14 mth old - Routine and sleep problems

[Laners]

I have posted before we but we are all over the place now and I don't know where to start. DS is almost 14 months old and we are having issues with our routine and sleep. I work part time every day and DH's hours are different all the time, so some days while I'm working DS is with my mam.
DS used to have two naps of about 1.5 - 1.75 hrs each, but now he wont go for his nap until about noon and sleeps until about 1.30 - 1.45. As a result he is not tired enough for another nap until about 5.30 - 6pm at which stage if I let him sleep he will be awake again at 7 and not ready for bed until 10.30 - 11pm. On the other hand if he doesn't have the second nap, more often than not not, when we are giving him his last bottle of the day at 7.30 - 8pm he falls asleep drinking it and we are putting in his cot asleep. What do we do? Try to extend the morning nap??
When he goes into his cot awake (which sometimes happens even if he has had only 1 nap) it is mainly me who puts him down. I bring him up to his bedroom after his bottle and sit on a chair with some gentle music in the background and try to wind him down. Usually he wont sit for long because he wants to crawl around the floor. Then its into the cot on his side facing away from me. He will immediately turn over the stand up with his arms up for me to pick him up. I lie him back down and then rub his back to try and settle him down. Then when he is quite I sit on the chair and we repeat this several times. It can take anything from 10 - 50 minutes to get him asleep. He will then usually wake a couple of times during the night at irregular times and I do the same thing to settle him back. Then around 5am he is awake and will not settle back in his cot. We have recently slipped back into taking him into our bed when he wakes at this time. We had stopped it all together a few months ago but he was up at 5.30 every morning. When we take him into our bed he will go back asleep until 7.30am. I know that this is not helping anyone really as he is getting mixed signals and I am not fully convinced that the method I'm using when putting him down for the night is the right way to do it ...Please help me fix this

[becky1969]

Oh boy.  Sounds like you're right in the middle of the 2-1 nap transition.  To be honest, I think you're actually going to have a fairly easy time of it, even though it doesn't seem like it right now!  Typically what happens is you limit the AM nap to about 30 minutes so that you can still get a longish nap (1.5 hours) in the PM.  However, your son sounds ready to head straight for 1 nap at the middle of the day, if he's able to stay awake until noon! You're having the typical problem of a shortish (1.5 hr) nap at noon, which means waking up at 1:30 and leaves an AWFUL long stretch until bedtime (you're saying 7:30/8, right?).  Normally what happens is your child's nap just starts extending into 2-3 hours as their body realizes there won't be a 2nd nap happening.  They're so used to having more than 1 nap that it takes a few days to a week for that to resolve.

The other sleep problems you are mentioning are all stemming from being OT because the 1 nap is short and bedtime is about 6 hours later -- WAY too long for this age.  So, you've got a couple of options:

1) make that bedtime MUCH earlier -- more like 6 pm.  I know that sounds daft, but believe me, your child is super OT at this point and needs the sleep.  If you still get a 5:30 am waking, at least you'll have had an 11.5 hr night instead of only 10 hours! BTW, waking after 10 hours of sleep is CLASSIC OT behavior, so I believe that is the source of your EWs.

2) I don't know what your history has been with falling asleep, but what you're describing now (taking up to 50 minutes) is very indicative of OT behavior as well.  15-20 minutes is more typical time for falling asleep if you catch their sleep window.  Has your child ever been able to fall asleep on his own, without you there?  If not, we can help you work on that! You're headed in the right direction (putting him in his crib awake), but we need to get you out of the room so that he can fall asleep on his own.  Why don't you tell me more about his sleep history and we can see if there's something we can do now, or if this is something that will resolve once the OT is fixed.

3) No more taking to bed! I know it's so hard when they wake so early! but this is a prop that you will really really learn to regret! I'd prefer that you go and lay on his floor, if you are just so tired and he won't stop crying.  At 14 months old, though, you may be able to put a clock in his room that is set for 6:30, and say "When the dinger goes off, that means it's time to get up! Until then, you need to play quietly in your crib."  The first few days, he probably will still call for you.  You will just go in his room, and gently remind him about the dinger and how that means it's morning time! Then, when the dinger goes off you go promptly into his room and act really excited and happy "Yay! It's morning time! Let's get up and get ready for the day! I know we're going to have lots of fun today!" That sort of thing.  Again, it may take him a few days to get this right, but knowing that he just needs to way for the alarm to go off will help him to know that playing on his own is temporary, and that you'll happily come get him eventually.



I suggest trying that REALLY early bedtime for at least 3 days and see where that gets you.  Another thing you can try is alternating 1 and 2 nap days.  IN other words, after a 1 nap day he's going to be more tired so you may be able to get a very short nap in the AM (no more than 30 minutes, and you can go as short as 15-20 if you still have trouble getting a PM nap) and then a longer nap in the PM.  I was terrified to wake my son in the AM nap but as usual the BW advisors who told me to do that were right!    If you're going to try for an AM nap, I'd probably shoot for around 10:30 or 11.  That means waking at 11/11:30, and then another go at a nap around 3 (ending no later than 4:30).  That sets you up for an 8 pm bedtime pretty easily. And actually, after a 1 nap day and a 5:30 am waking, he'll probably be ready for that first nap around 10-10:30.  That would be really good. 


