Short naps / new A time

[delancepants]

Thank you Becky, I really appreciate your advice.  It's really put my mind at ease about socialising him.  I thought his lack of interest in other kids was because he doesn't have much contact with them.  I had no idea they don't really play with other kids till 2.  That's good to hear, I feel much better about that issue now!

Re DF - are you saying you think the DF could be contributing to NW?

Ok I will try routine changes you've suggested: morn and lunchtime A= 3h and eve A 2h45-3h.  DS is now almost 8.5mo, should I still go for 3h A?  Or a little longer?

Thanks

[delancepants]

Oh, in addition to the above...

I've been thinking about this this morning and I'm scared now as we keep getting these EWs.  I'm finding it very difficult to extend naps/EW currently.  I've even resorted to APOP on occasion as I decided it was better than DS being OT, but even APOP doesn't work every time, it prob only works about half the time.  Two weeks ago I was doing A time of 3h morn, noon and eve but was only getting 1h15 naps morn and afternoon, then pm nap went wonky, so now I'm worried I'm going to get a scenario like this:

6.00- EW and unable to extend sleep
9.00- nap
10.15- wake unable to extend nap
1.00- nap
1.45/2.15- wake unable to extend nap

Just so I'm prepared for this eventuality should it happen - how should I deal with it?  Do you suggest adding in a catnap (if so could you give suggested timing please)?  The problem is I've tried adding a short catnap before (a couple of weeks ago) and just ended up with DS refusing to sleep until another approx 3hours after catnap, resulting in late bedtime and no chance to catch up on sleep!  Or would you suggest super early bedtime of around 4.30/5.00? 

Thank you in advance, Lia

[becky1969]

Wow, he's 8.5 mo now? Then 3 h would be on the short side! LOL! Now he's probably ready for more like 3h15 or 3h30.  So try those times -- but remember, stay at each one for a couple of days before deciding it's not working.  At his age? I might go straight to 3h30 and see what happens there for 2 days, but then if it backfires back up to 3h15.

Yes, on a day where he short naps all day add in a short cat nap.  Timing kind of doesn't matter *too* much b/c you really don't need him to sleep more than 20-30 min -- it's just to help him catch his breath before bedtime.  If he woke from his nap at 2:15, I'd probably try for a cat nap around 4:45 so that he's up by 5:15 at the latest (wake him if you have to) and then in bed by about 8:15.  You want to give him enough time so he's tired, but not so much time as it pushes bedtime too late.

However, if he's doing 3h30 A time, then you probably will do an early bedtime  instead:

6 am wake

9:30 nap (1h15, short)

10:45 awake
 
2:15 nap (short 1h15)

3:30 awake

7:00 bedtime (that's 3h30 later, which is his current A time)


see how that works?  Plus, now that he's 8.5 months old we actually don't expect him to take much more than an 1.5 nap.  You may see him do one 2 hr and one 1.5 hr, or both might be 1.5.  That's fine! Perfect for his age group.  So, the fact that he's taking 1h15 tells me you are SUPER close to finding his sweet spot for A times.  3h15 might just do the trick! Or, you can push it a bit and try the 3h30 like I suggested above.


At this age yes, the DF can start to interfere wtih good sleep b/c now they don't need night feeds and they just want to burrow down and sleep, sleep, sleep! Not saying it messes up every kid's sleep, but it has that possibility, so best to simply drop it.  You can do it slowly or quickly, depending on if you think he's really used to it.  If he's taking a good 6-8 oz at the dream feed, then slowly offer 1 oz less over the next few night.  Then he'll make up those lost calories during the day.  If he's only taking 2-4 oz, then I might reduce by half the first night and then offer none the next night.  That little he's not doing it b/c he's super hungry, just cuz it's offered (Hey, if you bring me a recess peanut butter cup in themiddle of the night, I'll eat it whether i'm hungry or not!   ).

Does that help??


