Support and Chat thread for moms of early waking toddlers

[debo620]

heather, I think persist with a slighlty earlier nap and earlier bedtime.

I would personally work with 5:30am as a starting point and then work from there.
so nap 11:30-1:30
bed 6:30--asleep by 6:45 or so.
then slowly shift the day as he gets better rested overall.

Stacy, thanks, I know I am making things complicated.
yesterday Noah did end up napping 12:40-2:20 when I had to wake him to go out.
bed was 7:15, asleep by 7:30 or so.
woke briefly at 5, but then slept til 6
so I decide I'd try a 12 nap

I layed him down at 11:50 (we were runnning a bit late from playgroup). anyway he has not gone right to sleep, cried once because he threw his lovey out, and has been playing around. I think hes already OT. some days 6hrs is ok but not others.

[debo620]

12:30pm and he is still not sleeping after waking at 6am. this is not good. maybe something is bugging him, he usually goes right to sleep, so not sure what the problem is. my neice is here and I think he'd rather play.

[debo620]

awake already after 1hr10min, up at 1:45....

[Aly Mac]

HI everyone,

think I need to join this group      Lilly is in the midst of the 2-1 switch, but really has only done 1 sleep twice in the last couple of months.  I'll have a couple of days of good wakings (6am or so) and then we have more days of 5/5.30 am wakings.  I've been trying to tweak the A time to get good naps, and it seems to work, but the consequence is early waking?  Yesterday was like this:

6/6.15am waking
9.30-10.40am nap
2.50-3.50 nap
7pm bed (asleep around 7.10...)

Yesterday we went shopping hence the extra long A time in the middle of the day.

At the moment I'm trying to extend the first A time, but I think it's the nap times that are stuffing me up.  It's like she really doesn't need alot of night time sleep, but if I cut the day time naps, she is too tired to have the longer A time - then we have early bed and early waking and away we go again!

Anyone got any suggestions?  I'm going to log her times again so I can keep more than a few days in my brain, so hopefully a pattern will emerge. 

Any tips guys?? 

oh, ticker not working, Lilly is 13months old (and has traditionally been a 45min napper til about 10months, then great; A times have always been less than the average, and night time sleep always been more than the average; normally a 6.30pm bedtime, but later is fine too...)

hope someone can help me! (was debating whether to go to the 2-1 nap switch thread, but the EW are what is killing us!)

[debo620]

Aly Mac, this is what worked great for us at that age, Noah was also waking early 5-5:30, occasionally 6 but once I started this it was always 6.

I chose a set nap time of 9:30 because I didn't care if he was a bit OT for it, since I cut this one short.
initially we were doing a 40min am nap, but then pm nap was still only 40 min regardless of how much A time inbetween, so we went to 30min. the nextA time was then only 2.5hrs. I would suggest you start with 40min

so wake 5/5:30---stay in crib til 6 with wi/wo etc.
nap 9:30 for 40min
nap 1pm for 90min--til 2:30
bed at 6:30--asleep by 7
so its a matter of limitng the day sleep andfinding the right A times for it.

longer am nap will reinforce the early waking, by cutting it short it sllows for a longer pm nap earlier in the afternoon and slightly erlier to bed which will actually help with the super early wakings. she obviously is not going to sleep til 7am on this schedule but once it is sorted, you can move things ahead (hopefully).

HTH

[Aly Mac]

Thanks Deborah - I have tried cutting her naps down in the past with just a tired baby on 2 short naps.  Will try again though.  I cut it short to an hour today - for both of them actually so will have a 6.30 bedtime tonight.

thanks for the advice - lookslike I had the right thinking...

[heatherstired]

Heather again. OK -- pretty much figured it out that Ryan is a 10-hour per night sleeper. As Deborah suggested, I had him nap at 11:30am (almost 2 hours) and then put him to bed by 6:45pm - he went right down. BUT, he was up at 4:50am - exactly 10 hours later. He was previously going down at 7-7:15pm and waking at 5-5:15am and now this!??! It seems as though his internal clock says, "OK, been 10 hours, get up."

Could it really be that he only will do 10 hours a night and if so -- how can I move his bed time so that wake up is later?? In the past I was doing 7:30-7:45 and he was waking at 5-5:30am (that's when the early waking started) - it was 6-6:30 wake up prior to time change. I'm fine with an 8pm bedtime IF he'll sleep until 6am.

