7 months easy is getting hard!!...A times weird...confused!!

[annette.xx]

Hi

my 7 month old LO has recently thrown numerous issues at me once again!!

daytime routine is confusing me and Im not sure how to go about it...think I may be doing it all wrong!!

last few days have looked like this

wake at 7
E...7
A...
E...8 SOLIDS
A
S...10 Till 11.30
E...11.30 BF
A...
E...12.30 SOLIDS
A...
S...3 till 3.30/3.45 (taking from ages to get down...popping head up wanting to see me still!!)
E...4 BF (barely wants anything)
A...
E...5 SOLIDS
A...
E...6.45 BF
S...7.15 ish

short pm nap is confusing me so much...she rubs eyes usually about 1 1/2 to 2 hrs after waking from first nap but then continues to wnat to play??...she then starts rubbing eyes again at about the 3 hr to 3 hr 15 mark so I start winding her down and take her up...she then starts yelling at me when I put her in cot like shes just not ready for it...she calls me back in when I leave her and quickly goes into full on cry!

after maybe 15 mins I get her back down and then she sleeps only to wake 20, 30 or 40 mins later it varies!!...I try and get her back down but no joy...she tries to look round too much and pulls up on all fours...

so I give in and take her down to play and she is happy playing until about half 6 ish when she starts to get tired again so I take her up to feed and then bed...

im sure this is a problem as I must add she has been having night wakings for nearly 2 wks now...normally around 1 or 2 am sometimes 3am!!

A few bits of info;

she started crawling 6 days ago (was waking at night a wk prior to this though??)

her naps started going wonky at 6 months when she started napping always for 1 hr 15 mins and completely OT at bedtime so I was advised to stretch her day out with longer A times as morning A was just 2.5 hrs and afternoon was 2 hr 45 mins....so stretched them out to 3 hrs and things really improved for a few days!! then since morning nap has been great and afternoon nap rubbish...

So my questions?.....

*Is it possible that the A time is too long afternoon so maybe its OT or is it UT and she needs even longer than 3 1/2 hrs??
*if she does need longer A time how do I go about the routine as this would mean very late pm nap which seems to affect her settling at bedtime
*could it be that the later pm naps thats shes recently been having that cause night wakings (a few days shes actually managed to sleep from 3 till 4.15 ish and those days had longer night wakings??)
*how do I get her to settle if shes not ready but I know shes already tired? ...eg sometimes she goes sleepy looking and I know shes ready for sleep but then when I take her up she wants out straight away?..
*could i be winding her down too long...should I just immediately take her to her room when she is looking tired and scrap the cuddling and slow dance I always do prior to nap?

sorry...so many questions!!!!!....always try and give every bit of info so you can pick up on any other issues that may be related!!!

oooh shes just woken up crying from am nap at 1 hr 10 mins now!!! what does that mean?!!!

sooooooo confused!

ive bored you enough now!!

thanks in advance

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

Because of her age I'm going to say maybe try reducing that second A time for 3 days and see if that helps. I'm reluctant to say to increase it to 3.5. That's a lot for this age. It's not uncommon for A times to decrease as the days go on.

My first instinct is to say that the NW are do to being OT at bedtime.  But, then you saying that when she slept until 4:15 it was worse that night, makes me a little unsure of that being the reason. However, you might be on to something. If my son does not have enough A time before bed that usually means a bad night ahead for us as well, so bedtime might have to be adjusted as well if she sleeps later in the afternoon.

If Decreasing the A time does not help, then you might have to go back to the current A time for 3 days, deal with what ever happens, and then try 3.5 and see how she does. If nothing else it will help push the afternoon forward a little bit so that she doesn't have such along stretch until bedtime.

Have you tried doing an early bedtime on the days that she is up really early from that second nap?

[annette.xx]

thanks

thats great advice...im going to try the shorter A time today...think I will start with 3 hr 15 and see what happens first cos im worried that she just wint settle at 3 hrs!!

and yesterday her pm nap was strange cos she went so long until sleep 3 hrs 45 mins!!! and then she slept for over 1 1/2 hrs and I had to wake her up cos it was so late in day (4.30!!) ...and yes as predicted terrible NW lasting nearly 1 hr 1/2 from 3.30am till 4.50...she was so restless just couldnt settle back down to sleep!!

I did refuse to BF her when she woke which was good tho cos I dont want to get stuck in that habit!!