And don't worry about your kid getting socialized.  We started a playgroup when DS was about 15 months old.  That was the perfect time because he was walking and curious.  I did it more for me b/c he was driving me nuts going up and down our 3 staircases all day! LOL! And he didn't 'play' with those kids, but he did have to start to learn how to share toys etc.  At that point he was mostly on 1 nap so it was much easier to fit in a playgroup.  When he was 2.5 we started a music class.  That taught him how to take turns etc.  And then at 3.5 he started preschool! And he's done fantastic!  We didn't do a lot of extracurricular activities, and he's taken to it like a duck to water.  So no worries, love!

[delancepants]

Thank you so much.  This is really great advice.  Not sure if I'll go for 3h15 or 3h30 yet but i'll have a think about it tonight and see.  And I'll take action on the DF too!

I'll keep you posted and let you know how it goes.

Lia

[delancepants]

Ok I've been thinking about it a little and here's my issue.  Let's say we go down this road and lengthen all A times to the same length, and we keep doing so as DS gets older, by 1 year (according to info on this site) he should be sleeping approx 11.5hrs at night and 2 naps, one of 1hr, one of 1h15-30 and his A time (according to info on this site) should be around 4h30.  On the EASY board I was told that generally people cut morning A, to get short am nap, short lunchtime A and then long pm nap.  Makes sense.  But when I try to work out the timing it looks like this:

7.00- wake
2h45 A time
9.45- nap
10.45- wake
3h A time
1.45- nap
3.00- wake
4h30 A time
7.30- bed

So why are we stretching out morn and lunchtime A times if we're just going to have to cut them right back again in a few months?  Surely we should just stick with short morning A of around 2h45/3h?  I mean can LOs stretch out morning A to 3.5hrs or more and then cope with reducing it back down so much?  Or have I got the wrong idea?

Thanks

[becky1969]

I think you're worrying about it too much. 

It's too early to worry about the 2-1 transition.  Actually, what happens is we just keep lengthening out that morning A.  We can stretch them b/c we eventually shorten that nap to 30 min.  We keep the A between naps shorter because PM nap needs to be longer, and they don't have much sleep in them from morning A.


But that's WAY too far away to worry about now.  It's probably a good 4 months before any of that happens.  Right now, just try to give him the A he needs os his naps are around 1.5 hours.  It all works out in the end! Sounds like you're a mom who likes to control stuff a bit.  Is that right?  Well, here's a good lesson in letting go and just following child's cues.  It's OK! It really does all kind of work itself out almost magically. 

[delancepants]

You got me!  You're right, I'm finding it hard to go with the flow.  I am a worrier and I always worry anything that threatens our routine, even though so far any potential nasties like travelling etc have been fine.  I really need to learn to relax a bit!

Here's another quick question for you.  Last night I got him into bed at 6.20pm.  He woke at 5.10am and was fussing only a tiny bit, I didn't have to go in to him at all, and then he went back off to sleep at 6am.  I woke him at 7am but I wasn't sure what A time to give him this morning, whether I should have treated it as a short nap and shortened morning A or whether to just count it as a normal morning wake up time.  In the end I gave him 3h15 A.  He's napping now, so we'll see how long he sleeps.  Do you have any guidelines for this situation?  It'll help me figure out what his current A should be and also what to do in future if he does that again.

Today we had:

7.00- wake
10.15- nap
11.25- wake
2.20- nap
3.30- wake

Thanks

[becky1969]

Nah, if they just wake and fuss a bit but go back to sleep you just treat their next waking as their awake time.  So 7 am in this case is when you start the clock.  It's only when they wake, mama goes in and feeds and cuddles so that they end up being awake 30 min or more that things start going screwy.

[delancepants]

