Any idea what might be going on?

[brightside]

Until last week I had a great independent sleeper after doing Wi/WO a few months ago. He still isn't a great sleeper, occasionally waking at night or odd early mornings but is able to go back to sleep himself.

when I put him to bed I read a few stories, put him down and off he goes without any problems.

HOWEVER

A week ago, he suddenly started crying when I left the room. I put it down to overtiredness although I couldn't figure out why because his routine had been pretty normal.
Since then, we have had the same thing every night. I have been doing a bit of GW where I stand outside the door and shhh him if he cries or shouts out. This has been working quite well but not something I want to keep doing after months of not needing to do anything. It would only take about 15 mins before he fell asleep. I then decided that maybe he was undertired and wasn't ready to go to sleep. He has literally just turned 2 on Friday. I figured maybe he was increasing his A time from about 5.5 hours to 6.

This morning though he woke at 5.50 full of the joys of spring after not quite 10 hours sleep. He took a 1.5 hour nap 11.45-1.15 (is usually around 12.30ish and I wake him at 2 to preserve a 7.30 bedtime). As he woke quite early from his nap I took him to bed a bit earlier and he was in bed by 7. It was 8pm before he fell asleep with me in the room after bouts of being upset and getting gradually worse. 

Typical routine before all this

wake 6.30-7
nap 12.30-2ish  I never let him sleep more than 2 hours unless he had a bad night.
asleep by 7.30

I have now tried to ensure his nap is not more than 1.5 hours. Is 6 hours too long? Should I be limiting his nap?

Thanks

[MDHmommy]

Hey Cath, what did you do this AM when he woke at that ungodly hour? Did you get him up - or try to keep him in his bed until a more reasonable time?

I'll be curious to see how tonight goes for you...what did you do between 7 and 8, did you have to do Wi/Wo with him? Or did you just sit there with him?

I've found with Marshall that just one night of AP will stick and that it has been taking as many nights to un-do .. so one night of AP takes one night to undo and so on and so forth.

Let us know how he does tonight. How are the molars?

K

[mari]

I think that he is testing the waters and you need to keep doing WIWO.  We do see these little regressions and it is important to do whatever we did when we were sleep training.  I would keep the routine the same, don't do a later bedtime.  I remember Alex doing this to me, I did the WIWO and she went back to independant sleep but only after an hour of play, but she was up in her bed, happy.
hth.

[brightside]

Well this morning he got up at 5.50 again so not enough sleep-suprise suprise! He was then shattered at 11.30 but only slept until 1 so tonight I put him to bed at 6. I did Wi/WO and he was asleep by 6.40 so fingers crossed for a better night. I think he probably was testing the waters and because I gave in one night, he thought he would try me out again.

Once he gets back on track again, do you think I should limit the nap to 1.5 hours or 2?

[MDHmommy]

I'd keep it at 2 if you can just get him through the testing of the waters without changing anything, you know?

Marshall did a thing not too long ago where he was waking very very early and he was definitely testing the waters! He's back on track now but it took about 2 weeks, and he's getting up at 6am on the dot with a 7:30 bed time and 2 hr nap...so that's what we're doing, for what it's worth.