Is she trying to drop the catnap - should I cut it out?

[lilmonkey]

Tell me about the signs...   ds has apparently decided to change the rules on me lately.  I can't tell when he's tired anymore as it has somehow merged into his "I'm frustrated because I can't reach this toy" or "Look at me!  I want some attention too!" 

Robyn, hope the catnap goes down easily.  I gonna give ds a catnap as well.  THis day has not been good.  He woke up after one cycle and started to get himself into the corner of the crib.  And as a result was unable to resettle himself again.  Rolling is not new to him but must he start doing it now?  What do you think I should do about this?  He doesn't cry but will let me know that he is definitely not happy being in a tight spot.  Should I just ignore him? Or just really wedge him in between two pillows so he doesn't move. 

[mommy2mason]

Sorry! My name's Amy...I'll go into my account and figure out how to add my info!

It's so nice to know that my lo isn't the only one going through this funky phase!
This morning he was up at 6:30am. Put him to nap at 9:08 (I actually WATCHED him fall asleep peeking through his crib! Sounds weird but I really wanted to know what time he fell asleep!) and he was up ready to play and happy at 10:05! I guess that means more awake time?! It was weird because he rarely naps for an hour...it's either shorter are longer.

Sounds like he just woke up from his 2nd nap that was from 12:50-2:15pm. Not too bad I guess...but I'm in in the same boat and will probably have to try for a catnap tonight! His A time before his 2nd nap was about 2h 45m. and he seemed fine being awake that long. I guess it helped as his nap was better. I guess it just means that tomorrow morning I'll try for 2h 45m wake time before nap #1! I hope that will help...I'm looking forward to more wake time as that means bedtime won't be as rough.

Mason's 6mo shots were his worst ones so I feel you there. He got the flu shot as well and I don't know if that's what did it to him or what. The night of his shots he woke up screaming in the middle of the night and whined for two hours which was very weird.

With all of this, Mason's top two teeth are both poking out so I'm sure that's not helping either.

Sometimes I wonder if I should just revert back to the catnap and deal with a late bedtime...but I don't know if that's a good idea.

We'll figure this out eventually!!

[pbmom]

Hi Amy!  I just always feel badly when I refer to someone as their "screen name."  Then I thought oh geez, maybe she doesn't want to give out her name.  Overthinking everything is my specialty.

I hear ya on the A time.  Mine has done the 1hr or 1hr10 min nap lately and I don't know what that means.  I do know that it moves the rest of the day up.

Well, I just got a catnap after 5 min of crying/fussing (not the I need you cry).  We'll see how long she sleeps.  My 2 yr old is up so gotta go

ps - tried the late catnap and late bed...did not work here as she was still cranky by normal bedtime.  It was a bloody mess.  oh, and she got the flu shot too and it was the only one that was diff. than previous shots so I bet it's that darn thing.  And she has to get the 2nd dose in 1 month - I guess we'll know then.

how cute - teeth? 

[lilmonkey]

Robyn, do you remember how P did at this phase? 

[mommy2mason]

No problem! I just have never taken the time to fill out my profile info! I'm glad I finally did!

Robyn, where do you live? You must be ahead of me in time if you're to your catnap! I'm in Minnesota...FREEZING right now!

Thanks for the tip on the late bedtime. I really don't want to have to do that either because I know soon we'll just have to work on it again. It's nice to have a nice long evening to get things done too! Boy...you must be on your toes with a 2 yr old too!

Must've been that flu shot! I know...I just scheduled his next dose that he has to have after a month. Not looking forward to that night!

Oh yes...the teeth! He got his bottom two at 4.5 months and now the top two are pretty much all the way in. Crazy! Thankfully they've never bothered him too much!

[pbmom]

Amy - love that avatar!  So cute!  I'm in CT and it's cold here too.  So cold that you can feel it by the doors and windows where normally you can't.  YUK!  Plus I know it's really cold when the dog comes right back in after going out. 

Wow that many teeth - Paige was a gummer until 10 mos and I think B will be too. 

