New to EASY - need some help tweaking my 8 month-old's routine

[lillyblue]

I started my almost 8-month old DS on a 4 hour EASY about three weeks ago, in the hopes of helping him sleep better.  He had not been on any sort of routine before that.  To make a long story short, my DS has always resisted falling asleep (since he was about 3 months old and stopped just falling asleep on his own whenever he was tired, wherever he was).  Naps have always been a battle. 

(For the long story, see my other post under General Sleep Issues - "My DS seems to hate falling asleep, and I don't know what to do anymore".  Sorry, not sure how to post a link.)

I'm hoping that if I can get the activity times right, maybe he'll be the right amount of tired and not fight sleep so much.

Below are my routines from the past week.  Note the nap lengths generally seem pretty good, but they're only that long because I've been sitting with him and helping him through transitions by laying my hand on him.  If I don't do that, he usually wake up after about 30-45 minutes.

I'm hoping that some of you might have general suggestions, as well as answers to some specific concerns I have. 

1.  How should I make adjustments to the routine when he wakes up/feeds early?

2.  How can I determine appropriate A times when how tired he is seems to vary from day to day depending on night wakings/early wakings/short naps, etc?

3.  I think he's in the transition between needing 2 naps and a catnap to just needing 2 naps.  How do I adjust his routine to cut out the last nap without leaving a huge A time before bed?

4.  What's with all the weird night wakings??

Thanks in advance for your help.  I'm trying so hard to get things "right", but feel overwhelmed by all the little things that need adjusting.  I get frustrated not knowing what to do and hope some of you can point me in the right direction.

Here are the routines:

Wednesday, July 1

Woke up 6:30
E     6:30 bf, 7:40 solids
A     
S   in crib 9:15, asleep 9:45 (1hr 15min)
E   10:45 bf, 11:20 solids
A   
S   2:00 (in stroller) (55 min)
E   3:00 bf, 4:20 solids
A   
S   attempted catnap 5:10 – crying for 20 min - gave up
E   6:05 bf
S   6:30 (fell asleep nursing –unusual)

Night wakings:  7:03, 8:07, 9:19, 9:24, 10:15 (bf 10:32), 1:30, 2:30 (bf), 6:00

Thursday, July 2

Woke up at 6:00.  Kept in crib
E    6:30 bf, 7:35 solids
A   
S   in crib, 8:10, asleep 8:20 (1hr 40 min!)
E   10:30 bf (didn’t take much), 10:55 bf, 12:20 solids
A   
S   in crib 12:55, asleep 1:00 (1h 45 min!)
E   3:00 bf, 4 solids
A
S   attempted stroller nap – no sleep
E   6:00 bf
S   in crib 6:20, asleep 6:30

Night wakings:  8:15, 9:05, 9:10, 9:25, 12:20 (bf), 2:40, 3:50 (bf, then didn’t get back to sleep for about an hour)

Friday, July 3

Woke him up at 7:15
E   7:20 bf, 8:25 solids
A
S   in crib 9:00, asleep 9:10 (1 hr 15 min)
E   11:15 bf (didn’t take much) 12:40 bf
A
S   in crib 1:00, asleep 1:20 (1 hr)
E   3:00 solids, 3:55 bf
A
S   stroller nap 5:00pm (40 min)
A
E   6:45 bf
S   in crib 7:05, asleep at 7:51

Night wakings:  8:40, 1:40 (bf),

Saturday, July 4

Woke up 6:10.  Kept in crib.
E   6:25 bf, solids 7:30
A   
S   in crib 9:55, asleep 8:10 (35 min).  Woke up and screamed – awake/whining for next 45 min, then slept for another 30 min.  Up at 10:45
E   10:50 bf, solids 11:30
A
S   in crib 12:10, asleep at 12:20 (35 min).  Woke up, back to sleep at 1:10 (forget how long he slept after this)
E   3:10 bf (didn’t take much), 3:50 bf, 4:10 solids
A
S   stroller nap 5:35 (35 min)
A
E   7:00
S   in crib 7:20.  Cried/fussed/wouldn’t settle.  Totally wired/fidgeting/crying.
Finally asleep  at 8:40
 
Night wakings:  8:55, 9:55, 1:20 (bf), 5:30

Sunday, July 5

Woke up 6:00
E   6:00 bf, solids 7:30
A
S   in bed 8:00, asleep 8:30 (1 hr 20 min)
E   9:50 bf, solids 11:00
A
S   in crib 12:30, asleep at 12:40.  Woke by fire truck 12:50.  Asleep again 1:00.  Woke up 1:25.  Didn’t sleep again.
E    around 2pm bf, solids 2:45
S   attempted nap 3pm.  Didn’t work.
E   5:30 bf
A
S   in crib 5:50.  Asleep 6:10.

Night wakings:  6:46 (lots of crying), 7:45, 7:55, 9:04, 11:10, 1:20 (bf), 5:00

[*Liz*]

Blimey that took some reading 

I'll give you my thoughts in the order of the questions. I'm no expert, but sometimes other people can just suggest slightly different things.

