Scared to do early bedtime but need to conquer these EW's!!!

[sunnysmile]

So to recap my 15 month old was doing this...
7am wake/bfast
10am nap
12 noon wake lunch
3/4/5 refusing pm nap

I was iffy about cutting down her am nap to increase the chances of a pm nap because it's so hard to get a pm nap from her I thought I'd be asking for trouble!

So I pushed the am nap to 11/11.30am and she sleeps till 1.30/2.30 - the duration of this nap is getting shorter, I fear due to a build up of OT as she is now waking at 5.15am on the dot (going to bed at 7/7.15pm).

When she wakes at 5.15am i treat is as a NW (cos it IS!!!!) and try to settle her in the dark in her cot with a drink from her bottle, paci & Snuggle blanket. she will drift off for 10-15 mins but wake, whining again. So i have to reapeat the process. This would happen 4/5 times taking us up to 6.3am, when i'll generally give up & start the day - or when she wakes her brothers who have school!!!

I need to put an end to this early waking - I'm pretty sure it's due to cumulative EW and refusing a 2nd nap plus being so OT for the 1 nap she still has that she doesn't sleep long enough to really recharge. I say this cos the problem is getting progressively worse - like a downward spiral of OT leading to EW, leading to more OT...you get the picture .

What would you suggest to try to help turn this around?

Should I put her down super early for her 1st nap and see if by some miracle i can get a 2nd nap from her late in the afternoon? It's risky cos she has refused this in the past and ended up doing 8 hrs A time before bed. BUT I also know from previous experience that a nap 4-5.30pm means she goes to bed rested and calm (albeit slightly later in lieu, about 8pm), not OT and tends to sleep better & for longer, getting up around 7am which is fine.

By the way she is a real 'no more than 11 hrs a night' sleeper which explains the 7am wake up for a 8pm bedtime, but with the cut down to 1 nap she is shattered & I don't want to keep her up much after 7pm. BUT I am scared to put her down at 6/6.30pm lest she wake even ealier than 5am!!

I need to sort this cos the boys are tired with her waking them before 6... i am tired and ratty cos I'm up & down to try to get her back to sleep..... really need some help!

Thanks for listening x

[Nicole-Momtomegan]

Hey Sunnysmile...I'm not in a great position right now b/c we are at yet another transition ...BUT when my daughter started refusing the pm nap, the only thing that worked was to put her down after about 3-3.5hrs (whatever time you know she'll go to sleep) and only let her sleep for 20min! I know it's hard to wake them but it really worked. After that you put them down again right at 2hrs and she should sleep. My daughter would do this:

7am wake
10:30 nap
10:40-11am sleep
1-3 sleep
7 bed.

you could try 6:30am up for the day
9:30 or 10am sleep for 20min
12/12:30 down for big nap. back in bed for 6 or 6:30pm.

[deenz]

Just to comiserate (I don't have any answers sorry!).  My ds (18m) has been having early wakings for months now so I really do know how exhausting it is!  So far every single thing we've tried has not worked.

I hope that you find the answer for your dd!

[chanashleigh]

Hi sunnysmile, my dd is 27 months old now but I remember when she was much younger than 15months and started fighting her pm nap that I went through that downhill spiral of OT feeling. DD was waking some mornings at 4:45am and could not get her back to sleep and then am nap was some silly early time and I remember putting her to bed for night night sleep at 5:30pm alot!

I got some great advice on here and I am not sure if it applies to the age of your bub but I thought I would share it anyway. It was suggested that I use the 5-5:30pm bed times to get my little one to catch up and avoid more OT. It was an early bedtime but at least she was making up some of what she lost in pm nap. THe plan in the mornings was to try and get her to stay in bed until 6am (not go in unless really crying hard) and then not have her b/fast until normal time which was 7:30am. Basically the goal was to try and not shift rest of routine back as much as possible. Yes have to move am nap earlier but gradually increase it every day by 15 mins or even more depending on your patience to get it closer and closer to what you are happier with. I did this over a couple of weeks and it really worked for me. I did the whole process gradually until the mornings were back to normal, so instead of 6am getup I made it 6:15 before I would go in etc etc. I had trouble with pm naps from very early on but once I got this part sorted the OT and EW was not as bad, still had early bed times for a long time until we got the 1 nap all worked out. I hope this makes sense, of course I probably don't explain it like the wonderful moderators but fingers crossed you might get something from it!

Good luck...

[Nicole-Momtomegan]

last night I did 6pm (asleep by 6:30pm) bedtime and she slept til 7:45am this morning....it can work:)

[sunnysmile]

Thank you so much.... I will work on this. It's good to know there is so much support out there