EW and OT for 13 month old how to catch up sleep?

[EloysH]

Hi

Please help I am making our EW's worse I am sure of it. He has been cutting a tooth for about 3 weeks now the process seems to be going very very slowly. The past week he has been very very tired. I am not sure sure how to let him "catch up" his sleep, what I currently am doing just seems to be making the to the early wake-ups earlier and earlier.. help!

Some history:
He usually wakes 6am, naps at 11am for 2 hours and then goes to bed at 7pm. He has been one one nap since about 10 months old and the way he transitioned was to take a long morning nap and never ever take the afternoon nap. We had EW from 10 months old to about 12 months old but when the clocks changed the 5:00am wakeups and 6:00pm bedtime turned in to 6:00am wakeups and 7:00pm bedtime.

The problem:
The past week however as I said he has been tired his nap has cut down to 1.5 hours and has wanted to take it earlier and earlier - 10:30am then 10:00am the 9:30am and now 9:00am! so I have been putting him to bed at 6:30-6:45pm at night (although he looks ready by 5:30pm) and letting him nap alot earlier in the day.  A couple of times I got two naps out of him. But mostly the past week or so he has these horribly long A times of 8 hours in the afternoon.  The wake-ups have been earlier also, 5:30, then 5:00am and today 4:30am (bright eyed and bushy tailed) !!!   Tonight he was asleep by 7:00pm and same as last night.

How far forward do the I bring the bedtime and what do I do with the nap times.  I could drag him out an extra hour of I had to ... but he gets cranky very quickly when he is tired, the past few weeks he has meltdowns when he is ready for his nap so  have no choice wbut to let him go to sleep.

thanks for reading this long long post.

Eloise

[EloysH]

just to add last night was a shocker..  LO was wawke from 2am to 4am teething related.  Woke 7:30am  and going down at 11am for the nap.

Last night he woke right up and wanted to be held, everytime I put him in the cot he creamed blue murder. I think it was the teeth. In the end I had ato be stern and say "no really it's bed time now" and walk out of the room and leave him to scream for a minute then go back in. Did that a ciuple if times and he finally he relented and went to sleep.  Sigh.

[*Natasha*]

Sorry you are having EWings.
Has he gone back to 5am wake up is it always at the same time?
Do you leave him does he get upset?
Could he be cold what does he wear to bed?
When he is wanting to go down earlier for his nap have you tried limiting it and then trying for another nap in the afternoon?
EWing are often caused because the nap is to early in the morning.

[EloysH]

Hi Natasha,

Thanks so much for the reply.
1. The early wakings have so far been all different times.. mainly between 5:00am and 5:30am, we had the one day of 4:30am... today 7:30am but only due to being awake for 2 hours last night.    It could be the teeth causing the early wakings, because usually I hear him wake in the early hours but put himself back to sleep.  But i guess to teeth are too uncomfortable?

2. In the mornings we usually are able to leave him for about half an hour, but now that he is teething and since all the EW (past week or so) he wakes crying urgently and doesn't want to hang out in his cot.

3. Its pretty hot here at night, about 22-23 degrees in the house. He wears shorts and a t-shirt to bed and after he's been asleep for an hour I put a sheet and blanket  on him.

4. I have only tried limiting the nap for one day last week.  He was sooo out of sorts the rest of the day, I was traumatised and didn't want to do it again.
(I had also tried in the past months when he was younger but he gets so cranky for the rest of the day). 
He did however take a second nap that day but we couldn't get him to take the nap until 4:30pm,  I tried quite a few times before but he just refused. He was too out of sorts. So when he finally did nap at 4:30pm I had to force him to nap.. he had a meltdown and was screaming from overtiredness it was very stressful but he finally relented (we do  WI/WO).     


5. So how do I get out this cycle of EW and early nap.. do you think I have to now go on two naps and limit the first nap?  And then switch back to one nap when he is not so tired?   I am so loathe to limit the nap (as he really needs his sleep and I am concerned he just won;t npa again that day) but if someone can tell me that he will get used to it and not have a melt down everytime .. then I might persist.
   
Or can I just do really early bedtimes and try to make his nap get closer and closer to 11am (like it used to be)
   

This is wierd as he has been on the one nap at 11am for 6 weeks, I just want to go back to that!!

[~Natalie~]

Sorry the wakings have gotten early again    Natasha has asked some good questions.