So I tried your suggestions and 3h30 with early bedtime helped for a few days, eve waking and NW reduced, but EW stayed and stupidly I went in and fed him back to sleep a few times.  I don’t know what I was thinking, I’ve been very tired lately and obviously wasn’t thinking straight.  
If I don’t go in to him in the morning he doesn’t cry, he just fusses a little, nothing serious, but he’ll lie there awake for up to 50mins before going back to sleep.  I’m pretty sure if I went in and tried to get him back to sleep he’d start crying pretty hard.  It’s not something I really want to do because shpat/PUPD haven’t been working to extend naps for some time now.  
I imagine the best plan is to stick with keeping eve A within his capability, meaning super early bedtime if necessary, and then when he wakes early just to leave him and let him go back to sleep.  The only thing is that at the start he’s prob going to lie awake for a long period before going back to sleep.  I imagine it’s then going to mess up the daytime routine.  Should I try to shorten morn A to compensate in this situation?
Re A time:  It seems to have lengthened again.  This morn I tried for 3h45 which actually turned out to be 3h40 (he fell asleep early) and resulted in a nap of 1h 30- I had to wake him!  So at lunchtime I did 3h45 and got another nap of 1h30, again I had to wake him.
So it seems like his A time is now 3h45 (he’s now 9months old).  But how does this work?  I’m aiming for 7am wake up in the morning, so with 3h45 A that would give:
7.00- wake
10.45- nap
12.15- wake
4.00- nap
5.30- wake
9.15- bed
Surely that can’t be right – only 9h45 sleep overnight?  Or is this where I’m meant to start cutting naps shorter?  I know you said I’m worrying about 2-1 transition too early but I don’t understand how to make the routine work once A time goes past 3h30.  I’m hoping you get a chance to get back to me today as I’ve no clue what to do tomorrow.
I’d just like to say thank you once again in advance.  It’s fantastic support to have the BW site for those of us who have little support in everyday life.  I’m sure you probably don’t hear it often enough, so just to let you know you’re appreciated.

[becky1969]

Aw, thanks for the props! 

You're right -- once we get past 3h30, then we have to start tweaking a bit.

We can do it 2 ways: We can start limiting AM nap to 1 hour, or we can shorten A time before 1st nap or bedtime.  Whatever you choose to do is up to you and what you think will work best for LO.  If your LO really loves his daytime sleep, then I'd be inclined to shorten As before bedtime and see how he does with that.  He may be OK with that -- lots of babies like a shorter A at night b/c they've had such a long day.

Also, you may find your baby has a 'magic time' at night, where if you keep him up past that time it cause NWs or EWs.  My kid's magic hour was always 8 pm as a baby ( it is now 9 pm as a toddler).  So that will affect things as well.  The routine I might try at this point is:

7:00 awake

Nap 1 10:45-11:45

Nap 2 3:30-5

Bedtime 8

I realize that A before bed is short, but I think that will actually work.  If not, then we can shorten A between Naps 1 and 2 and see how that goes.

You're actually inching up on 1 nap really fast! They can usually hop to one nap once they can etiher a) handle 4.5-5 hours A time, and/or b) make it to 11:30 or 12 pm before needing a nap.  You're not far from there! You may have one of those 12 month olds on 1 nap!


Again, when experimenting, make sure you stay at the same A for 2-3 days before deciding if it's working or not.

[delancepants]

Ok brilliant thanks for this.  Yes, I’m very surprised at how quickly DS’s A time has extended.  This morning I was so worried to try 3h45 A, because I just couldn’t really believe he was there already, but amazingly it worked. 

I will try your suggestions.  I think you might be right, I think I might be able to get away with the 8pm bedtime.  And thanks for magic time tip, I will check back through my notes to see if there’s any sign of it.

Re EW, do you think my plan sounds like a good one?

[becky1969]

Yes, should work.  Keep me posted!

[delancepants]

Ok cool. 

So in terms of A times and nap times from now on, as morn A lengthens, do I just keep shortening morning nap?

[becky1969]

Yes

[delancepants]

Ok so things have been going much better.  I tried all your suggestions and 3h45A has been working and then only 3hA in the evening.  Naps and night time sleep have both improved and we are all much happier!  Until the last couple of days when things seem to have gone wonky, but i suspect it could just be due to teething.  The problem is that DS has just refused his pm nap!!  I have no idea what to do now.  He woke up at 11.30 this morning, so he's already past his 3h45A, but it's only 3.30pm. 

I expect you probably won't get to reply until later this eve, but for future reference (let's hope I never need to use it!), how much extra A time to I give after nap refusal?  It seems now like I'm in a trade off situation between getting in a catnap and losing out on evening sleep.  At what point do I give up on catnap to get an early bedtime?  I'm not sure how early I can reasonably expect DS to go to bed and stay asleep for the whole night.

Thanks, Lia