I think you actually do have a good sleeper there and with the right routine things should settle down LOADS!! It was certainly the key for me.

1) At this age I would just stick to roughly what sort of feeding regime you would like. You kind of have to fit in 4 BFs and 3 solids meals. I would just aim to have them at roughly the same times, and just work around the naps as best you can. I don't know what time you want him to wake in the morning but as he is nearly always doing a 11.5 -12.5 hr night period I would just start your day at any feed beyond 6am. We can work on that later if it is not what you want. The thing to remember is that at this age they do not NEED to feed every 4 hrs as the solids bridge the gap nicely, so a few blips here and there do not matter.

2) Looking at your nap times and routine I would guess his A is actually about 3hrs and you are getting a fair few UT naps in there. After a bad night he might need to go down slightly earlier, nearer to 2.5 hrs. The first A of the day is often shortest, but at 8 mths 3hrs would still be a reasonable A for most. And we want him to sleep at night - not have lovely long am naps to make up for causing chaos all night. Tired signs are sooooooo unreliable at this age. Eye rubbing and fussing is so often boredom or frustration. I'm going through a patch of NO tired signs at all since he started crawling. Very irritating.

3) We need to extend his A to 3hrs so that he can drop that catnap. It is definately causing too much trouble now. He just isn't tired enough to take it unless he has had a really bad day.

4) Usually OT on the days he's refused his catnap by the look of it.

What I would do is try and hold him to a morning A of 2.5hrs at a minimum, and nearer 3 hrs if you think he can handle it. Then if the nap is longer than 1h 15 or so, then 3 hrs after that and see where that gets us. Might need to pop him to bed 20 mins early if it hasn't quite gone to plan. And I'd only bother with the catnap if it has been a REALLY bad day.

HTH

Happy to explain more if I make no sense.

I think he is nearly there and just needs a final push to 3hrs A TBH.

[lillyblue]

Thank you so much for your suggestions.  I had been so focused on thinking he was overtired I hadn't considered the possibility that I was actually putting him down for naps too early.  I was trying to go on his tired signs, and he always seemed tired after an hour and a half, or two hours, so I assumed he wasn't able to stay awake for very long.

This morning, I kept him up for 2.5 hours and he went to sleep very nicely after only about 6 minutes of minor fussing, and slept for an hour.  He hasn't done that in a long time... I think you're definitely on to something.  I'll increase it to 3 hours over the next few days and see what happens.  I shouldn't get too hopeful, but it would be fantastic if a lot of the nap resistance and short napping was due to simply being undertired.

I'm sure I'll have some more questions over the next few days.  Hopefully you (or someone else) won't mind continuing to help with some tweaking until I figure out what works.

Thanks again!

[*Liz*]

Great - only increase that A by 10-15 mins every 3 days up to the 3 hrs to avoid OT. We want to keep it out of the equation.

Let me know how it goes - I'm more than happy to help you keep tweaking 

[lillyblue]

Well, things didn't go as well this morning.  He woke up at 5:20 but we were able to get him back to sleep until about 6:20.  I put him down for his nap around 8:50.  He had been quite fussy and seemed tired, but I kept him up the 2.5 hours anyway since I didn't want to misread his signs.  Once in his crib, he cried a lot and kept rubbing his eyes constantly, not fiddling with his hands like he often does if he's not too tired.  He was asleep at about 8:05 and woke up at 8:40.  I couldn't get him back so sleep as he was wide awake. 

Do you think that was that an overtired nap?  I'm pretty sure he got overtired yesterday because I was out for lunch and he was awake for about 4.75 hours between his naps.  I feel bad about him being up so long, especially since I'm trying so hard to work on his naps, but it was a special occasion and I hardly ever get out these days...  Yesterday evening he took a long time to settle for bed and seemed wired.  On the plus side, he slept through the night for the first time without waking to be fed!

How should I adjust for his afternoon nap?

Thanks.

[*Liz*]

Yey for STTN.

Yes I think that was an OT nap - but still think you should continue to try to get to 2.5 hrs. Perhaps next time put him down 10 mins before the 2.5 hrs so he is asleep by then as he actually did a 2h 45 A.

Try and go by cues this afternoon but after a 30 min nap your A will likely be 30 mins shorted that you would expect it to be.

HTH

[lillyblue]

Hi again - looking for some more input.  We've had at least one good nap each day, which is a real improvement.  I've stopped sitting with him to help him through transitions, and instead rush in to help him back to sleep if he wakes up, which works more often than it doesn't.  I've been trying to keep to about 2.5h A in the morning and 3h A for the other two times, but it's hard when he has short naps.  We've had three naps on those days, even though I'm trying to help him transition to two, because I don't want him to get overtired. 

What do you think?  Any thoughts on things I should change/keep doing/work on? 

Also, I'm wondering about the following:
1. Does waking up 7-10 minutes after falling asleep (ie. during the transition) generally mean OT or UT?
2. He often wakes up 35-45 minutes after falling asleep.  Do you think he just has trouble with transitions, or could it have to do with the length of A?

Thank you so much.  It is much less frustrating now that I feel like I'm working towards something.  I really appreciate your guidance.

