3yo dropped nap (cold turkey) early bedtime backfiring now....

[Jazzandh]

Hi, I dropped DS2's (3.3) nap in early December. He is low sleep needs roughly an hour under average (presently 11hrs) and even with capped naps was no longer managing enough sleep. So we stopped napping and fixed bedtime at 6.45pm which is about the earliest we could manage as a family. (Previous bedtime was 7.40pm).

Across Christmas DS overcame the worst of the OT (NWs etc) and settled into a pattern of asleep by 6.50pm and not waking until 6.30am or so the next morning (a luxury in the household).

So now a month later we have reverted every couple of days to 5am/5.30am wake-ups even though bedtime remains constant.

He is still tired at bedtime and in the car on late pick-ups for my elder son it is a challenge to keep him awake! Even 5 minutes in the car means he will still fall asleep at bedtime but be up at 5am.

We are getting the odd NW - very brief on the mornings where he has been up very early....

I initially thought these EWs were as a result of being OT but now I am wondering whether it could be UT and I need to push bedtime back out a little? (Even though this will cause NW's in the short term even 10 mins push can have this effect - we tread a VERY fine line with this one...but he is a good sleeper once his pattern is established).

He is a rough example of the seesawing that we are experiencing...

Thursday
W 6.00am
S  6.50pm

Friday
W 5am (happy/ singing/ wide awake)
B  6.45pm

Saturday
W 6am
B  6.55pm

Sunday
W 5.30am

He is always asleep within 5 minutes or so and always has been for naps/bedtime.

So as you can see we seem to be seesawing - where he has woken up that bit later and is going to bed at the same time the following day we are getting an early wake-up.

Has anyone else experienced this pattern? I keep thinking he is OT but another part of me has been fooled before by this and it has turned out UT. It is just such a long day, but still early days in terms of the dropped nap, his mood is fine, he is happy when he wakes up, but can be a little temperamental by 6pm.

Any opinions ladies?

[*Becky*]

11 hours seems super low to me for his age so will try and get some eyes from mums of LSN kids....

[michaeljacknnugg]

That sounds really normal to me! My boy is LSN and was on one nap by 2.5 because he was averaging 11hrs total sleep in 24.

It sounds like he needed the earlier bedtimes at first to cope with dropping the nap, but maybe could cope with a later bedtime now. My guy is also very tired at night but will fight it until he is put to bed! Aged nearly 6 he is averaging 10hours a night.

Could you inch bedtime out a bit? We pushed back by an hour over the summer; it took a week to 10 days to adjust but then we did start to get the later wakeups.

[creations]

Ha - I'm going to say the opposite - not helpful for you really.

Mine dropped nap cold turkey at 31 months (we did try some capped and NNDs prior to that but they didn't suit him so it was long nap until cold turkey drop).  Initially we had night (10hr 10.5 hr) plus nap (1.5hr or 2hr) equals new night length, so roughly 11.5hrs night.  After not long went up to 12hr night.  About 5 months later though he needed an earlier BT to allow a bit more night sleep.  The OT was gradual, showed as a bit grouchy in the evening, the odd micro nap in the car of 5 mins or so, EWs around 5am ish and random late WUs in the morning (like 7.30 or 8am) which he has never before done.  So, rather than random micro naps, random mood and random early or late mornings we have moved BT earlier.  He's now doing more like 12hr 15 nights.  We keep trying to get him to bed earlier to allow for a 12.5hr night but we are pretty useless at getting dinner and bath etc done early enough.
WU 6.45am
BT aim for 6.15pm but tends to end up 6.30pm
Even the extra 15 mins night seems to help, but I think he'd do better with the 12.5hr tbh.

If you feel in your gut it's UT then go for the later BT but stick with it like MJ&N says, no point moving for a couple of days then moving it earlier again, you need to give time to settle into it.
If it doesn't work out then try going back to an earlier BT.

[Jazzandh]

Thank you for your views ladies!

My gut is saying Ut but my head says he should be OT!

He has always been roughly an hour under average for sleep (so we are on 11 hours average at present) as has his older brother...never varied from this, but it has also always seemed to mean we have lower tolerance for variations!

I think as Theo seems in good spirits, is not waking in the night etc I am going to go with very slowly pushing bedtime out.

I don't want to go too far, as we need to be up for school at 6.30/6.45am and I would rather not have to wake him (although never had to wake either boy in the past!) ....so think we will start to nudge towards optimum bedtime of 7.20pm (asleep by 7.30pm) for now......

Thank you again.....