Support and Chat thread for moms of early waking toddlers

[AgnieszkaBZ]

I thought about what you said. So today we'll aim for an earlier bedtime, it means 5-5.30 hours A after the nap. Nothing worse than 5.30 am can happen to us, can it? 
He woke up at 7am today, as I mentioned, so we will have a nap between 12.30-14.00 and then bath at 7pm, asleep at 7.30 (half an hour earlier than yesterday). It sounds good.
In the night I go to his room to find him sitting in his crib usually. I just need to say "lie back, dear" and he usually does after a while (sometimes, when he looks terrified, I hug him and comfort him). He has a cuddly toy in his crib that he hugs when falling asleep. We've weaned him away from drinking water in the night and progressed far in GW (now we sit in the doorway while he's falling asllep). After weaning off water (abouth 4 weeks ago) he started to sleep better and even slept some nights through :-)
Keep your fingers crossed for us. I'll let you know about the coming night.
Agnieszka

[Layla]

Good luck & let me know how it goes

[AgnieszkaBZ]

Hi again! The night before the last was awful because my son threw up in the evening and this affected the bedtime and the whole night as well.
However, yesterday I stuck to the plan "no-more-than-5,5hrs activity" (6.35 am wake up, 12.15-14.00 nap, 7 pm bath) and not only did my son sleep the whole night through BUT he woke today first at 7 am!!!  It’s amazing! He slept almost 11,5 hours! I hope this was not accidentally…
Thank you once more for your advise!

[jmoran544]

My ds is having trouble sleeping more than 45 min at nap time. I'm not sure which way to go- push the nap later, or earlier. Currently, he is waking up by 6am, taking a 1:00 nap, then going to bed at 6:15 (to fall asleep by 6:30). His nw's have increased- probably due to short naps.

Jamie

[debo620]

Jamie, definately bring the nap earlier. My son is usuall awake about 6, out of crib by 6:30 and naps 12ish, so we are are 6hr before nap and 5-5.5hrs after.

[Layla]

Agnieszka - great to hear !!!

Jamie, how old is he? I also think an earlier nap would help!

[AgnieszkaBZ]

He did it again He woke at 5.30 today which he hasn't done since my last post. I made him stay in his crib for another hour, but he was not happy about it.
Yesterday he woke up at 6.30 am (which I happily accept), had a nap between 12-1.45 pm and went to bed at 7.20 (asleep 7.30pm). What's happening?

[katemom]

Oh bummer, I'm back again...the early am/later pm nap thing only worked about 3 times, and luckily just one nap went well for awhile, but now nothing is working again...

Any ideas of where I should offer the pm nap considering what I've done for the am nap?

I offer the am nap at 4 hours after morning wake up and wake her up after a half an hour.  I had success earlier by putting her down about 2.5 hours later.  I've still been doing that, but she either wakes at 45 minutes or 1 hour (crying).  I don't know if she's overtired or not tired enough.  I've tried putting her down 3 hours later (or just before so that she'll be asleep around 3 hours later), and she wakes 45 minutes later that way also.  Please share your thoughts if you think I should try the pm nap even later, or what?

thanks,

katemom

(p.s. she's been sleeping 11-12 hours at night, most often 11.5), but is lucky to get 1:15-1:30 total daytime sleep).

[jmoran544]

Thank you for the advice. This nap thing is driving me NUTS!
Jamie

[jmoran544]

Does anyone change nap times depending on when the lo's wake up, or is it a fixed time?

[AgnieszkaBZ]

I do because I know that my son can't handle more than for example 5,5-6 hours in the morning. When he wakes up at 7 I put him for a nap at 12.30, but when he gets up at 5.30 like today I know that he must be in bed at 11.30-11.45 at the latest.

[debo620]

Jamie, I also bring the nap forward---usually about 6hrs after waking and then I plan in bed for 5-5.25hrs after nap ends if it is a good nap 1hr40min or so. if it isn't a good nap--well lets just say I'm in trouble because he typically won't fall asleep any earlier and then is OT.

[katemom]

To answer your question, I try for 2 naps on days that my lo wakes early to adjust for the day, and do one nap if she sleeps later.  But since our naps are not working, I shouldn't even chime in!

Okay everybody, here we go again, my lo woke at 6:10am this morning, so I put her down at 9:55am to be asleep at 4 hours later.  She fell asleep at 10:05, and I woke her at 10:35.  I put her down again at 1:25 to try for exactly 3 hours A time once again to see if it that timespan would work (don't know what else to try!) and she fell sleep at 1:40 and is now crying hard at 2:25 (so a terrible 45 min!).  Any other ideas?  It's been days and days of things not working and I'm getting really discouraged.   

Thanks, katemom

[debo620]

Katemom, I think today maybe she should have been down for 1pm?

[katemom]

What would you do?

I only get 1:30 nap lengths if I only offer one nap a day, and most of the time I offer 2, I get as little as 1:15 (although sometimes I can get 2:00!)  It's a gamble everyday...what would you do?

Here is what I've tried consistently for several days, and one of the days I got 2:05 total naptime, and the others I got 1:15. 

Wake
Asleep after 3:40-3:50 A time
wakes after 30-35 minutes (either on her own, or if I do to try to protect pm nap).
Asleep after 3:20-3:30 A time
Awake either after 45 min, (1/5 times) or 1:30 (1/6 times).
Asleep for the night after 3:30-4:00 A time

I've also tried letting her sleep long for the first am nap, and that only worked once for me, because all the other times I tried it, she woke up between 35-45 minutes later on her own.  I guess I could also try less A time between nap 1 and 2, but I was starting to wonder if she wasn't tired enough because it took her a long time to fall asleep - so I was thinking she wasn't tired enough to sleep 1:30.  (?)

I'm going crazy!  I dread the approaching first nap every day because I'm always trying to figure out what the crap I'm going to do...

what would you do?

katemom