Here's how things went for the past few days. 

Friday July 10

Woke at 6:20
E 6:25 bf, 7:30, 8:15, 8:35 solids (wasn't interested in eating any of these times)
A (2h 45m)
S  in crib 8:50.  Asleep 9:05.  Woke up 9:40.  Couldn't get him back to sleep. (35 minutes)
E 10:00 bf
A (2h 30m)
S 12:10 nap in car (fell asleep on way back from appointment) (20 minutes)
E 12:50 solids, 1:25 bf
A (1h 40m)
S  in crib 1:55.  Asleep 2:10.  Woke at 2:50.  Helped him back to sleep right away.  Woke 3:05.  Helped him back to sleep.  Woke 3:50.  (1 hour 40)
E 4:05 bf, 6:05 bf
A (4h 5 min)
E 6:05 bf
S in crib 6:35.  Crying/fussing/falling asleep/waking up.  Finally asleep at 7:55.

Night wakings:  8:40, 4:40  (bf), 5:00-5:50 awake on and off.

Saturday July 11

Woke up 7:15
E 7:20 bf, 8:30 solids
A (2h 20m)
S in crib 9:25.  Asleep 9:40.  Woke at 10:15.  Helped back to sleep.  Woke again after 10 more minutes.  Asleep again.  Woke up at 11:00 (1 hour and a bit)
E 11:30 bf, 1:25 solids
A (3h)
S in crib 1:55.  Asleep just after 2:00.  Woke up at 3:10.  (1 hour 5 minutes)
E  3:30 bf, 4:00 solids
A (3h 15m)
E around 5:45? bf
S in crib 6:15.  Asleep at 6:25. 

Night wakings: 7:10, 7:25, 2:20 (bf) (took about 30 min to fall back asleep)

Sunday, July 12

woke at 6:15
E 6:20 bf, 7:50 solids
A (2h 15 m)
S in crib 8:25.  Asleep 8:35.  Woke at 8:45.  Helped back to sleep.  Woke up at 10:00.  (about 1 1/2 hours)
E 10:25 bf, 12:15 solids
A (3h 10m)
S in crib 1:00.  Asleep 1:10.  Woke at 1:45.  Couldn't get him back to sleep.
E 2:30 bf
A (3h)
S stroller nap 4:45 (about 40 min)
E 5:40 solids, bf 6:45
A (1h 50m)
S in crib 7:05.  Asleep 7:15.  Woke up 7:25.  Asleep again a few minutes later...

Night wakings (none yet...)

[*Liz*]

I don't know about waking after only 10 mins  I'm guessing it is difficulty falling asleep due to OT.

Looks like your lo is relatively high on sleep needs  which might be a pain at the moment but will be great later when you get 2 nice long naps everyday.

I doubt he is struggling to transition at this age unless he has never done it by himself. I get them if he is either UT or OT - but most commonly a bit OT. If I just leave him he usually tosses and turns a bit then goes back of to sleep by himself - have you ever tried this? If he wakes and I go to him there would be NO WAY he was going back to sleep.

You are doing the right thing by offering a catnap on bad naps days.

I think we need to shorten the A just a bit. Looks like his morning A is about 2h 20 mins (quite common for it to be the shortest) and he takes about 10 mins to fall asleep so aim to put him down at 3h10 ish so he is asleep at the right time. Now if we get a longish nap on that then try 2h 45 mins and see what we get. I think if we can get that am nap to 1.5-2 hrs then he will do 3hrs, but as they are often broken and 1-1.5hrs at the moment 2h 45 would be better.

That EW on friday was OT for sure.

Does that sound sensible? I think once we have got him to nap well for a few days we can get to 2.5hrs/ 3hrs/ 3hrs and get rid of that long A to bed.

Thats is the plan anyway!!

Happy to help - let me know how it is going.

[lillyblue]

Thanks once again!  We'll try for shorter A times today.

Regarding his waking during transitions, when I first started trying to extend the naps I had been sitting next to the crib, ready to place my hand on him if he jolted or had a major shift during transition.  After about a week, I found that he was jolting less and I started holding back, and only placed my hand on him if he really squirmed around.  The jolts were fairly predictable, so I started leaving after he was asleep and coming back in before he transitioned.  Then, for a few days I just observed, and stepped in only if he woke up.  Recently I've been out of the room and go back in after he has cried out a few times.  Usually if he gets to the point of being awake, that's it - he's up.  But it seems that if I can put my hands on him before he's totally awake, he will usually go back to sleep.  What happens when your LO wakes up during transitions?  Does he cry out a few times, then stop?  I worry that if I don't go in right away, he'll wake up completely.  But then again, maybe I'm going in too soon.  I should give this a try, but maybe I'll wait until I get the A times ironed out a bit better.

Anyway, I'll keep you posted!

[*Liz*]

I've seen J wake at 40 mins, sit up and cry for 5 mins, then lie straight back down and sleep for another hour or so. I've seen him do the same at 1h 45 as well. Babies do some strange things. I just wonder if he sees you it might be making it worse.

But ironing out the A and then giving it a go sounds quite sensible!!