Wondering whether this NW battle is worth fighting. Any tips?

[monopod]

Hooloo there, it's me and Ethan (now 1 year old!) again   

E's been at nursery now since February, and recently moved to my workplace nursery where he's doing really well. He's fairly solidly on one nap a day (we've had a few short ones lately but if we time it right, we can get a 1h45mins - 2h+ nap), though on nursery days he does usually have a little 10-15 min catnap in the car on the way home (which seems to take just enough edge off the tiredness to get him through to bedtime). On home days we sometimes switch back to a short AM nap and longer PM nap when he looks like he needs it.

The days are good, but he's still getting up at night. Often he sleeps through from 6.45pm or so (falling asleep independently) until 4+/5+am, and then gets up and won't settle until he's had a breastfeed. Only then will he consent to going back down, waking/being woken for the day at around 6.45am. There are variations on this, but that's the typical pattern. If he wakes earlier in the night, he either resettles himself or it's fairly straightforward to resettle him. But there is absolutely no hope of resettling him without a feed at that 4+/5+am waking.

Now, we *could* just continue in this fashion, I guess, but it would be wonderful to be able to recall what a refreshing night's sleep feels like, not to mention being able to operate at full capacity during the working day. We've had a few half-hearted attempts to resettle him without a feed, but the amount of personality this little guy has developed in the past couple of months is pretty startling, and he hasn't been taking 'no' for an answer. DH does his best but it always ends the same way, with E getting angrier and angrier and us finally caving and me just feeding E so we can all go back to bed!

He's definitely hungry, but it's probably habitual. In the past we've gone cold turkey on night feeds and utilised PU/PD successfully, but I'm not sure that would work now. One thing I've been wondering is whether, if I really held out and didn't feed him, he'd basically be up for the day from 4+am...

Does anyone have any tips? What technique might help if we decided that we were definitely going to phase out all night feeds?

Thanks!

Natalie

[becky1969]

I think what's going on is he's getting an EW due to being OT.  He's not *quite* ready for 1 nap, but is just about. That means he can make it thru his days fine but you're going to get a waking roughly 10 hours after going to bed.  Does that sound about right? Those 10 hour wakings are usually caused by being OT at bedtime. 

I think my first approach would be to try to make bedtime a bit earlier and see if that helps him get over that 10 hour hump.  If not, you'll probably going to have to get rid of the feed.  The feed is reinforcing the 10 hour waking.  That means you're going to have 2-3 REALLY unpleasant days.  I'd start it on a weekend so that you have the slight possibility of a nap (for you!) to help make up for the early morning.


Try earlier bedtime first for 3 days and then if you decide to continue, it's time to cut out the feed.  Good luck! Let me know what works!

[debo620]

hmm, I dont think he is OT honeslty, my son is also on one nap and it does sound Natalie like you are doing a good job of juding his tiredness and doing catnaps as needed..

plus I dont see him going back to sleep after a feed if he was OT. I know my son doesn't when OT although I try .

I only really get a 11hr night 8-7, we recently cut the night feed too and yes it took 2hrs the first few nights...so probably if Ethan woke at 4am, it may take til 6am for him to go back to sleep, so this may not work on a weekday but how about on a weekend. ? if he doesn't go back to sleep, I would probably just do a 20min catnap at 9:30 and long nap at 12:30.

and yup, know that anger thing, Cohen was soooo mad but it did work after about 3 nightss, he was mosty wakeing at 3-4am.

[monopod]

Deb, Becky - thanks so much for your posts, and sorry for taking so long to get back to my thread!

Becky - I wouldn't be surprised if it *is* OT, and you're right, he's typically waking at around the 10h mark. Because he's in nursery 4 days a week and we then have to run errands etc. at weekends, he's not always getting caught up then, though I do try to split up the day in two so we can be home by late morning to allow for a long nap and then be out again in the PM. I would definitely try the earlier bedtime, but unfortunately on nursery days by the time we get home it's usually a quarter to six :/ and then we have to fit in dinner, bath, BF before bed, so realistically 6.45pm is as early as we can make it!
 
I guess that means it's having to get rid of the feed What would work at this age? Deb, what did you do with Cohen?

[becky1969]

I think I might skip bath too, honestly.  They don't *really* need a bath every day.  On nursery days maybe a quick sponge down (just warm wash cloth and soap) rather than a filled tub and playing. 

[debo620]

Natalie, I just sat with him in his room and kept telling him to go back to sleep and rubbed his back a bit etc...but for the most part I tired to just use my voice and if I picked him up, it made it worse.
so I am sure he really was hungry but it was a learned hunger, so it did take like 2-3hrs when he did go back to sleep out of exhaustion I guess...but by the third night he slept through.

[monopod]

Becky - he tends to get really sweaty though (just like his dad ) but I take your point... will look at skipping the tub when we can.

Deb - I must discuss with DH tonight...

[becky1969]

A quicky wipe down will probably suffice.  I just know with my son getting in the tub means at LEAST 20 minutes of playing!

[monopod]

We did a wipe down today! (although it was a home day and he'd already had a bath in the early afternoon, so I guess it doesn't count )

He's started not going back to sleep after his 5+am waking now - I think it's definitely OT. He had two naps today - 45mins in the AM and 1.5h in the PM, so we'll see how tonight goes... (DH is away till Friday so good luck to me )

[becky1969]

Napping sounds good, so I hope bedtime goes well! I'd err on the side of too early for bed rather than too late.