How to measure morning A time when wakeup time is iffy?

[judypdx]

Hi,

DD is 6.5 months.  Her routine used to be 8am-8pm and now(much to our discontent) it's 6:00am to 6:00pm ish due to OT and skipping catnaps for the past 2 months.  For the past couple days, she's been waking around 5:30amish, will toss and turn, roll left, roll right, look around,  try to sleep on her tummy, try to sleep on her back, and try to sleep on her side.  Sometimes she's successful in falling back asleep for a good 40mins, but more often than not, she'll only doze off for 5-10mins but will start moving around again(I let her do this for 30mins before I go into her room).  Sometimes she'll play quietly for a while before I'm even awake.  When does A time start?  At the first time I hear her? After her dozes?

Her sleepy cues are hard to follow as she doesn't rub her eyes or yawn until I'm done with the wind-down routine and am about to put her into her crib.  In the past, a morning A time of 2hr20min will give us 1hr30min nap. Usually it's very easy to put her down for a nap as I use the clock to give me a good idea - she'll be out in 1 min.  When her mornings are iffy, I try to follow her sleepy signs but every now and then , she'll fight her first nap like this morning.

This morning
5:40 Heard her, rolling around
6:05-6:15 Fell asleep on her side
6:15 Heard her again -she started coughing
6:15-6:40 rolling around

6:40 got her up to start the day, eat...

8:00 quiet time
8:20 Saw a first yawn,wind-down routine and she started whining, she knew it was nap time and didn't want to go to sleep
8:20-8:40 took some breaks, gave her more quiet time, tried wind-down routine twice more...
8:55 Finally asleep

Any advice is great appreciated!
Judy

[*~goldie~*]

Hye there,
my little one is the same, she plays quite contently in her cot withoutbeing heard so the only way is from when i get her out of bed, keep her up 2 hours and reset from there
x

[judypdx]

Thanks for the reply!  If DD plays in her crib for a good hour w/o falling asleep and I get her to start the day then, would it be too long of an A time as she'll be awake for ~3+hrs?

[charmie]

I know this will sound extreme but it works.  I have tried it myself.  Here you go;

If you want her to do an 8-8 day, lets say in this case her 1st nap should fall at around 10.30.  So no matter at what time she wakes, you do the 1st nap at 10.30 or the time that you do the nap usually.  That should put you back on track for the rest of the day and in time remove the EW.  At this age they usually drop the catnap too, so hopefully she'll get adjusted to 2 naps soon.  Naps should be ideally of 2hrs each so try to experiment a bit with a times to see which one gets you the best nap.


xxx
charm

[ckcole]

Wow, does that really work charmie? Sounds too easy (no punn intended)!

[charmie]

It did for us.  I had been given the advice on this site.


xxx
charm

[*~goldie~*]

I think it works.... as much as BW says to go off your individual baby and not be rigid with routine, your day would be messed up and youd end up with no Y time. Start the day as you mean to go on. So for me with a baby who wakes up like yours and doenst let me know do "get up" at a set time rather than "wake up"

so wake -
get up 8
breakfast activity time
10 sleep
11:30/ 12 wake up
A and food
2-3.30 nap
3:30 Activity , snack
6/6.30 dinner
7, bath
7.30 bed

works for me anyway, mine is a crawler in her cot. I think she's fast asleep and open the door for a sneaky peek at her sleeping like a baby and she's up on her belly hee hee playing

xxx

[ckcole]

Thanks charmie... and it eliminates EW's? My DS just dropped his catnap and is now going to bed at 7pm and waking at 5:30.... he was sleeping 8-6:30, which was much better! What time would you recommend having a first nap if I want a 7am wake up?

[charmie]

Probably 9.30ish.  I would start there and see what length of nap you get.


xxx
charm

[judypdx]

Thank you goldie and charmie!

I'm going to implement the advice tomorrow morning!  Should bedtime also be at the same time as well - 7pm no matter what time the last nap ends even if there's a long A time gap?  She's been resisting the catnap and I've been putting her to bed earlier and earlier every day for the past 2 months.  She can't quite handle 3 hrs of A time yet and will only take 2 naps a day no matter what.

chovy152 - our LOs are almost exactly the same age!  I'm also going to try the 7pm-7am schedule too.  Good luck tomorrow!

[charmie]

No I would do an early bedtime if necessary so she can make up for the lost sleep. 


xxx
charm

[ckcole]

you too judypdx... please keep me updated on your progress... sounds like we have very similar LOs! PM me if you would like... it's nice to have someone who is going through the same thing.

tonight is a bit of a write off.  had a DR's appointment, and of course it ran late... and DS fell asleep in the car on the way home.  so we're going for an 8pm bedtime now... i have a feeling he'll still be up early tomorrow morning regardless.

[*~goldie~*]

hi there
for me just as the book says keeping a strict routine fro a week or so then trying to go more on your baby, so personally i'd try keeping the night time bed time at the set time first then being more adaptable after that perhaps , and regarding not being able to manage 3 hours A time, you coule maybe allow a little half hour nap at maybe 5 till 5.30, but thats accounting for bedtime being no earlier than 7.30. Altough the baby whisperer books say that at 6 months some babies seem to stop needing this nap.
May be worth going back to the original implementation of EASY where your life revolves around getting baby into routine (as in the book), just to really set the structure back in and hopefully you'll reap the benefits of doing this for a week. Have you got the book "your questions answered" by Tracey?As this goes quite in deep about implementing EASY for the first time. Personally this book has been better than the original book for me.
Hope this maybe works for you,
-Lucy
xx

[charmie]

Hey, how is it going?


xxx
charm

[judypdx]

Hi! Sorry I've been in hiatus for a while; had a major work deadline.  I work from home and watch LO full time. 

Since I last posted, for a couple days LO was waking closer to 6:45am(she made some noises around 5am, but went back to sleep on her own) so I didn't get the opportunity to try out the solution suggested.  However,  two days ago, she was so OT from a terrible nap day that I put her to bed at 5:40pm and expected an EW the following day. And of course, it happened.  She was up at 6am and by 8:30am, she was miss cranky pants and wanted to sleep and did sleep for a good 2 hours.

ckovy152 - have you've been successful?
charmie - can your suggestion still work if LO is OT?  I'm afraid of 30mins naps as LO is a terrible sleeper already.   If she takes a 1.5hr nap instead of 2, it is worth extending A time just a little bit more?
goldie - yes, I do have the BWSAYP book(got it when LO was 3.5months, wished I had known sooner) and that's why I'm on this forum. I read at least 5 books(Ferber,Weissbluth,Pantley,West...) on sleep training and love Tracy's philosophy the best.