Hello,
I'm seeking help with my 14.5 month old's schedule. He went down to one nap somewhere around 11 months old, but it's never gone that great as most of the time he will only nap for 1.5 hours. Recently he went back to two naps, then he got sick and was teething again; everything went totally crazy. Now he is mostly well and seems to be stuck in the "two naps are too much, one is not enough" phase. We're also struggling with night wakings.
We did CIO around 11 months which was the only way to make him fall asleep on his own (prior to that he nursed to sleep). It has mostly worked and he does go to sleep on his own, generally speaking. We've had to "redo" CIO several times after visiting my mom or being sick when he got back into the habit of me getting him when he cried/nursing him to sleep.
His "schedule" more or less today:
Wake up around 7:00 -7:30 a.m.
Down for nap around 10:00-10:30 - wake up around 12:00 or so (I know if we go back to one nap I have to push this later, it just stinks because he is so ready for a nap at this and cranky because he is tired. If I make him stay up he wakes up from his nap still tired b/c he only sleeps for 1.5 hr most of the time)
Try to put him down for another nap around 3:30 - 4:00 and nap gets refused, he just whines/plays in his crib
Bedtime around 7:00-7:30 p.m. at which point he should be tired but has some sort of second wind going on. Husband argues with me that Matthew is "not tired" so he never goes to bed super early. And if he does, the night wakings get really bad.
The night waking occurs anywhere from 9:30 pm to 4:00 am. You never know when it will be. It started a month or two ago and it used to be a once a week thing. Now it is happening every other night or more (had a short break in it while he was sick now it's started back again). These are not the wakings where he cries and goes back to sleep after a minute or two (he does that as well sometimes). He will wake up and then either just be AWAKE for an hour or two. He rolls around, babbles, thumps his foot against the mattress, etc. I can see him on the video monitor. He'll be quiet and still for 10 minutes at a time and you'll think he's make asleep but then he starts moving and babbling again. After he's been awake for sometime, he will usually start crying and rubbing his eyes. Sometimes he will NOT stop and I have to go get him. Recently with the night wakings he just wakes up and screams this horrible scream and stands there and won't stop. Even if I go get him I often can't get him back to sleep.
I really just don't get what is going on with the NW. He should be all rights be very tired, so why does he wake up and just lay there awake? He knows how to fall asleep on his own so it seems like if he woke, he could just put himself back to sleep. I'm really at a loss for what to do. Even if I let him figure it out on his own, which I've done many nights, he still keeps waking, keeps me awake in the middle of the night with his babbling and then to top it all off he is tired the next day because he didn't get enough sleep. My husband and sister in law think he just isn't sleepy enough b/c I expect him to sleep too much. But I think a 12 hour sleep at night is reasonable. Especially if he goes back to one nap a day and he is only napping 1.5 hours during the day.
Any help is GREATLY appreciated.