Mimi - P took a catnap for a long time and I think she went to 2 naps at 9:30 and 2:30ish around 8/9 mos.  She didn't go to one nap until 18 mos.  She was always lower on the A time than the charts say and still is.  She likes to sleep - a lot.  Still takes a 3 hr nap and does 11-12 hrs at night - okay major anti-jinx dance going on here

Well, catnap was 30 min and bedtime was safe at 7.  She was asleep by 7:15 and so tired that she fell asleep at her last feed - oops.  Ah well...she is a good independent sleeper so not to worry (I HOPE!). 

How were your days?

[mommy2mason]

Thanks Robyn! You're little girls are very precious! Maybe my next one will be a girl...secretly hoping just a little!  But then again I couldn't imagine things any other way now!

Nice to know I'm not the only one freezing! Tomorrow it's a high of 0! Yippee! I can't wait for it to get nice out so we can hang outside all day!

Paige is a great sleeper! I understand your anti-jinx dance! It seems whenever I talk about how good Mason is sleeping, etc...then the next day is crazy! The other week someone asked if Mason had been sick yet and I said nope...the next day he got a nasty cold for a week!

Well Mason got up from his 2nd nap at 2:15pm. I knew he needed a catnap and he was kind of cranky so my dh put him down at 4:30. I really didn't think he'd fall asleep as he's been having longer A times than that, but he fell right asleep. We woke him a little after 5 to protect bedtime. He was in a great mood and after 2 hr. 45m. of being awake, he rubbed his eyes. He got to bed a little before 8. I'm thinking maybe 2hr. 45m. might be his magic number right now. I'm curious to see when he wakes up tomorrow and how his first nap goes if we aim for 2h 45m A time. He kind of confuses me with the catnap...it seems as if most babies just biologically take a short nap here, but we've always had to wake him from it.

Robyn-What time do you start your day at? I just wish my lo's catnap wasn't so late because 8's a bit late for bedtime I think. I guess I'll just have to work with it until I get these days/naps figured out!

Mimi-How are things on your end?

[pbmom]

Thanks!  I love my girls!! 

I do not wake B up at a certain time.  She usually wakes herself at approx. the same time every day.  It seems to go in phases.  It's been 6:15-6:30 for a while now.  She's always been an early riser.  Bedtime is 7 unless she really slept in (7 for us), then bed is at 7:30.  No matter what time she wakes, I go in and turn on her music and then get her at 6:45 (unless by some fluke she slept until the - not often).  She always eats at 7am and we go with 4 hr feeds from there.  I'm jealous if Mason sleeps later!! 

B always takes a short catnap; if she takes one these days.  She's attempted to go longer a couple times and I woke her. 

Mimi???

[lilmonkey]

I'm still here although like you ladies freezing my butt off.  It's cold here by the Rockies.  V woke at 2:20 so I gave him a catnap.  Thought that it wouldn't happen as he kept on looking at the light on the monitor for aobut 10 min.  So his bedtime was 7:20 and he went down quite well.  Hopefully he will give me a nice night and a late wake up.

I'm jealous.  Wish I have a child that loves sleep.  M is always on the low end of sleep.  She gave up the catnap at 6/7 mos and down to one nap at 12 mos.  But one good thing aobut her is she is very predictable.  A textbook BW baby.

So some reason I'm beginning to doubt myself on V readiness to drop the catnap.  His shortest A is always right before bed at 2 hrs or sometimes 1.5 if we have a crappy nap day.  Oh well...I'm going to give this at least a week to sort the naps out.

Have a good night ladies!

[mommy2mason]

Hi Ladies! Just thought I'd check in and see how things were going.