Ive been thinking about it and the NW have been since I first stretched out the A times in morning and day to 3 hrs to get later nap to prevent the OT that i had a bedtime which worked for bedtime settling but The NW soon crept in ...do you think it could be related?

its so hard to know what she wants at the mo!! and nothing works to wind her down!!

thankyou so much for helping me...im hopeful that we can get this sorted cos you ladies always get me straight again!!

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

It could definitely be related. I know that lots of LO on here to really really well with short A times before bed, but I've helped a handful of LO (and my son is one of them) that just need a certain amount of A time in the evening. Since she is doing a minimum of 3 hours during the rest of the day than I'm going to take a guess that she needs at LEAST that amount.

If she is truly increasing her A times to such high amounts, we might actually have to cut a nap. Or go back down to the smaller A time, accept the shorter nap there, and then try to figure out what her A time is in the afternoon (after that shorter morning nap it will probably be a little shorter)

So then maybe we could get a nice long afternoon nap, but one that ends earlier in the day, so that she's tired enough at bedtime?

Do you think that would help?

[annette.xx]

yeah that sounds good....

I do think bringing it forward might help so she has longer in the evening before bed...

also just another thought ...could it be anything to do anything to do with feeding cos she is having solids 3 x a day and also has 5 bf so maybe im overfeeding? ...if she gets tummy ache would that cause NW??

Ive just been to baby clinic to get her weighed and asked HV for advice on feeding solids etc and she was shocked that I bf at 7,11.30,3.30,7 and 11 she insisted that baby needs no more than 3 bf a day at 7 months and even then she would just do morning night bf and give a milk dessert and cheese with lunch....

I dissagree cos Ive been reading so much on how the milk is so much more important until 1 year....but she insisted that solids are more important now and to cut back right away!!

so now im soooo confused with the direction im going with the feeding and not sure whether I should continue to offer BF in the day or do as she says!!

it doesnt help that my MIL keeps on at me that i shouldnt BF her in the day cos all they need is a milky drink ...you know the sort 0 thats what she did so it must be the best way!!

what do you think?...I dont mind cutting milk feeds a bit if thats what she needs but If the milk is more important then I must stick with it!

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

Annette - I completely disagree with your HV about the feeds. She will let you know when she's ready to drop one. I'm pretty sure that is completely normal, at least for the BW boards

However, she is getting to the age where you start thinking about dropping that DF. That dream feed might be interfering with her nighttime sleep now. I was a complete chicken about dropping it, but it ended up not being that big of a deal at all. A few weird nights and wake ups, but then things went right back to normal. Actually even better. He's night sleep did improve when I dropped the DF. (but I didn't completely drop it until 9 months, I told you I was a chicken

Read up on the chapter regarding the DF. Do you have TBWSAYP? If I remember correctly that one had more info in it.

I did the dropping the ounces and bringing up the time of the feed at the same time, and I had no problems.

[sherry lynn]

I wanted to add, when I was going through feeding dilemmas I was strongly advised on the BF board to drop the DF before I dropped any daytime feeds. HTHs.

[annette.xx]

Hi again!!

just wanted to update you...

I dropped DF cold turkey last night...im too impatient and as she wasnt taking a huge amount and barely interested in feeding in the morning I thought id just risk it!!

so still had the NW but still just the one although it was slightly earlier at 2am ..the previous 2 nights had been 3.30am...it lasted 2 hrs awake last night and she seemed happy to stay in cot while I comforted her back to sleep but she was just so restless...looked like she couldnt get comfy...really shuffling...

do you think that indicates some sort of pain or do you think it could be that she is UT??

Update on day routine...

last 2 days have had 2 x 1.5 hr naps!!...found that by really keeping her calm for ages before nap time really helped and followed your advice and have A time right back to 3 hrs/3hrs 15 mins!! so thankyou for that!!

still wondering whether the later pm nap is interfering with her night sleep...

what do you think??

I have read on lots of sites that any sleep after 3.30pm interferes with night sleep and for some babies its more like 3pm!!

when she first dropped catnap she was going from 3pm to 6.30pm and that was when she was 5.5 months!!...I gradually stretched day out after advice on here to get to 3.30 then 4pm then 4.30 so the A before bed wasnt too long and put bedtime back to 7pm as I was having huge settling issues at bedtime due to OT but it only took max 30 mins to get her down and no NW or EW so maybe that was better!!

It is bliss how nicely she settles at night now tho so im reluctant to go back to the long A but im begginning to think that may be what she needs!!

Am I barking up the wrong tree?!!

thankyou in advance ...I really do appreciate your time and you have already helped me loads!

