13 mo. long NWs MISERABLE

[Mashi]

Also in the past she would sleep later in the morning as we pushed her morning nap later....to the point it was at 11 to get her to sleep to 7. If that same principle holds true...wouldn't I need her to take her am nap later than 10:30 esp. when she isn't sick/teething etc. and can handle the long A times again (which she can do 5 hrs. normally) b/c otherwise it will reinforce her early wake time???

I think this is mostly a factor when you are putting LO to bed too early in the mornings and letting them sleep as long as they want.  Then they start waking early to get that extra A time - but putting her down and then waking her at 30 minutes isn't as likely to do that as she's not getting a full sleep. Does that make sense?

I guess basically my question is...after we get past these NWs from OT....how do I get her to sleep until 7 am again???

IN my experience it happens on it's own as LO gets more well rested. We have just recovered from a spell of it here, and really, it just took a few days of DS getting his good daytime sleeps in, back to his normal bedtime, and he started waking at his regular time (around 7).  I was surpised at how much extra sleep it took in the days and a couple of nights in a row to get him back on track - I hadn't realised just HOW tired he got from a few days.

Looking at your routine, I wonder if 2pm might even be a bit too late to put her down for the afternoon.  My thinking is this -- the amount of A time she has from her wake up until her first nap (4ish hours?) is a "full" awake time, but 30 minutes for her nap is very low, not even one full sleep cycle. So she's not resting enough to make up for how tired she was. Which means that she will start out her A time still tired, and 3.5 hours may be too long for her - at least during this time period of OT and trying to break it. Perhaps when she is not in an OT cycle it may be fine, but you want to keep her from getting too tired at all during the day.  Am I making sense? 

So I would either move her nap to no later than 2pm and see what happens. OR, I would let her have a 45 minute nap in the mornings for one or two days so that she rests fully, and then aim for a 3.5ish hour A time and adjust accordingly.  Neither of things may work regularly for her, but when she is in an OT cycle, reducing A times often really helps to catch up on sleep.

HTH?

[*Liz*]

Nicole - I am also in the camp that feels that the EW will go all by itself once the rest of the routine is right. In many respects they are just a sign of 'wrongness'. I honestly don't think any form of 'head on' tackling works with EWs.

I do think a 2.30 - 4pm nap is ending too late in the day really - at least after the OT is caught up anyway.

[KathrynK]

Totally agree with both of Liz's points 

I feel we are caught up in this cycle of "wrongness"- having had a year of inconsistent (to put it politely) night sleep, and the last 2 weeks of dreadful night sleep, we have now had 2 mornings of EW before 5.30. AARGH. He has never ever been an EWaker before. I think he's all just out of whack.
Sophie has been poorly this last week and I have been wondering if that's behind all this with Big Al so we went to the doc this morning and she confirmed his tonsils and ears are all inflamed but not too bad- looks like whatever virus they have both had is coming to an end. So that would explain much of what has been going on. Now it's my turn- I have woken up with tonsillitis today 

Also we definitely have some SA going on- not sure if it's developmental (as he's almost 13mo it's the right time for it) or if it's due to him feeling a bit poorly, probably a bit of both. I had forgotten how hard SA is to deal with. Am knackered.
Hope you've had a good night xxx

[~*Nicole*~]

mashi-We've tried shorter A time after a 30 min. nap in the past and she wouldn't go to sleep. Her A time is also 3 hrs. after the 30 min. nap not 3.5 (wakes at 11 and is laid down again at 2) and I felt that was reasonable. Any less and she tends to play and have a crib party and not go to sleep for awhile. Anymore and she gets OT and fights it also so that worked well. So 10:30-11 and 2-4 is the aim as when well rested she does fine on 5 hrs! If I give her a 45 min. nap in the am....It'll push her pm nap even later I'd imagine (she is tending to actually fall asleep 2:10 or 2:15 when laid down around 2. So I am thinking it will go to 2:30/45....which I could do but then I'd want to wake her by 4 and she'd get less daytime sleep (2 hr. 15 min. as oppose to 2.5 hrs.?--is my math correct?). Do you think 10am is too early to do the short am nap?

