8.5 mo early waking. needs help!

[sherry lynn]

how long ago did you drop the DF?

I think usually you just add a few oz to each bottle to see if that will get him through. If he's eating that much it's hard to imagine that he is really waking from hunger    But I'll let Liz comment more on that, cuz I'm not really sure.

[koe2moe]

He refused DF from 7mo.  He's already eaten half a banana and 80-100g solids more so far today compared with yesterday.  Will give a bigger bottle after his *Ahem* nap, bigger dinner and bigger bottle before bed to see if he can sleep just a bit longer than 5:30.   

Would you have any idea what 15-20mins nap means? 

[sherry lynn]

Question: When you put down the A time, are you putting down the time that you put him into the crib, or the time that he falls asleep? I ask because I've heard people both experience a 20 min nap when UT and OT. When they are super young it usually means OT or trouble transitioning in the sleep cycle. When they are older is when it gets trickier.

Sounds like he's doing well on the food today. Good luck for the naps.

[koe2moe]

I put down the time I think he's asleep.  It's pretty much the time when he went quiet after crying hard and no more jolting back to sleep.  Perhaps those jolting back should be counted towards sleep phases?  But today it was ridiculously short.  Like 10 or 15mins only nap! 

naps: 1x 10-15mins and 1x45mins.  Should have put him on early bedtime but DH disagreed as he's really scared of 4:30 wake up.  We almost never have problems putting DS to sleep in the night but tonight was bad.  We were aiming at 7pm and when he's asleep it's 7:30pm.  So just the usual bedtime. 

The good thing is I got some new understanding on his cries.  There was a bit of "mama i want you here now" cry at the beginning (i did go in and realised that i was disturbing him, so i stepped out again and he started again).  Very soon, like a minute or two, he calmed down and started real settling noises. 

Dinner wasn't great as he was just super tired.  We'll see.  Probably will wake around 5:30.  Hopefully not earlier. 

Just for the record, here's today:
5:30  A (hunger)
6:18  S 50mins (took him a long time to settle down but I stayed away)
7:10  A 3h10
10:20  S 10mins?  15mins?  (he was crying a lot and I didn't go in)
10:30  A  3h15
13:45  S  45mins  (very tired and crying, just couldn't get him to calm down again to sleep)
14:30  A  5h  (way too long but DH really didn't want to put him down for 6:30 bedtime but he agrees to let me try next time in the similar circumstances, like no nap all day)
19:30  S  (took 30 mins to get him to sleep)

Thanks again

[*Liz*]

I don't think hunger causes the EW - the OT does that - but if they wake that close to the morning they are often too peckish to go back to sleep without food.

I also think tea time and the bedtime bottle have the biggest impact on hunger in the morning.

J took until 11.5 mths to eat enough to sleep beyond 5am (due to his reflux) but the wake up for hunger was different to an OT EW. He would wake, stand and cry until he got food. OT wake ups are a bit of fussing, a bit of playing and then crying to get out of bed. He often doesn't go to sleep after a bottle these times.

TBH if your lo eats well I doubt it is true hunger at this age - it is only really if they have a reason for not eating that this happens.

There is a 9 mth growth spurt though.

I thin you need to push that first A back to 3.5hrs and see what happens. I'm pretty sure the A is too low so he just will not sleep.

[sherry lynn]

I agree with Liz. I think he is starting out UT, so takes a short nap, and then gets OT.
After a 10-20 min nap the max A time for most LO is 2 hours. This was the case for Lyle at about 13-15months. So at 9 months I would guess even less.

So tomorrow I would increase the A time by 10 more min. Try that for 3 days, then increase it by 10 more to make it to 3h30m.
If you feel as his mom that he's ready to jump back up to 3h30m then just do it in one go. But if he wakes at 5:30 tomorrow than that might be hard to make. Just try to keep his A time at then end really low key, no electronic toys/tv, etc.

[koe2moe]

Thanks both of you!  Dang... I didn't get a chance to check this before I put DS down for his 1st nap.  He's been very tired since 2h A.  I kept the entire A time low key and he was just yawning massively.  I just put him down, so by the time he falls asleep it would be 3h A. 