My only thought would be to  give him a really short am nap, maybe 20min max, just to get him through till a longer pm nap.  I know some ladies have had luck with that as they are going through the 2-1 transition.  I just saw your reply, how much did you limit it that one time?

Wish I could help more, but wanted to send some hugs  

[*Natasha*]

My only though would be to make give him a really short am nap, maybe 20min max, just to get him through till a longer pm nap.  I know some ladies have had luck with that as they are going through the 2-1 transition.  I just saw your reply, how much did you limit it that one time?

I think this is worth a try i know you hate limiting the morning nap but the 20mins will get him through to his normal afternoon nap until it gets him through these early wake ups.

[hrk]

Hi Eloise!  Hugs for the tough mornings. 

If Heath wakes early, he almost always wants to nap earlier.  I can't get to a later nap or later bedtime unless I off set the ew.  So, rather than getting him ot and just going to the later nap time, I use the am catnap.  I try to give a tiny catnap to get Heath through to the later nap at about it's regular time.  I use the word about loosely, ha ha.  So, that tiny catnap may be only 5 min in the car on the way to run an errand or up to about 15/20 if he was up REALLY early.  I haven't done a 20 in a while, so I don't know what that would be like "this week."  ha ha

I really don't have to do it much now, only to keep things from getting off track.  I also don't do early bedtimes, so I really have to do the catnap instead.  Early bedtime always equals ew. 

I took Natasha's advice on my old thread to cut am naps down to 15 min; I cut them to even less successfully (when needed) by just doing the quick nap in the car or a little longer 15/20 at home.  Heath is much harder to wake in the crib, though.  He wakes happy and snaps into being interested in what we are doing if we are out and about.  I try to keep the nap short enough to get nap in the usual window.  Then bedtime at 7:30.  You wouldn't think a 5 min nap does much, but it has pushed reg nap time back to 12:20ish, when he took it in the car to the library from 10-10:05.  Usually it is between about 11-12.

That is what we are doing here at the moment.  Mostly one nap days, now, with the occassional two if he has awakened early.

More hugs!

[sherry lynn]

Eloise - as you already know, we are on the 20 min am nap as well. The "trick" for us is trying to find the right A time. It was really low at first... the first couple of times I did it, but then it jumped all of a sudden, and that's when we got the not napping for the whole rest of the day. I'm still trying to find the right A time. But I think you do have to give it more than one day to get it to work.

I have the same question, what did you limit the first nap to? And how much A time did you give him after that? If I try to put Lyle down too early then I often do not get a second nap.... period. It's really really frustrating... and that sounds like what might be happening with Jarrah.

Having said all that we seem to be on an EW streak ourselves. But I think I know why it's happening. I think this morning happened because Lyle went to bed OT last night. (5 hours A time on only a 1h20m nap in the PM) Or maybe it's the early nap again. We shall see tomorrow, because Lyle went down on the early side again today. But he was beside himself so I didn't really have a choice this morning...

Tomorrow's a new day to try to figure this all out.... right?   Good luck.

[EloysH]

Hi All,

Thank you so much for your replies, it's so nice to have not just one reply but 4!  I do feel chuffed.  I really, really appreciate it.

Natalie and Natasha it's reassurring to hear consistent advice on the AM catnap.    So 20 mins would be the way to go?

Natalie & Sherrylyn: I let the AM nap go for one hour, from 9:30 to 10:30am, before waking him. So obviously that nap was too long. I then tried to put him down 4 hours later, but it didn't work, but i did eventually get a nap at 4:30pm as I explained in previous post for 45 mins but he wanted to sleep longer.

SherryLyn: do you have problems with Lyle being out of sorts after that 20 min nap?   I do think that the same thing is happening with Jarrah if I don't time it right it seems like I am trying to get him to sleep for the rest of the day.. I can't go out of the house for long cause I am waiting for another opportunity to get him to sleep and it becomes very tiring and house-bounding.  Do you use the 20 min AM nap every day or are you on one nap sometimes?

Jean: Wow, I can't believe 5 mins nap makes all the difference i have never tried that before, I feel like this maight be the way to go. I understand what you are doing here, keeping him on track to still have had big middle of the day nap, so you are keeping him on track to your one nap schedule.   That  makes sense.  I was worried about going to two evenly sized naps as I didn't want  two naps of say 45 mins .. then how would I get my one long nap back?  But when you put it that way a tiny nap to hold him off for the middle of the day... yes !! I can see the light!!   