Liz-I do think the afternoon nap is too late. So when she is caught up I feel like she'll need to go back to one nap. I felt that when we did one nap consistently at 12-2 and bed by 7 she was doing fine but then slowly she started waking early and I guess she is just not ready for ALL one nap days. She started the NWs after she stayed at a friend of mine's house and has always had them when we aren't home, which I believe was a major contributing factor to this particular OT loop we got into. The thing is that even the last time we caught up...2 naps or 1...she was still waking around 5:30--6 the latest. Sleeping through but just up early. I think it'd bother me less if she was always an early riser but in the past she was not so I feel like she has the ability in there somewhere. I hope

Last night she was up from 3:30-5:30--at first b/c she sounded like she was settling herself.....but she couldn't settle because she was soaked through her diaper and pajamas. I went in after a bit and when I picked her up I felt her and had to change her and at this point she was awake and so alert she wouldn't relax. She kept talking and sitting up and asking to get down to play and asking for the dog and for daddy. At one point she yelled over and over daddy daddy daddy until he came and held her and as soon as he had her in his arms she was yelling mommy mommy mommy....b/c what she really wanted was ONE of us to put her down to play. She is too alert at this point to get her to lay down and try to go back to sleep so we never know what to do. If you lay her down she screams and cries and when you pick her up she tries to wriggle free to get down to play and says all the things she sees or knows "Chase" "milk" "book" blah blah blah. I finally held her and sang which got her to calm down and then I got her back to bed, but SHEESH it took forever.

[*Liz*]

Ugh - that really is no fun for mummy or daddy though  .

Sorry Nicole 

You might need to wake at 3.30pm on a 2 nap day, ie after 1.5hrs instead of 2?

[LucySol]

ignore me if im wrong but one of the mods on here (becky i think???) said to me that a 1.5 nap for the longest nap was good to aim for cos with the short nap too it adds up to a gr8 amount of daytime sleep! so like liz said i would cut that pm nap down.
she was doing 2 hrs with her 1 nap so maybe thats all the daytime sleep she needs.maybe the 2 nap days when she has a bit  :-more is causing the wanting to get up and play problem.

[~*Nicole*~]

Okay. Will try that out. She was great this morning. Slept through last night with no problems and woke up around 6 or so...found her bunny and a book in her crib and I could hear her chatting with herself and pleasant. Recently she's woken up and cried right away (still tired of course so grumpy) so that was nice to hear. DH accidentally left her light on dim last night rather than off. I do wonder if that made her less disoriented when she did wake and she was able to get back to sleep better??? Liz-you had said something about J needing a night light now? Maybe we do as well.

[*Liz*]

Yeah - I leave a night light on now. I find if he does wake he will just go back to sleep, whereas in the pitch black he can't find his bear or cloth and gets disorientated if he wakes. For a while I used to go in, put the night light on, and very quickly lie him back down and give him his bear. But with a night light he can do this without me. Its a very dim one though.

[~*Nicole*~]

We're currently having an am nap refusal. I'm thinking UT on a good night's sleep and I didn't anticipate this but I probably should have done just one nap today. She's happy, just chatting away up there and not falling asleep at all. Playing, I can hear her. So I guess if I do 2 days of 2 naps I'll need to do a day or two of 1 nap? Esp. if she has no NWs and woke at a reasonable time.

[Mashi]

mashi-We've tried shorter A time after a 30 min. nap in the past and she wouldn't go to sleep.

Yes, I am just thinking that if she is currently in an OT cycle, then A times shorter than normal seem to work best.  But it was just my opinion, you know what will work best for her!

If I give her a 45 min. nap in the am....It'll push her pm nap even later I'd imagine (she is tending to actually fall asleep 2:10 or 2:15 when laid down around 2. So I am thinking it will go to 2:30/45....which I could do but then I'd want to wake her by 4 and she'd get less daytime sleep (2 hr. 15 min. as oppose to 2.5 hrs.?--is my math correct?).