Like I expected, it was bad last night.  He woke up around 23:15, so definitely OT sleep, but this time only took 30mins to fall back to sleep.  PD calmed him down and I just sat next to the cot.  He fell asleep himself.   At least one thing I could do. 

I also think he needs 3.5h 1st A but with this massive OT, I'll try from tomorrow.  At least he's not crying now.

Liz, he was not fussing at all, just plain WAAAAHHHHH when he wakes night, morning or from naps.  No fussing, nor playing at all.  Yesterday morning, he was crying hard even after I picked him up.  So I thought it was hunger and it was.  This morning, when I went to him, sat by his cot, he was already cheerful.  But when I was making his bottle, he couldn't help it but kept crying.  He was hungry!  haha 

I now understand the idea of early bedtime, instead of coaxing a CN in the late evening.  I got DH to promise not to interfere with this one. 

I'll also make sure we have dinner early so DS can have a full meal. 

Thanks again.  You both gave me more confidence to tackle this one. 

[sherry lynn]

Liz it's probably too late to give you this advice too, but just remember if he takes a short nap, that's ok, it's not the end of the world. Just put him down a little earlier for the next nap. He can't do a full 3.5 A time on a short nap. Try for 3 hours instead and see how he does.

He might still wake early if you put him to bed early. Some LO do that, like mine. However..... he does tend to make up at least a little bit of sleep. And.... he wakes way more restful the next morning. I got to the point where I figured it was better to have a rested baby with and EW, then to have a cranky OT baby with an EW   That is especially true if you are trying to figure out A times.

[koe2moe]

It just seems so inconsistent!  We've tried all kinds of A times, DS no matter what, just wouldn't nap!  Starting from last night, putting down for bed, then woke at 23:15, I didn't think it was mantra, coz he was getting louder and more desperate and tonight at bedtime also.  He hasn't needed help with night sleep for a very long time.  I ended up sitting by the cot, head resting on the side of the cot, so as not to make eye contact.  But he kept looking up to see if i was there.  I guess I'm becoming a prop!!! 

I know I should take care of myself, but with no sleep and having to take care of DS, I just don't know what to do.  I put him down 15 mins earlier this evening and he ended up sleeping at 8, instead of 7:30.

Today:
5:42  wake up A 3h
8:45  S  30mins
9:15  A  3h 20 (aimed at 3h but took him ages again)
12:40  S  50mins (he was crying but I didn't have to go in, cried at 30mins and went back to sleep)
13:30  A 2h45   
16:15  S 45mins (fell asleep in the pram)
17:00  A  3h
20:00  S  he might wake again crying at 23:00...   

I think if we didn't let him do the CN, he definitely wouldn't last till even 6pm.  He was very tired.  I did try to extend nap for both naps.  He's definitely very tired from yesterday.  Eating wasn't good at lunch/dinner.  Just too tired probably. 

I totally agree, cranky baby is just not nice, can't play nice, it's worse!  Should I insist on extending 1st A to the target time or should I follow his cues?!?!  Last 2 days I was following his cues and they were around 2h and then he screamed and just wouldn't sleep.  I kept him low key almost 20mins before putting him down for naps, and perhaps he's not physically tired enough?! 

[sherry lynn]

koe2moe - I'm speaking completely from experience and hindsight here. If you keep going by his cues and putting him down early you're going to keep getting that 30 min nap. You don't have to go straight to 3h30 min right away, you can try 3h15 first. Also, at least for me, when I say that much A time, I'm talking about that's when to put him into bed, not when to try to have him asleep. I wanted to clarify that.

Tomorrow if he takes a 30 min first nap. Try putting him in the crib at 2h30m or 2h45m. 3 hour may have been too much.

It might be the case that he only wants to take a small first nap. Some LO are like that, and in fact some routines by other "routine experts" recommend only doing a small first nap, so its not the end of the world if he keeps taking a small first nap.
However, we really need to figure out what the A time is for him either way. Either to get 2 long nap in, or to get a small but refreshed nap and a nice long afternoon nap. Did you see what I posted to londonmommy? I told her how I beat the EW at 9 months. You were following along on that thread. If not I'll post it here for you, just let me know.

The fact that it is taking him ages to go to sleep for that first nap makes me think he is UT. I know he's OT on the second nap and taking ages also. But he was doing the same thing on lower A times, so that makes me think we haven't gone far enough.

