problems with nap time

[annep]

Hi there,

My LO is 21 weeks and weighs 19lb, I never really bothered about instigating a very strict routine because he is a wee angel baby who slept through the night from about 8 weeks and is a very happy wee chap.  We had a loose structure to his day,  but very fluid.

I started to see several patterns emerging by about 15 weeks old. Here were my initial problems:

He was in a ESA cycle rather than EAS and consequently had come to rely on the breast as a sleep prop
He was increasingly difficult to settle at bedtime, sometimes jerking awake very upset 3 times within an hour and needing settling again but going through till morning once in a deeper sleep
His Dad was unable to settle him at all

We started EASY last Monday and had great success in our first week. We slightly adjusted his routine in the morning so I was keeping him up after his first bottle rather than him having another sleep to adjust his cycle.  Within about 3 sleeps (using shush pat and PU/PD) he was off the breast association, napping several times during the day has made him much easier to settle at bedtime and his Dad has done solo bedtime using PU/PD over the weekend with great results.

I feel like I’m losing my way a little during the naps however, and need some tailor made advice. He does not stay asleep for any longer than 45 minutes whilst napping. For the last week, I have tried to get him to at least 1.5 hours but with no success.  How do you soothe a child back to sleep, who is clearly still tired but not upset?

As he is much more mobile now, he is travelling to all 4 corners of his cot I feel trying to do shush-pat is more of a distraction, as I don’t have a consistent spot to do it in. He has never been swaddled so we always do it on his belly.  I have tried to leave him to just play himself back to sleep but he cries again until I return. Sometimes when he has got himself upset, I can do PU/PD and get him to drift off again, but not for long.
 
Once this has happened, I feel like EASY goes out the window and I spend the rest of the day trying to get back on track. This was today:

7am 7oz bottle
715am playing
830am nap
920am awake in cot quite happy to roll around as long as I am beside him (lots of sleep cues and occasional drifting off)
1030 Feed, would normally give him breast milk at this time but gave him apple and pear as didn’t want him to sleep on the boob
1200 nap
1220 awake in cot same as above, but with more intermittent screaming. After PU/PD he was happy again but not sleeping
1400 followed by playing
1445 fell asleep in pram whilst on a walk
1530 playing
1700 Feed, solids
1730 getting very sleepy - quiet time in room and asleep without PU/PD or shush pat at 1800
1910 awake, very alert and very grumpy at 9pm

I feel like I have seen the promised land after last week, he was so good! Not sure how to get over this hump. I’m pretty sure he is teething also.

Thanks for any help and sorry for the long post.

[meltown]

does your LO have problems with nights and naps?  or us is just naps you are having issues with?

[annep]

Hi there, Thanks for your reply.

At night he always sleeps straight through and often has to be woken for his first bottle. If he has napped throughout the day (ie not always a good length, but regular) he is brillant at going to sleep at bedtime and staying down. If his naps have been irregular and he is overtired, he will be hard to soothe to sleep, and may wake 2 or 3 times but will not wake again once fully settled.

He is defiantely teething as well, after I posted initially I felt his first wee tooth protruding from his gum.

Thanks alot

Anne and George x

[meltown]

I'm going to move this to the nap board so you can get more help there.

[brenda2]

hi annep
looking at your routine i think you may have left out some bf/bottle?  at 5 mo your LO should be on a 4 hour EASY which means feeding (milk) every 4 hours and being able to handle 2 hours A time as long as he is taking long naps.  if short napping his A time will be around 1.5 hours.  i wouldn't replace a milk feed with solids as solids do not have the calories of milk and won't fill him up as much so you don't want him to wake early from a nap because he is hungry.  he is still a bit young for solids so i would keep those to just breakfast for now to make sure he gets enough milk in. 

a typical 4 hour EASY:

7 wake and milk
8 - (maybe you woulod have solids here...not essential until closer to 6 mo)
9-11 sleep
11 milk
1-3 sleep
3 milk
5-5:45 sleep (catnap 45 min)
6:30 bath
7 milk
7:15 bedtime (1.5 hours max after wakes from catnap he should be asleep)

so i would try to stretch his first A time to closer to 2 hours and see if this helps the first nap be longer, especially after such brilliant nights he should be able to handle longer.  if this nap is long (over an hour) try 2 hours A time again, if it's short (45 min) do 1.5 hours A time and see how that goes.  A time is all the time he is awake.

as for your other questions...you can't do pu/pd or shh pat if they're not crying.  best to leave them in the crib and see if  they'll go back to sleep by themselves.  if he cries you can go in and do whatever technique is working for you, then you can leave again once he is calm.  at 5 mo my Lo was still swaddled so i rolled her onto her side in the swaddle and patted her back.  after we got rid of the swaddle i would still roll her onto her side and pat her side and kind of hold her down a bit if she was really wriggling around.  it does make it harder when they can move around!

teething really makes things harder...if he's really crying and in pain from the teeth it may be best to wait it out and try when things have settled.

[annep]

Hi and thanks for all that brillant advice.

You are right! I had missed a 2pm BF and I also forgot to say that he gets a DF at 11pm.

I was hesitant about moving to solids, but from 15 weeks he was feeding for about 3 hours at night (on and off) before he settled. I was expecting him to be "tanking up" but found it difficult to determine when the need for food became the need for comfort. At 18 weeks I introduced solids as part of the first stage of cluster feeding. I actually feel awful about this but I didn't connect the difference between a calorific breast feed and pureed veg, and he actually lost a few oz when he was weighed last week! The HV put this down to teething and the fact that he is suddenly alot more mobile, but the lack of calories is so obvious now. Needless to say we are back on BF as main food source.

His tooth has cut through and he handled it pretty well, just a bit fractious, so I don't think this upset his routine too much. His short napping and OT pattern in the last week has been the result of me not reading him all that well,  I think. I think I may have been reacting too quickly to a whine and putting him down to early. Yesterday morning, after 2 hours A time,  he slept for 45 mins then woke, but drifted in and out of sleep for the next hour and 15 mins and was happy to stay in his cot. I had to go into him a few times when he cried but he didn't need me next to him.

He currently takes 7ozs of milk at 0630 and then nothing till 1030. If he get solids at 8, are you able to give me an idea of how much milk would be appropriate at 7?

Thanks again for all your help.

Anne and Georgie

[brenda2]

hi anne
glad you're figuring things out 

i'm not sure about your question on quantities of milk...my LO was EBF until 7 mo and at that time she would take 25-30 oz in  a day (broken up over 4 day feeds and a df), each feed varied between 5-8 oz, but she was on a fair amount of food by then...their milk intake will go down a bit when they start taking in food, you just want to wait as long as you can and keep the milk intake up so they're getting all the calories they need.  maybe head over to the bottle or bf boards to get more specific info on quantities.

[annep]

I will do, thanks.

George's nap this morning was 1.5 hours!

Thanks again... x

[brenda2]