5.5 month old waking 45 mins after bedtime

[alethiaperry]

Hello.

My DS is 5.5 months old.  He has STTN since 3.5 months and been on EASY since 2 months.  He falls asleep easily on his own for all of his naps, as well as at night.  For the past 2-3 weeks however, he seems to be waking at night 45mins after I put him to bed.  He is crying when he wakes.  However, I really don't think it's due to being over-tired, as he is up at 6:20am, awake for 2 hours each activity period and sleeps for 1.5 to 1.75 hours for both naps.  Then he has a 30-45 min catnap in late afternoon.  However, due to his early rising, he's in bed two hours after the cat-nap, usually between 6 and 6:30pm.  He goes down easily, and is fussy and tired by bed time.  It can take anywhere from 5 to 40 mins for him to fall back asleep.  I always wait to see what he will do, but once he starts crying (not a mantra cry), I go in and settle him by laying my hand on his chest and telling him to go back to sleep.  Once settled, I walk out.  Often, he goes right to sleep.  Other times, (like tonight), he gets worked up again.  I wait a few more minutes, then go back in.  Tonight I finally picked him up, changed him and put him back down (he wasn't really wet and never seems bothered by a wet diaper anyways and I really NEVER do this), when I put him back down and re-swaddled him, he went straight to sleep.  I don't believe it was the diaper he was unhappy about however. 

I give him a DF between 10-11pm and he STTN to 6:20am (I wish it were 7, but I'm happy it's not 5!)  By reading this thread, I too am wondering if I ought to increase his activity time.  He just seems SO tired by 2 hours.  Actually, today he was so fussy after only 1.5hours that I put him down for a nap and he fell right to sleep for 1.5 hours.  Any thoughts on all of this?

[*Liz*]

Is he teething?

It does sound a bit OT really. He might need a shorter A after the catnap before bedtime. The catnap is not restorative so he will not handle his full 2hrs A after it.

If you are getting good long naps with 2hrs A then you don't really need to change it yet. If he is starting to resist going down or the nap length gets any shorter then yes it is time for an increase. Some babes, especially angel or textbook types, seem to show tired signs at nap times as they are used to going to sleep then, and then it can be hard to extend the A as you would need to do some gently low key A to extend past the tired signs.

HTH

[alethiaperry]

Ok.  I didn't think it was about being OT because his day is only 12hrs long and I thought he was doing quite well with 2hr A.  He's only been awake 1.5hrs since his catnap and I just put him down.  He wasn't fussy before bed for a change... however, rather than falling straight to sleep, he babbled and mantra cried for 20mins in his crib.  We'll see if he still wakes in 45mins or if he sleeps straight through. 

I guess my thought was that he wakes so early as it is (6:20) and he's always in bed between 6- 6:30 that it seemed like such a short day.  If he only takes 1.5 hr naps... that puts him in bed before 6 each night.  I secretly fear he'll begin to wake earlier too! 

Thank you for your help.  We'll see how the night goes.

[*Becky*]

My DS is touchy and he gets OT very easily. I find that his A time after a catnap is very short. Don't forget - the catnap is not restorative, it is there just to get them through to bedtime. I would try bedtime closer to 6pm than 6.30pm and hopefully once he is more rested you can start to stretch his A time slightly so he is going down to bed happily a little later.
Hope that helps
Becky x

[*Liz*]

Let me know how it went and we will try and tweak it from there. Some los will happily do a 12.5 hr night to even it out. Others won't.