Cant figure out my 7 MO's A times

[Tao]

Hello There 

I really need help!

Up until 6 months old, I had my DD all figured out and she was STTN, had 3 perfect naps and then things started to go wonky which makes me think that she's transitioning to drop that third nap so I started pushing out her A times but honestly I'm at a point now where I can't tell if she's waking at the 45 minute mark, OT, UT or if it's just teeth which I DO think are really coming in at this point because she's just fussy all the time! She wakes at least once in the middle of the night now and I do nurse her and put her back awake and she'll fall right back asleep. Also, she really drinks vigorously so I think she IS hungry despite our introduction of solids already.

Here's an example of yesterday's EASY:

6:30/7:00 Wake up (The thing is she wakes before this each day but she'll suck her thumb and I think will go back to sleep on and off but I'm never for sure so I just kind of get her when her head pops up and she's not sucking her thumb anymore. I think this WU time is what makes it difficult to figuring our her first nap time because sometimes I'm not truly sure when she's awake awake or if she's awake but in and out of sleep...)

9:30-11:00 Nap (She's pretty fussy by this time so I'll put her down and she'll sleep right away. Yesterday she had a 1.5 nap but right now she's up at 45 minutes playing around so that's where I get confused and I'm not sure if she's UT right now..)

1:30 Nap (I put her back down at 1:30 yesterday and she woke after 45 minutes. She kept flipping and rolling and when she cried, I placed her back into position since she can't flip back to the way she likes to sleep. I did this for an hour and she just did not seem tired so I finally gave up after an hour)

I'd like to be able to have a 9:30 nap and then a 1:30 nap so that I can drop her third nap but on days where she only has a 45 minute p.m. nap, I have to throw in a catnap to make it to BT but she really fights that third nap.

Argh. So. I know LO's at this age on average can handle 3 hours or so so in the morning if she's sucking and seems awake should I just get her despite the time? I try to let her "sleep" as long as possible in hopes that we can make it as close to the 7 a.m. mark as possible...

Sorry for the very confusing message. I'm just all over the place right now and i think I need her to be back on some good naps so that my days aren't so crazy. I have a 3.5 yo who has classes some days of the week and I've totally dropped her classes for now to get 7 MO back on track but it's been a few weeks now.

The other thing to mention is that even during awake times she IS really fussy which is really not like her. She was my textbook baby so i'm thinking maybe teeth are invading on our sleep or maybe she's just super OT. On days where she has a short a.m. nap, I usually limit A time to 2 hours and then will put her back early for her second nap and then will need to fit in a third nap.

Thanks so much for your insight. I need help getting back on track!

Hugs to you,

[amayzie]

SHUT UP WITH THAT PICTURE!!!! TOO CUTE!!!

Argh- i HATE the 3-2 transition! I've done both that and the 2-1 and actually disliked the 3-2 more!

I think to crack it you just need to keep pushing the A times up to the 3 hours. The 45 min naps seem like under tired, especially the waking up and fussing around- just keep working on adding 10 mins every couple of days. I found once you get to this too that the cat nap becomes more trouble than it;s worth and can lead to bed time fighting, night waking and early waking (yuk!).

At this age too they can be fussy if they can't crawl yet- they WANT to get to stuff but can't. SOmtimes too I found that my guy would gt fussy if he was bored- and my guy is also textbook, so would sometimes look tired when he is bored- it's as if he's saying 'well nothing much is happening here- may as well nap' then he'll wake up after 45 mins!! THEN complain at the end of the day because he's TIRED!!!! If only they'd just listen to mumma to begin with!

Sooo... push on to 3 hours? I found at this age you are better to have a slightly longer A time to bed and an early bed time rather than a cat nap. It might also help you to lose the night waking- although it is normal at this age to have a night feed- if you weren't having it before it could be caused by the transition..

[Tao]

Hi Katy,

Thanks so much! Your little guy ain't so bad himself Are those curls I see? I LOVE curls!

Anyhoo, thanks for the very encouraging message. I totally need it today.

So yesterday...

