quick question but would help heaps...

[clairemk88]

i've posted on the NW boards recently as they're atrocious but i just wanted to know whether what i'm doing during the day could make them worse/better...

normally my lo's 1st nap would be 1hr 15 and her 2nd nap 1hr but as she's sleeping so badly during the day her naps can be anything from 1hr 15 - 2hrs in the morning and 1h - 1.5hrs in the afternoon... should I let her sleep for as long as she needs during the day so she doesn't become too OT or is she sleeping too much during the day???

i'm in such a pickle and i've not had any response to my NW post

can anyone help me please???

[clazzat]

I'm not sure if my advice is worth very much, having been up for 4 hours last night and 5 the night before!  However, I feel your pain and didn't want to just ignore your plea.  I think that if the NWs are because of OT then you are probably right to try to let your lo catch up during the day up to a point.  With dd1, who is a very good sleeper so we haven't had to do this often, we tended to set a time that we didn't want her sleeping past but let her sleep until then.  For example, now she is 2 and sleeps 2 hours during the day (12.30 till 2.30) - if she is really tired we let her sleep, but make sure that she is up by 3 so that it doesn't affect going down in the evening.

Are you able to put her down earlier than her usual nap times?  That way she can get an extra 15 mins or so, but still be up at the same time and keep the routine a bit better.

My experience with dd1 suggests that when I let her sleep too much during the day, the problem becomes settling her at night rather than her NW - don't know if that is just her or whether this is the way they all react.

HTH. Cx

[DavidsMum]

I found with DS that if things suddenly went wrong then changes needed to be made.

For example he suddenly started waking at 530 and then having a longer nap during the morning at around 12mths.
In the end I put the morning nap back later and made it a single nap and he slept for 12 hours at night again.

So the 2 - 1 was easy for us, happened in one day. Not that I am saying that is what your lo needs but maybe something in the day needs to give to get the night right.

[clairemk88]

clazzat... thank you, really grateful for any advice

I have tried putting her down earlier for naps bit it generally means 1 of 2 things... I'll only get a 45m nap out of her OR she'll strongly object to being put down too early. I'm lucky in the sense that when she's ready for a nap she goes down really easily and I hardly hear a peep out of her before she dozes of. If I do hear her it tends just to be settling noises rather than grumbles iykwim

I've never been able to put her down and just let her be in her cot for 20m until she goes off to sleep. If she's not ready she lets us know about it and if she is it takes a matter of minutes. Both nap and bed time, we sing specific songs while holding her, then pop her in the cot and do up her sleeping bag. For naps I set a molly moo cow going which plans a certain tune and I throw her lovey over her face and walk out while she's still awake. At night time I set a star going which plays a different tune and projects pretty pictures onto her ceiling, I just give her her lovey which eventually ends up over her face as she settles, again she's still awake when I walk out.

I guess it would make sense that it causes problems with settling as they're less likely to be tired enough to go to sleep??

davidsmum.... thanks for the suggestion re tweaking our routine... if I don't get any suggestions from the NW board I might try posting my EASY routine on the E.A.S.Y forum and see if I have any luck

Thanks again guys xx

[clairemk88]

of course, I should've thought to have had a look at that again... been a while and the old brain's shot to pieces atm

thanx

[jess, lukeys_mom]

Hi clare,

I just posted on another thread tonight and wonder if it might help you, the poster seems to be going through something quite similar. Here's the link: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=138506.0

I wonder if your lo is experiencing this pre-nap switch wonkiness and needing routine changes as replies there suggest? Just an idea. xx

[clairemk88]

Thanks Jess. It was good to read through... definitely going to try a bit of tweaking. Would it be a good idea to try and cut short her 1st nap of the day to prehaps just 1hr to start with??

As for the nights is WI/WO okay to use for a lo her age?? 9.5mo

[jess, lukeys_mom]

hi claire,

i think it would depend on your lo and where she is developmentally etc. For mine it would have been fine (although did not need to use until about 11mo) at that age as he was very aware of our presence and wanted us to be in there. Sometimes when we used this method i would kiss him a little and put his settling music back on - depending on whether i thought it would be the last time i would have to go in there or not.  FWIW, every time we have used it we have had to do it quite a few times the first night and then very little on subsequent nights.

keep us posted on how you get on xx

[clairemk88]

Well we never got to test out PU/PD... tiredness won out and I took my lo into bed with me each night until the night before last when DH was able to resettle her early evening and then she managed to settle herself at midnight and not another peep until 8AM!!!!!!!!  Wahoooooo

Last night she managed to settle herself TWICE and DH only had to replug her the once.

I'm so proud of her and already feeling the benefits of extra sleep A big catnap at the w/e helped heaps. I did the old 'sleep when baby sleeps' and I felt soooo much better for it.

Thanks for all your advice, hugs xx

[clazzat]

So glad that you are having more sleep - it is amazing what a difference it makes!  We are still up a few times in the night, but not the huge stretches at a time that we were having so I am feeling much more human.

Hope she continues to settle herself.
Cx