So, 1) earlier bedtime on 1 nap days, 2) try alternating 1 and 2 nap days, and 3) limit AM nap to no more than 30 minutes.  If trying the 2 naps, I'd probably experiment with the earlier nap time of 10 am and see how he does (waking no later than 10:30).  I have a feeling he's so OT, that he'd welcome that earlier nap time.


Let me know how it goes! The 2-1 nap transition is one of the harest sleep phases, but also one of the most rewarding when it's over!

[Laners]

Hi Becky.

Thank you so much for your advise so far. I am going to try the really early bedtime from tomorrow as I have only had time to properly read your reply this afternoon and he has gone down for a nap at about 3.20 and is still asleep at the moment (hence the time to reply!!)


OK, so to fill you in on his sleep history:
DS slept all night from about 4 mths old and used to go into his crib awake and drift off himself. This continued until he was about 6 mths. Then he caught a vomitting bug and was very sick. He started waking several times during the night and we put it down to him being unwell. However, at the same time DH had a broken rib which meant that he could do nothing and I was taking care of both of them and working part time. I was exhausted and started a very bad habit of lying on the bed in DS's room to get him back asleep during the night and would then transfer him back to the cot until the next time he woke up. This worked for a while but eventually he would not be transferred back to the cot, as soon as he touched the cot mattress Bing wide awake again. And so I would end up sleeping in the bed in DS room most nights. Then after much "advise" from friends and family we tried the CIO. I tried this for two nights but couldn't do it anymore - it was heartbreaking listening to my baby cry for me and he never fell asleep that way because I couldn't bear to wait that long. We were then in a worse situation as he hated even going into his room at bedtime and would cry before he was even in the cot. We were then having to let him wear himself out and fall asleep downstairs before bringing him up to his cot. I then discovered BW and we began the PU/PD but always stayed in the room on a chair as he would go berserk if we left him. He was going into the cot awake again and falling asleep with us there but has never slept more than 10 hrs a night in his cot and we have NW nearly every night.

I hope this is enough to go on and I am looking forward to your reply. Thanks again.

[becky1969]

Your story is so similar to a lot of families, so hugs for all you guys have been through! It is really tough when circumstances bring us to do stuff that make sense at the time (like sleeping in his room with him), and then hard to break later. But I *so* get doing that.  There were several times in the first year where if we would have had a cot in DS's room, I would have been all over that! LOL! Sleep deprivation is awful, and you'll do anything to stop it. That is the truth!

It sounds like you've made AMAZING progress, eliminating most props already!  Probably GW (gentle withdrawal) is the method you want to use at this point, to get your son back to the point where he falls asleep on his own. 

To me, you've got 2 issues: 1) making the 2-1 nap transition, which is a matter of tweaking the sleep routine, and 2) props of having you soothe him to sleep, which is a matter of tweaking how we put LO to bed.

I've given you a pretty detailed road-map for how to work thru this 2-1 nap transition deal. Let's see how that goes for about 3 days before we start tackling the going-to-bed thing and eliminating you as a prop.  But GW is probably what we'll do.  At this age it's nice because they do understand quite a bit, so you can use clever things like telling them you'll be back, and then extending the time you're gone.  We did this with my son after he got very dependent on me for falling asleep (also after a bout of sickness, like you describe!) and it worked a charm.

First things first! let's see how our routine tweaking works, and then we'll tackle the props!

[newmama12]

Laners, we are in a very similar situation as you. In fact, Becky wrote some great advice that I'm going to take up as well. Thanks Becky! Last week, I went cold turkey with the one nap at about 11:30am (dd is waking at 6am these days) and she was only napping 1.5-1.75 hours with 1 day being a 2 hour nap. She was awfully tired come bedtime (7:15pm) and I did not get her in bed earlier. I was suppose to and one thing led to another and we're all messed up and OT here along with cutting the eye teeth. Oh boy! So, today I did a short, 30 minute, nap this morning. Unfortunately, she only napped for an hour this afternoon. Plan failed. I will try again tomorrow. I don't know why she woke (and boy is she grumpy). We have painters working outside, so maybe the noise. Or maybe she was too OT and I waited too long for the pm nap. It was 3 hours after her 30 minute am nap, so I figured that'd be enough time, but obviously, something went wrong.
I'm also tempted to go back to the 1 nap at day at 11-11:30 and just wait for her body to adjust to taking only one nap and naturally extending the length. We'll have early (6:30ish) bedtime those days until she sleeps longer naps and/or sleeps longer in the am instead of ew's.

Good luck to you! It's so frustrating but know that a lot of us are going thru very similar things right now!