Hi everyone,
I have a little boy who is almost 7 and a half months old. He's been on EASY since about 8 weeks and is a very happy baby when kept to his routine, he doesn't deal well with tiredness.
Dominic has always had a shorter activity time than the 'average' baby of his age, up until this week he didn't usually go much longer than 2 hours without getting tired and if for any reason he didn't get enough daytime sleep he would happily go to bed at 6pm and sleep through until 6.30-7.00am (with a df).
About 4 weeks ago we had a really bad fortnight where Dom would wake up several times in the night just screaming and crying and as we were having dribble city during the day we put it down to teething. He got slightly better for a week and then we had another bad week. At the same time as well as waking in the night he started waking up for the day around 5.30am which was just a killer, and his naps dropped to 45 mins so he wasn't properly rested at all and generally crabby.
Anyway, on Monday morning he woke up at 5.50am, had a 45 min nap around 2 hours later and another about 2 hours after that. Dom goes to nursery on a Monday afternoon and he never sleeps well, usually 30 mins is the most he'll have. I picked him up from nursery along with my nephew and my sister came to my house for a cuppa and I never noticed the time but before I knew it it was 7pm and Dom was still playing happily. Normally I take him straight to bed after nursery cos he's so tired and crabby but on Monday he was fine. He was asleep by 7.30pm and I expected him to wake early due to overtiredness but he didn't, he slept until 7.45am on Tuesday morning.
On Tuesday he had an activity time of 2 hours like usual during the day (still 45 minute naps though) and was asleep about 7pm, and again he woke up at 7.45am.
Yesterday morning his activity time suddenly jumped to 3.5 hours in the morning. He didn't look tired or yawn or anything before the 3.5 hours and when I put him to bed he didn't fuss, just went to sleep happily. He slept for about an hour and three quarters. His afternoon activty time was 3 hours but he only slept for 45 minutes, he still managed the rest of the day fine though and went to bed happily at 7.15pm.
This morning he woke at about 6.50am, but dozed until 7.15 when we got him, he again had 3.5 hours of activity time, went to bed happily, woke after 45 mins but put himself back to sleep and I got him up at his next feed time (he had been in bed for an hour and a half). He got tired after 2 and a half hours in the afternoon but only had a 45 min nap, but still managed to stay happy until I put him to bed at 7.15pm.
Sorry this post is so long but I don't know whether it is normal for a baby to suddenly add so much time on to their activity times, or if he is managing for now but will suddenly get extremely overtired?
I am usually pretty good at reading his tired signs and the fact he is going to bed so easily tells me he isn't overtired - he always fights naps if he is - and before I used to try to get him to sleep by about 6.45pm and he would wake anywhere from 6.30 - 7.00am. I would have thought by putting him to bed up to 45 minutes later it would be too much of a time change and he would be too tired. I can't believe he can handle such a change (although I suppose he is doing it himself, I never changes his A times, he did)
I suppose I just need advice as to whether I should carry on letting him lead the way or whether too much has changed too quickly and it will lead to him being all muddled up.
Thanks
Sal
x