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

Annette - some of the books I've read on sleep also agree with that theory. And my thought is it depends on the child.

I figured that was the case for my son at some point also, but never got the nerve to permanently not let him sleep after 3ish. See, some days it seemed to interfere with his night sleep, and some times he was fine. So who knows. But, I have helped a mom who did have a very similar situation, and it was an issue of having to cut the nap off at a certain point during the day. Her LO was 9 months though, you're seems so young to cut it, but it might be worth a try.

Is she teething at all, you have to rule that out first. 
If it's not teething then for us it's always been an UT issue.

So you might start by cutting it off at a certain point, I'm not sure until what time she is sleeping right now. And then if that doesn't work, cut it more, etc.

Some people believe that by 8 weeks they should already be sleeping no more than 45 min for the first nap. You might want to try something like that so that you can fit in a good nap in the afternoon.

So - my advice would be, if you want to try this do a routine something like this
wake 7
nap 10/10:15  for 45 min 
then you have to figure out the right amount of A time here.
But he might still be able to do 3 hours
So maybe A time 11-2
Then nap 2-3:30
Bed at 6:45/7

What do you think?

OT will be a concern. I don't know if your LO would be ok with cutting straight down to 45 min or if you need to do it more gradually?

[annette.xx]

thanks so much for that it makes alot of sense!!

Im thinking gradual would be better so I will try 1 hr 15, then 1 hour till I get to 45 mins in the usual 3 day per time change!!

but im going to hold back on that just at the moment to rule out other issues causing NWs cos I think you are right and it is teething...I have spent the whole afternoon since last nap trying to keep her occupied as she has been mega grumpy and started crying randomly in the middle of playing so teeth I think it is!!...

poor little thing couldnt settle down for her pm nap bless her so I had to resort to rocking her and singing to calm her down!! I never have to do this so must be teething! I still put her down awake though and she grizzled a bit but fingers crossed shes down now...for how long who knows!!

I think im going to stick to my guns tho and not Bf her for comfort through the night cos Ive done so well in the last few days settling her without and last night she wasnt even trying to get the breast which is a major breakthrough...so I will just give her water and teething powder and gel and lots of love of course!!...

Do you think thats ok??

thankyou so much for being there for me!

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

Annette - I think those are really good plans.
-waiting to make sure it's not just teeth. Plus you don't want to be cutting naps when they might get OT just from the teething.
-I'm happy to hear she's doing so well on breaking the BF during the night.

Job well done. I hope she gets those teeth quickly for you.

[annette.xx]

thanks again..you are so supportive!

well shes still asleep now and its 4.15 so Im just going to let her sleep until shes ready cos i guess she needs it right now!!

she did wake from her nap at 30 mins exactly but I was able to settle her...yay!!...

the one good thing that has come from the NW is that I have found a new way of settling her without BF which im sure will help me loads in the months to come!!

I will keep you posted!

so when she wakes from this nap do you think I should still just stick to a 3 hr A time as normal?...Im thinking shes going to be up alot tonight anyway...the last teething episode (bottom 2) was horrendous...

my baby girl is touchy with a capitol T!!!

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

I would probably try to get close to 3 hours, but don't push it. I've seen a lot of people have success with maybe just making bedtime 15 min later than normal. Sometimes that's all LO ever want to increase by with out getting OT.

[annette.xx]

ok...so think I was wrong about the UT issues!!

that day that she actually took a long nap she slept until 4.45 and I put her bed at 7.15 so 2.5 A time and no NW!!!

Problem is that now the days since she will only nap for 30 mins!!! so NWs back cos that makes her sooooo OT!!!

Last night she STTN again and she had nap late in day due to not settling fighting nap for soooooo long ....30 min nap but then put her to bed early after just 2 hrs A time and no NW!!!

Today no chance cos she had nap at 3.15pm in the end (after crying the place down to settle her - OT or UT?) so was awake from 3.45 till 6.30pm so 2 3/4 hr A before bed...big mistake ...so far 3 NW already....7.30,8,9...

so confused about this A time thing?!

any less than 3 hrs she fights me like mad...any more she does the same so hard to tell if UT or OT!!!

Im considering just keeping her up until she looks really tired before pm nap tommorrow so at least if she doesnt sleep for long it will be later in day so maybe help bedtime and NW?

I really feel clueless now!!!!

Annette.xx

[sherry lynn]

Hey Annette - sorry I just got this. I was away on vacation.

How has the last week been?

did you try keeping her up, how did it go?