really EW problems with 13 months old

[zissi]

hi there,

I have a post going on the NW board but decided to post here too since my little girl is now 13.5 months. she has been on 1 nap since she was 10months old, mainly because she handled A time well and gave us nasty long NW's. they have stopped since and she is sleeping through the night sometimes however gets up really early. she used to sleep till 7am, then it became 6, then 5.30 etc and now its sometimes as early as 4am. I cannot accept this and really don't know what to do. I think her waking is OT related, read somewhere that its an indicator for OT when babies wake after 9/10 hrs of sleep. for a week I tried really early BT around 5.40pm, she settled quite quickly, usually around 6pm, but on those nights she actually had loads of NW's and not necessarily a later wu in the morning, only once I think she slept till 6am but that was after a quite disturbed night. so our usual routine is like this
WU 5am
nap around 10/10.30 - 12.30/1pm, sometimes she wakes in between the nap but can be easily resettled
BT 6.30, asleep by 7pm.
I know this is a very long day on one nap only and probably contributes to the EW.

she goes to daycare 3 days per week and they can't really putter down for 2 naps there, however this weekend when she woke particularly early at 4am I was able to fit in a second nap and she had something like this
wu 4am
nap 1 9am-11.20
nap 2 3.40-4.10
BT 6.30, asleep by 7pm
I woke her from both naps so she doesn't compensate for short nights.

so even when I do 2 naps we still get these nasty early wakings. in the past I was able to resettle her after lets say 1.5hrs of being awake but these days it doesn't work. she just refuses to go back down.
she settles herself completely independently for BT and naps. so its not a sleep training issue.

any ideas what else I can do? I really need her to sleep longer in the morning. Im half thinking of shifting her whole day to BT at 8pm so she sleeps at least till 6am. this could obviously go very wrong too and she could potentially still be up at 4am... 

any insight would be very much appreciated ladies!!

[Scottishmummy]

Hi!

I think her nap is too early in the day. It looks like she's doing around a 5hr A time, so the 10am nap is probably maintaining the 5am Wu...and the Wu is probably getting earlier and earlier as her A time increases with age.

I would try sticking with 1 nap but gradually pushing it later and later in 20-30 min increments every few days until it is starting much closer to 12 & keep BT the same.

[Haribo2012]

Hi there I'd agree, I'd push nap a bit too. Will she be cuddled back to sleep at 4am? We had to do this for a while with ds1 x

[zissi]

the problem is whenever I put her down later for that nap she naps shorter as a result, due to being OT. also in the creche they do set naps at 11.30 once she moves to the bigger room which is next month. doing a 12pm nap time at home probably still is a good idea and in creche 11.30 since she is super overstimulated there with all the activities.
she just started walking and is super tired, today it took one hour at BT for her to finally sleep. Im not expecting a good night. she is off daycare for 4 days on friday and I may start pushing her nap out in increments and see if that works. DD1 was on set naps and BT at this age and we didn't have any EW issues. but this LO is a a hard one to crack...
no, I cannot resettle her once she is awake in the morning, feeding etc do not work anymore. 

[Haribo2012]

Has she ever tacked on day sleep to night, EBT could be useful for a couple of days see if you get a longer night??x

[zissi]

for about a week I tried super EBT, around 5.40pm, that was the earliest I could get her in, being home from daycare only at 5pm. she settled before 6pm BUT on those nights she had many NW's and still EW. so I concluded EBT doesn't work for us. she doesn't tack on, she only does it by compensating with naps, as in she can nap really long when put down at the right A time, in her case her current comfortable A time is 4.5hrs, whereas it used to be 5.5hrs. I don't understand why she has gone back so much in her A time. maybe it has to do with her increased mobility... 

[Haribo2012]

Definitely with a new skill she will be tired easier, maybe just go for a little earlier bedtime say 15-30 mins see if it helps. Often NW early in the night are from OT.

[Scottishmummy]

I think with the EW and being used to a mid morning nap, it is unfortunately inevitable that she will get tired when you try to push it later. I think small increments and sticking with it & maybe bring BT a little earlier on short nap days if you need to, as PP suggests, is all you can do.

[zissi]

I will keep pushing the A time out. today at daycare she had nearly 6 hrs and slept then for 3 hrs! lets see how the night goes...will keep you posted!