[koe2moe]

Sherry Lynn

Thanks again.  I misunderstood to have him asleep at 3h30.  Today, we were out all day and he did fall asleep at 3h30 in the pram.  I guess that's the A time he needs for 1st nap and it was 55mins in the pram, so that was very good.  2nd A was 4h20!!!  He slept again for around 55mins but when we stopped the car, he woke up!  We'll see his night sleep because he woke up at 4:30 for his bottle but went straight back to sleep afterwards.  

Yeah I do follow londondmommy's post, so you don't have to repeat it.  I appreciate your time to reply already.  I'll see the next 2 days how DS reacts to the A times.  If it goes well, I guess I need to see which nap I can shorten, right?  Otherwise, there won't be enough A times for the entire day.

I got the gut feeling that when first nap is crap, the day is ruined.  But then perhaps I have been too cautious and didn't want to extend the A too long or too worried to get OT.  It seems like DS can handle very long A times.  

I hope to have good updates tomorrow.

Have a great Friday!  Thanks

PS  I'm adding your post for Londonmama below, so I don't have to look for it every time.  Is this the part you meant?

Ok Ali - now that naps seem to have sorted out I'm going to share what I did. Just so you can go mess things up now

We were suffering really badly with EW during the 9th month. Then naps got better, like yours are. But then I started getting the ODD PM nap refusal. So after reading the links I decided to cut the first nap.

At first that didn't work. He would take a PM nap, but not as long as it should have been. But then I pushed the first A time up even more. For awhile it was 4 hours. I don't know why pushing the first A time worked, instead of pushing the second. But it did. The only think I can think of is that he was refreshed enough after a 45 min with only about 3h30m A time.

But I still work him up at  45min. And he finally started taking a longer PM nap. He stated taking 2 hour naps for the first time in his little life. AND I started getting wake-ups close to 7, sometimes after. Which I had never ever had.

I don't know if it will work for you, but it worked here. At leave for a few weeks.

[sherry lynn]

Yep that's it, except I said, work instead of woke. OOPs

Do you think your LO can handle jumping to 3h30m right away? I am just worried that he will get a little OT?

I hope you have good news Either way, I hope you have a great weekend.

[*Liz*]

Sorry I haven't been around Koe, and sorry things have still been inconsistent.

I agree totally with Sherry - you are going to have to push the first A regardless really - just make sure you move at a pace your lo can handle.

I solved the 9mth EWs in the same way as Sherry, and it worked well for really quite a while. We did a 45min - 1hr am nap, and a 2hr pm nap for ages.

Have a good weekend 

[koe2moe]

Sherry Lynn, getting worked up is easy, too lol  I think DS can handle very long A time as he showed one day probably 2 weeks ago that he just wouldn't stop until 4h...  I should have picked up on that by now.  

Liz, you must have been very busy!  Thanks for your continuous help.  

When you got it sorted out, did you both get nice night sleep?  Like 11-12h?  

No good naps at all today.  I felt totally defeated at dinner time as DS wouldn't even want to eat.  He ate half of what he normally eats prior to the GS.  DH corrected me as DS stopped doing the monstrous cries and putting down to sleep was back to the old way.  Tiny bit of mantra and playing and then to sleep.  No heart-wrenching cries.  And DS couldn't finish his night bottle!  

This morning he woke with hungry panic at 5:20, back to sleep at 5:40-5:50 probably and woke at 7:10.  First nap 30mins, likely OT.  My fault to do grocery shopping as I realised it's Sat, no food at home!!!  1st A 4h10 PD in cot.  2nd A (more errands) 45mins.  So dinner time, he's just super tired.  He's probably refusing the spoon for soft foods also.  (He had entire lunch with boiled potatoes and carrots yesterday).  Might need to start real cooking.  Bedtime, went down no complaints although wide awake.  Just fell asleep quietly.  

As DH said, good progress.  Try 3 days and see what happens.  

Great weekend

[sherry lynn]

That is a hungry EW. He went back to sleep well for you.

What was the second A time?

I hope the night goes well. I'm a little worried about how little sleep he got during the day The way bedtime went though is a good sign.   If he wakes again early I hope he will go back to sleep for you. Keep us posted.