SherryLyn and Jean: I tend to agree about early nights being a hassle, he usually just sleeps the same 11 hours so for 6pm bedtime that's 5am wakeup. The whole routine thing just shifts forwards doesn't it?  (But I have to add it did serve a purpose for us for a while because it stopped him from being overtired, and shortened that afternoon A time. But I don't want to go back to it though, not after having a taste of the good life!! lol)

So today after the horrible NW of 2 hours (2-4am) we had 7:30am wake-up and 11am nap for 3 hours! So I stuck to 7pm bedtime, and put him to bed with every teething remedy under the sun - Amber necklace, homeopathics and paracetemol.  Fingers crossed.

Thanks again everyone.
Eloise

[sherry lynn]

Eloise - how did the night go?
Actually I find that Lyle generally wakes up much better from a 20 min nap, then say a 30 min nap, or even 45. I only tried the hour nap a few times because it never really worked for us. I do throw in the 1 nap days here and there. Usually after a really good wake up. But twice this past week I went for one nap and only got about 1h15m so I ended up having to do a catnap after about 3.5/4 hours A time. Yesterday I ended up getting 2 1h20 min naps and he wasn't asleep until 8:30. So he did 10.5 hours last night (I was hoping for at least that) and we got a nice wake up of a little before 7. So I'm going to try the 20 min nap today with an A time around 2.5 hours. Last time I tried for that he just seemed to tired I gave in and put him down early, and I only got a 1h20m nap that ended at 2   So I'm going to try to stick to my guns today and see what I get, and pray that it's not an OT nap, but even if it is I think we will be in better shape because the nap should end later with this nice wake up and then I'll just do 4 hours A time instead of the usual 5.

So that's the game plan, we'll see how it goes

[~Natalie~]

glad he got a good nap, how did the night go?


I think the one hour nap is just too long and then he feels he doesn't need a nap.

[*Natasha*]

At this age 1hr is way to long for a AM nap hope you have a good night and he wakes up at a decent time for you.

[EloysH]

thanks Natalie, Natasha and Sherry Lyn for checking in.

  Things are looking better.  So yesterday He STTN till 5:30am. (we dosed hoim up on paracetemol and teething herbs   before bed).  The next day at 10:00am he looked very very tired so I thought lets try for the short cat nap and see what happens.  We drove around in the car and


I ran an errand but he didn't fall asleep he got really stroppy as he was soo tired.  By the time I got him it home was his usual nap time of 11:00am so I put him down straight away.. he was alseep by 11:30am.  So he slept his usual 2 hours again...yessss!  And then last night put him down at 7pm.. he STTN and woke at 6am!!!  YESSS!!!!!!

Today  again he wanted to sleep at 10am but I was out at a friends place  and i so I kept him up till 11:15am again and got home straight to bed... and he has been sleeping now for 2 hours!! 

Both days he has been happier, no signs of teething.   So I am thinking it's a combo of him feeling better and also sticking to the usual nap time and bedtime..
will keep you posted, I do want to try out the catnap again if he is looking really tired in the morning.... we'll see.


Oh.. one more question.  Do you think I should be keep pushing his nap time closer to midday and then 1 pm as he gets older (provided he is happy to stay awake)?


SherryLyn:   How did your day go? Did the 20 min catnap work out?

Natalie: I think so. 1 hour must  be enough to take the edge off and keep him going till bedtime.

[*Natasha*]

Oh.. one more question.  Do you think I should be keep pushing his nap time closer to midday and then 1 pm as he gets older (provided he is happy to stay awake)?

At this age you don't want any longer than 5hrs awake time so if he wakes at 6am go for a 11am nap and if he wakes at 7am go for 12pm nap. My DD1 at 2.5yrs old went to 6hrs awake time before her nap.

[sherry lynn]

Eloise,
I'm so happy that it sort of sorted it's self out.

No, unfortunately it didn't really work out, yet again. But Lyle's sick now, so maybe that was a part of it. He only slept about 1h20m again, and he was very OT all of a sudden before bed. Had 3 night wakings. Yesterday wasn't great either, but he's sick, so it's to be expected. We'll see how it goes when he gets better.