Total sleep time right now is 11.5-12 hours at MOST per 24 hour period - is that enough. He is a pretty happy guy, but looking tired by late morning (guess so since he's up at 4:45-5am!!).

Please help! 

[debo620]

Aly mac, good luck!

Heather,  I feel for yah, we are in awful shape here too. maybe someone else has some ideas??

ok Stacy, my last post on this thread for awhile. I'll come back when we finally have some success and I have something happy to post.

Noah was up at 5am, after that crap nap yesterday. was in bed last night for 6 and not asleep til 7. so a 10hr night after a 1hr15min nap. I figure that these EW, NW and crap short naps can only point to one thing--accumalative OT. Its been a almost a month now of poor sleep. I know he probably does need less sleep as he is getting older, but I think that if he wasn't OT we wouldn't be having SO MANY issues, kwim?

so 6hrs A time in the morning is too long, I will have to go back to 5.5 and see what happens. Not today obviously, as I will probably have to do two naps, and shoot for asleep by 7pm. I'm sure that once he has a few good sleep days, we can get back on track!

[fiona1274]

Amelia my oldest has always slept well, she is about 2 and half, she now wakes up early and we are trying to ride it out, we were taking her into bed with us but she generally just aly one our heads, or blethered for a while. We now have our two girls sharing a room and we cant let Amelia have a day time nap or she will blether till 9.30 and keep her sister up, if you can keep her going all day and put her down at 7-7.30 she will sleep till 7.30 -8.
Niamh our youngest (16months) is a different kettle of fish, she as always fought sleepI have had to adjust her naps to keep her settled and at the moment she has one day time nap and goes down same time as her sister, but generally wakes early, about 5am (too early) I dont control how long her day time nap is and this may be the problem, I'm thinking I may shorten it and see if that helps.
Any thoughts

[Aly Mac]

So last night Lil slept til 5 but woke us at 6 (her doll in her cot kept her occupied) - great for me, but she was still awake early iykwim...

I cut her naps to 2 x 1hr as I figured more than that was taking from her night time sleep.  last night she slept from 6.30-5 - still 10.5hrs....it's like pp said, that's all she wants at night regardless...so why make her tired in the day time? if that's all she will do regardless of the daytime sleep!  ughh!!  I know all this will be much better when she is on one nap, but that seems such a way off for her to do permanently iykwim....  teething is a bit problem here, so I can't expect too much.

big hugs to all of you!

[debo620]

Aly Mc, what did your day look like with th 2x 1hr naps?

I think the thing this, there has to be at least 4hrs from end of pm to bedtime, at least thats what I found. so by changing things up and cutting the am nap, this allowed the pm nap to be earlier in the afternoon,more tired for bed and slept longer.

like the way I see it
nap 9-10
nap 2-3...not that much time to bed at 6:30, kwim?

[Aly Mac]

Deborah, this was yesterday.

5.30 wake
9.30-10.30 nap
2-3 nap
6.30 bed (prob asleep by 6.45)

wake up 5am, but complaining around 6 (so not too bad, but she was still awake early, even if I got some extra z's after I initially heard her..)

go figure    so today so far is this:

5am awake (playing, so she may have had some more z's)
6am up
9.30-10.30 nap

and it's one thirty now,,,will probably go with 2-3 I think.

reason I leave the first nap a little later is if I do it earlier, I find 10 is too early for her to be back up, and she's more tired than if I left her an extra half hour.  Also, 2pm then is a stretch as she's more tired...

will see how today goes - i figure it could take a few days....

thnaks for your help...

[debo620]

Aly Mac, it may be better to have the 2nd nap ending by 2:30, so 1-2:30, leaving her more tired for bed but not OT as she would have had a 90min nap.

definately try what you are doing for a few more days, and then you can try for something else. thats al you can do...

[Aly Mac]

Thanks Deb - I'll see.  we got to the 2pm nap time as 1pm she was crying alot going down - i don't think she was tired enough.   I'll try it though, if I get no joy on this routine. oh do you mean 9-10, then 1-2.30? or 93.0-10.30 and 1-2.30....

[debo620]

yup she won't be tired for a nap at 1, unless you cut the am nap to 40min, and possibly even 30

my son was usally awake closer to 5:30
I cut to 9:30-10, and then he was in his crib at 12:30--and he played until 1pm and slept til 2:30
bed 6:30 and asleep by 6:45/7

if she is up at 5
wake 5
nap 9:00-9:30
nap 12:30-2
bed 6 and asleep by 6:30...then you can slowly shift the day foward.