WU: 7 a.m.
Nap 9:30-10:15 (tried getting her to go back until 11 a.m. when I raised the white flag)
Nap 12:30-2:40 (I just let her sleep as long as possible so I could avoid the third nap)
BT 6:00 (I know this was pushing her A time a bit but I didn't want to fuss with a third nap)

BUT! Here's the problem... and I'm totally not quite sure why (maybe OTness I'm thinking?)

She woke at 8 p.m. (I nursed her thinking her dinner was too early)
She woke at 2 a.m. until 3 a.m. and just screamed and fussed! I tried consoling her in her bed
She slept from 3 a.m. to 5 a.m. and woke again and was up until 6:30. She kept flipping over and screaming...obviously super OT by now I'm thinking
Finally she slept from 6:30 to 7:30 a.m...

I just put her down for a nap at 9:45 as I'm thinking she must be EXHAUSTED!

1) do you think she was OT from yesterday's push to BT?
2) When I push her A time out each day since right now I'm doing about 2.5 hours A time, do I just do 10 minutes each day until we finally reach 3 hours and then just stick to 3 hours or will I need to push 10 minutes and stay there for a few days?

I remembering doing all of this with DD1, but I have no recollection. Maybe I pushed it out of my mind, lol.

Thanks again for listening. I'm praying that tonight will be back to normal. It makes waking once a night seem easy cheesy.

Hugs!

[amayzie]

The waking at 8pm was ost probably OT at bed time- that's pretty classic. But i wouldn't have wanted to do a bed time any earlier than that.... At this point you want to avoid the cat nap as it can muck things up

With pushing the A times you should increase them as fast as you think your LO can manage. SO at  you LO's age my guy could handle a 15 min increase every couple of days- but not 30 minutes push at once (did it, failed it... ) So if you think your LO can manage a push every day do it- if not increase by 10/15 mins, wait a couple of days then increase again.... Does that answer the question?

fingers crossed your night is/was better!

[Tao]

Hi Katy,

So last night, we had 3 night wakings still; luckily, she wasn't screaming and crying...I was able to console her to go back to bed pretty quick. These past two days are odd. Maybe you can help me decipher what it means? Both yesterday and today were similar in that:

6:30 Wake Up (at 8:30 during our morning walk she started to fall asleep on me, probably from being tired from waking up so many times at night but i kept her up and didn't let her sleep)

9:25 Nap-10:15 (woke at 45 minutes again! This was really close to 3 hours so I wasn't sure why she was still up. Maybe OT? I kept trying to get her to go back but I'm noticing now that if she wakes and pops her head up, she really won't go back and it's a losing battle. If she wakes and goes back to sucking her thumb, she can resettle herself.)

12:30-2:00(I put her down earlier since her a.m. nap was so short. She had a normal nap at this point)

This is where the problem was. At 5 I tried to put her down just to see if she would even take a cat nap to prevent OTness at BT but she woudln't have it. Kept flipping and playing around so I got her and

6:00 BT

I'm anticipating night wakings again tonight and I'm realizing that I can't stretch our her day without her taking a good 1.5 hour nap in the a.m. since she's up by 6:30. I would love to have her doing 9:30 a..m. nap and 1:30 p.m. nap or even later so that we can do a decent normal bedtime without having her have SUCH a long A time before BT.

Like you had said, she was up after 45 minutes of BT which I'm sure was OT.

Help? What do you think that morning 45 minute nap is about? How is she not tired enough after close to 3 hours of A time and a night of several wakings?

Thanks Dear! I so appreciate you,
christine

[amayzie]

I reckon you should bite the bullet and push the A time up even further in the AM- that nap is most probably an under tired nap. At this age my guy was on stupidly high A times- even up to 3 hours 45 mins They can manage heaps before they start crawling as they have lots of energy to expend. I would try adding another 10/15 mins (hard i know) to that first A time to see how you go.

Don't panic too much if you can't get the first A time up- you can have a short and a long nap in the day, you just will need one of the A times to be longer to make it to a sensible bed time. Also- i'd abandon the cat nap- it's just not going to be worth it if you need to spend heaps of time settling or worrying about settling. If you are REALLY worried any day you could pop her in the car and take her for a drive if you can to have a quick 15/20 minute power nap- but otherwise just abandon it...