help for my 18mth nephew-sil desperate!!!

[Poppy & Lily]

Hi ladies,

Just looking for a bit of advice for my SIL, she is pulling her hair out over her DS sleep at the moment

He is 18mths old and he used to sleep like a dream up to about 1 mth ago then it all went pear shape!

His routine used to be

6.30-6.45am -wake up
9.45-10.30am-nap
1pm-2.00/2.30pm-nap
7pm -bed

now he is having multiple wakings at night and waking up at 5am every morning, i suggested that he could be getting ready to transition to 1 nap, so she cut down the am nap to 30mins and then 20 mins and put him to sleep at 1pm as normal, the problem is now he is still having 1 small nap in the am but his pm nap is only 45mins-1hr max! and she has tried to cut out the am nap and put him to bed at 11.45/12pm but he will still only sleep 45mins-1hr. And then he is def OT!

none of the above routine tweaking has made any difference with the NW's and Early AM's!

Can anyone suggest a good routine for him to be on and also why is he having the nw's and early am's, she is getting desperate, she is having to get up to him at night and sometimes he won't settle for up to an 1hr , also he could be teething but she is not sure as he won't let her look in his mouth but this has been going on for about 5-6weeks!

I told her i would ask you wonderful ladies for some advice!  also not sure if it is linked but his eating has gone right down, refuses his lunch and dinner and sometimes his milk!

any ideas?

Thanks
xxxxx

[andibig]

Oh poor thing.she must be so tired .

Not sure if this is related but DD went through a very similar spate of NWs at that age.around this age they have another blip of SA which is different from the SA they get when they are younger (more to do with their budding independence etc).
Also he could possibly be teething with molars as DD was terrible when she got her first lot through .
anyways rambling on here.ok if he is waking at 5am then if shes going for the one nap option then i wouldn;t do it any later than 11am (absoulte max).and early bedtime (no later than 6pm to be on the safe side.
or another option if she wants to do two naps is do the 15-20 min nap in the am but a little earlier than she has been doing, say around 9am and then try the pm nap at 1pm as normal.
Hope my ramblings help a little

[Poppy & Lily]

Hi Andrea,

Thanks for replying so quickly and no you are not rambling just giving great advice

so a few more questions if you dont mind?

if he settles after 5am and sleeps till 6am (which he has done a couple of occasions) what would the routine look like then? also i'm no expert but should i get her to push to 1 nap as he does seem a bit old to be on 2 still

i spoke to her this morning and she said lst night he was awake from 11.30pm-12.30pm and then woke up again at 5.40am, she manged to get him back to sleep till 6.15am! he was asleep by 6.45pm last night and had 30min nap in the am and then 40mions in the afternoon yesterday!

also this SA is i something that sorts itself out in time? if it is that, is it just a blip and hopefully he will go back to 11-12hrs at night? and because i have xmas mush brain and can't remember with dd! if it is the molars then how long till they break through, he has been like this for about 5-6weeks!

Sorry for all the questions i just want to be able to help her as she has spoken about doing CIO to get him back on track

TIA 

[andibig]

If he occasionally goes back to sleep and wakes later then she can move the nap later but i still wouldn't do it any later than midday to be honest.it really dependes on how long he was awake as he will build up OT over time.

Molars .they can take anything up to 3 months to come through and at that age Sasha was more bothered by them at night than during the day.she could always try something like teething granules if shes not happy giving him paracetomol (sp??) all the time.

The SA he will grow out of in time.it was more a case of DD being more confident in her own abilities that helped..

yes most 18 mths would be on one nap but some do transition slightly later.it really depends on that AM nap.does she get the impression he would sleep longer for the AM nap if she left him to it.if thats the case its just a case of moving the nap later.

[maisy]

We are having exactly the same with our 21MO.

You could have been describing her!!

We are trying the 2-1 switch but our problem is that she wont do a long nap. Is only doing 1 hour even on one nap days!!

I have tried to sort of go cold turkey. I did fond that putting her to bed eary made the EW worse so we try to stick to a 7ish bedtime

however OT is definitely kicking in this week. We had 1 week of 7am wakeups which she has never ever done before even as a tiny baby it was always 6! so we were getting 12 hour nights but only 1 hour of naps. We are riding it out and hoping it is regression 

I know there isnt any solutions inb my ramble above but just wated to say that they are not alone we are going through it too!!

also I hope they dont do CIO. I am not sure it would resolve it, I am sure the right routine for the LO (whatever it may be)  would be the way to go and what would fix it

x x x x

[Poppy & Lily]

Hi Ladies,

Thank you for your replies

Andrea yes he would def sleep longer int he morning if she left him, she always has to wake him up after 20/30mins! would this make a differance to the routine

I spoke to her today and she said he slept 30mins in the morning yesterday, and 1hr 10mins in the pm (he awoke at 2.20pm)  He went to sleep at 7pm, then he woke up at 11pm and wouldn't settle till 12pm and then awoke again at 5.40am she went in laid him down and he got up at 6.30am, the thing is she has no idea if he went back to sleep or not after 5.40am but she said she didn't hear him

Today his routine looks so far like this

9.15am -am nap (fell asleep at 9.30am awake at 10am)
1pm-pm nap (didn't fall asleep till 2pm!! she will have to wake him at 3pm to pick up dd from school)

what do you think? she is really grateful for your help and she was wondering if just going cold turkey to 1 nap will sort everything out? i'm not too sure!

if he woke at say 6am would his routine on 2 naps look like this

6am-wake up
9.15am-sleep 30mins
1pm-sleep
7pm-bed

Or if 1 nap would it be
6am-wake
11.30am-nap
7pm bed

Obvioulsy of he wakes at 5am it would all have to be done earlier, but if she went the 2 nap route, would she keep offering the morning nap until he just refused it and went onto just 1 nap?

Sorry for being a pain, but i can see she is struggling trying to work things out!

Oh by the way she does give him paracetomal if he seems in pain at night, but doesn't seem to make a differance

TIA 

[andibig]

I wonder if its worth giving him the meds if they aren't making any difference .

anyways the reason i was asking if he would sleep longer was i'd be tempted to let him sleep as long as he wants and gradually move that later.but that would mean she'd have to do an early early bedtime.
however i'd be really tempted to further cut that am nap down to 20 mins.if she is finging that the pm nap is still being pushed back to 2pm then i'd go down the cold turkey route.
HTH