It's so strange...Mason has seemed to have such an increase in A time. I've really been watching him closely to see when he starts to fuss or rub his eyes. He went from 2 hours to 2h. 45m. of A time within just a few days. Yesterday went really well. He went down for nap #1 after 2h 45m. of A time. He woke for a few minutes a the 45 min. mark but fell back asleep. I ended up waking him around 11:40am since he normally eats at 11:30. He was up for 2h 45m. again and then napped from about 2:30 until I woke him at 4! (he normally eats at 3:30pm) This is where it got a little tricky because of the longer A times mess up the eating times. He normally wakes around 7am but I let him chat in his crib and by the time I get him changed and everything, his first bottle is at 7:30am. Anyways...it ended up working out really well and he went to bed at 7pm and woke this morning at 7am. It just seems like he's UP all the time now! It's not a bad thing...I just need to find more stuff to do! The only other thing I've noticed with Mason is that sometimes he seems sort of whiny at times. I hope I'm doing the right thing with his routine.

Hope everything's going well!

[lilmonkey]

That's great Amy!  V can't do more than 2 hrs just before bed so I have to give him a catnap for now.  I do have to wake him by 5:30 so we can protect bedtime of 7/7:30.  His longest A time is 3 hrs between nap 1 and nap 2.  I'm still working on extending the A time but I get the feeling that this will take a long time.  Still getting the EW at 5:30 am but by using a little bit of AP I can manage to get him to go back to sleep till 7/7:30.  Hopefully I don't have to do this anymore once we got the naps sorted.

How are you doing Robyn?

[pbmom]

Hi Amy and Mimi! 

Amy - how great is that day?!  Love the sound of it.  B went from short A time (~2hrs) to 2.5+ in a couple days too...it was so weird.  I had 3hrs a couple days but then the third day I got an 18min napper...oops.  Yesterday a.m. I tried 2hr45min and got another 18 min one, so too long A I guess and sounds OT to me!?  So I'm back to 2.5hrs in the morning and maybe 2.75hrs in the afternoon.  She's gone 3hrs and seemed fine before with a good nap, but then it catches up with us.  So, I like you am fooling around with it to see what works best.  I hear you on trying to find things to do during all that awake time, but luckily my 2 yr old and the dog definitely entertain Brooke far better than I ever could.   

After all my overanalysis she still seems to want that catnap...what's a girl to do.  If it's too late I just do early bed instead as I don't want to push the bedtime as that doesn't seem to work.  Otherwise I let her have it. 

Oh, and feeds do get all weird with longer A times and decent naps.  I hate waking her so I do let her sleep...I usually start to worry and then she wakes up within 1/2hr of feed time anyway.  Makes the night feed close to the last one though doesn't it?

Stay well girls and let's check in every few days to see.

[pbmom]

Oh shoot - and Mimi - I wanted to say that Paige was on MUCH shorter A time than Brooke at this age and in fact only did 2.5hrs at 9mos old!  She would take a 2hr nap in the a.m. (sometimes 1.5hr) and 2.5hrs in the afternoon.  Up until very recently she needed a shorter A time still than most kids (AND SHE's 2!).  I loved her long naps though!!! I was spoiled.

[Fiona (Leah & Kians Mom)]

Ladies can I join you please    I think our catnap soo has to go.
Day before yesterday we had a 45 min am nap, 2 hour lunch nap  ( up at 3pm) and ds refused his catnap. I only got him to bed 10 mins earlier that night, but we had no early morning crib party and he woke at 7.10. Yesterday his am nap was fine again but he only slept an hour and half at lunch so up at 3. I had to give him a cat nap at 5 for 20 mins. Bedtime,he woke for about 5 mins exactly 45 mins after bedtime, sang for 15 mins at 3.45 am, sang from 6.30 to 7.00 this am and went back to sleep from 7 to 7.30. Put him down for is am nap at 9.45 and he didnt sleep until 10.20 awake at 10.50. Just put him down at 1.15 for his lunch nap so I really hope he will do until 3.30 and I will try no catnap again. His bed is also becoming a play area for him and he is rolling round and moving round it. It's not like he is not tired enough to sleep as he spends all of his awake time flying round the floor but tooth no.1 just came through on Friday and no.2 should be here any day now.
So how are you all doing? Anyone dropped it yet?

[Fiona (Leah & Kians Mom)]

   bang on 45 mins awake for a little chat and some bubble blowing. Hope he goes back.