Normally, I would say yes. But, again, I always go by "rules go out the window" when in an OT spell.  For example -- I have had DS on a 30 minute morning nap followed by 3h15m of A time and then a 2 hour afternoon nap for about 8 weeks now. He got into an OT spell about 2 weeks ago shortly after he'd moved to one nap (construction outside of his bedroom window, didn't stand a chance!) and in getting out of it, the day that finally moved us through the OT and back to normal was a 45 minute morning nap (which he hasn't had in AGES) and then 2.5 hours later (!!!!!) he went down for his afternoon nap and slept for 2h15 minutes, when I woke him up!  Went to bed at his normal clock time, (ie/ not using A time, even though he had slept later, and longer) and slept through for a full 12 hour night.  I'm not saying you should try that same nap time/length that worked for us, just offering that maybe more sleep and shorter A times for a day or two might be a good help at building up some rest and getting her through this. Just my thoughts!!

Do you think 10am is too early to do the short am nap?

My opinion -- no, not too early at all.  Not while getting through this - if she is having shorter nights with NWs then right when she is waking up in the mornings she has less of a 'sleep bank' to get her through the morning on. If you push her A time out int he morning then she is already shattered by the time she goes to sleep and then waking up from a short nap not rested.  Her afternoon A time would then need to be shorter than normal as she's already exhausted at the beginning of it.   BUT if you put her down earlier for her first nap (only for a day or two until she's rested!) she isn't quite as tired, and that short morning nap will rest her up MORE.  Does that make sense?

HTH???

[~*Nicole*~]

Well today she did not nap in the am...we went out and got back later than planned. She didn't get to nap until 12:45/50 and only slept til about 2 (with a short wake up in the middle but went back to sleep). SOOOO we'll do an early bedtime tonight, hope for the best and two naps tomorrow. BUT I have learned that on both good naps and a full good night's sleep it only takes about a day or so to get over the OT in which case I have to jump back to reg. A times during the day and do one nap.

[~*Nicole*~]

When I say didn't, I mean she played and chatted and stood and refused to sleep and it was for sure not too long of an A so had to be too short.

Mashi-I know what you mean about short A times for OT but short for her is around 3 hrs. unless sick with a fever! I totally appreciate your opinion and perspective. Thank you for all of your help...it was you who got us back a good night's sleep last night and the other night! Just trying to keep heading in the right direction.

[~*Nicole*~]

Okay, so today she was up at 5:00 am. I got two naps in so I think we'll be okay. Now I am wondering how terrible daylight savings will be for us. If she has a bad nap day and I get an EW of 5am....at some point that will be 4am! And if she is thinking she is ready for the day....ACK how will I function at work?

[~*Nicole*~]

Hi Ladies,

We're still having troubles. Mostly I think we're at a loss as to how to handle the NWs and they are getting out of hand. Any thoughts on the best approach to getting her to go back to sleep without a 1.5 to 2 hr. long battle?

*PU/PD?--She doesn't calm/stop crying/settle when we pick her up. She is throwing these aggressive tantrums and last night was pushing us away and grabbing at our faces to try to scratch/hurt us in order to get down. If I do the just PD part I think she'll just keep getting up. She fights to get up even with a hand for pressure on her.

*WI/WO?--I don't know much about this method...but was wondering if it would be more helpful since she doesn't settle when picked up.

*Let her fuss and see if she'll settle--we always wait to see if she'll fall asleep on her own before goign in. She seems to try for about 30 mins before giving up and throwing a fit and needing intervention. BUT then no intervention really works.

I am thinking that although the NWs started because she was OT that now they are being reinforced b/c she gets so much attention from us.

I'll post a new post somewhere else if need be, just wanted to get your ladies opinion on what DH and I should attempt b/c we're both at a loss for what to do and neither feels comfortable just leaving her to cry alone for hours obviously.

[*Liz*]

So how DO you get her back to sleep in the end? And how does she normally get herself to sleep.

I wouldn't do PU/PD - they are too strong and too mobile for it at this age - and I think it starts to make them SUPER angrey as well.

Basically your choices are either WI/WO or Gradual withdrawl. I would decinde based on how much help you end up giving her at the moment.

J is SUPER independent to sleep ie no form of AP does anything anyway, so when we have issues I always use WI/WO and ignore the fussing. Stage one is usually to just go in and give his lovey back  .

And I wouldn't pick up either TBH

Have you ever read this
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=80750.0

Happy to describe how I do WI/WO if it will help. I have used it with J since about 9 mths as PU/PD didn't work well for us.