

[Mjaz]

Hmm - if you recall a chapter like that, I will look, too.  In which book - Solves All Your Problems?  I know that things were working well b/c I was getting cues...now those are few and far between for some reason.  I will watch the first A time very closely tomorrow and see what happens.  We had all 30 minute naps today - some additional APOPing - and we're sadly probably looking at an early bedtime. 

[Mjaz]

I couldn't find anything in the book - I think it's really for 1 year and older.  Anyway, I know that for Elijah good naps = a good night.  Since he is not having any good naps our nights are falling apart.  We had a week of STTN with 4 hours of day sleep.  Good, solid naps.  And now those are gone Ideally, we'd have 2 two hour naps and get rid of the CN.

I don't think it helps that he's had a cold and it's going in and out - some days he seems better, other days, like today, he's all stuffed up.  I am doing my best to help him with the cold, but I don't know how much I can tweak right now...

I will try to wait him out tomorrow and watch for sleep cues.  Thanks for your continued support ladies!

[Love, laughter, & PJs]

Melinda - I hear you on good naps=good nights for sure.  We haven't had good naps in days and thus our horrendous string of nights.  He finally had good naps today, though, so fingers crossed for tonight. 

Sounds like you're kind of stuck until he can shake this cold. I agree that you can't really tweak when he's not feeling well.   Do you generally find his cues reliable these days?  Once Austin was 6 mo or so I found I really couldn't rely on him at all. Either he'd give cues and then a totally UT nap or no cues at all and be totally OT. 

Once he's feeling better you might want to think about set naps again.  It worked really well to break us out of our bad cycle.  (For a while anyway.)

C_mother - hope those nights lengthen again for you soon!

[elf]

Hi Girls... We had another STTN again.  7pm - 6.15am where he sort of stirred in a light sleep til around 6.35am where he woke fully.  He played happily in his cot til 7am when I got him up.  Kate - I am waking him up because I have first of all focused on the night sleep - giving him what I believe is the minimum day sleep he needs to have a good night.  Today I am adding 15 mins to his am sleep and if that doesn't affect his PM sleep I will aim to have 2 x 1.5 hour naps.  If nights are still good then a few days after that I am going to add 15 mins to the pm sleep.  I'm just trying to work out what his sleep requirements are, first getting the nights sorted....