Need help with tweaking the routine for 10 months old

[Petana]

Hello all, I hope you could help me out a bit. I have extended the A times and we were on the below routine for about 3 weeks and slowly developed early wakings as early as 4.45 am ( today).

Wake 6 am
E: 6.15 milk
E: 9 am solids
S: 10 - 11.30 / 12pm  ( total A 4 hours)


E: lunch 12
A: 12-3.30
S: 3.30-4 ( total A 3.5 hrs)

E: 4
A: 4-7.30 (total A 3.5 hrs)
S: 8

I was suggested that the e/w were due to long A's and my lo being overtired. So I shortened all A's back to 3 hours and always put my lo to sleep after having 12-13 hours day. So if he wakes up at 5 am I put him down at about 6. He doesn't seem to be so overtired anymore but keeps e/w. He has now two naps 9- 11 am & 2.30-3.30. What else can I do? Where do I tweak to routine?
many thanks Petana

[sherry lynn]

Hi Petana,
I agree that initially your LO was probably OT, but 3 hours of A time is a little low for this age. It really shouldn't take him a 1/2 hour to go to sleep. I would try upping the A times to at least 3h15m. Probably closer to 3.5.

Another cause for EW at his age if the order of napping. Some LO need to have a short first nap. This is a really wonky age for lots of little ones. So I'll post some threads for you to read about the issue, I will also try to go find a sample routine for this age that a lot of LO are on.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=95670.0

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=41952.0

This was posted for an 8 month old
7wake
10-11 nap  - you wake him
2:30-4 nap
7:30 asleep

So your routine would look a little different with the times shifted forward a little bit.

Of course since he is EW it will be a lot different right now.

How much night time sleep does your LO usually do. That will give you an idea of when he needs to go to bed. An early bedtime helps some LO, for some they just wake earlier. So we can work on that too.

Some even need to drop the nap lower to 45 min. The second  A time would probably stay around 3 hours.

I did not have any luck with changing the EW by cutting the nap to an hour. I had to cut it to 45 min. But some LO can't do this right away, it needs to be done gradually.

Since you are in an OT cycle right now. I would try to find what A time will get your LO to take a long first nap and let him try to catch up on some sleep.

So maybe tomorrow add 15 min to his A time and see if he will nap longer.

Once you get him caught up then maybe try cutting the nap and see if that helps with the EW.

I just saw that after an hour nap he is still only doing another hour. So I think you def. need to add some A time in there. It is also an indication that you will probably need to cut that nap to 45 min over time.

For some reason I found 3h10m after a 45 min nap to work really well.

HTHs

 

[Petana]

Thank you Sherry Lynn for all the suggestions. He woke up at 6 am yesterday and I had to leave him for a day with my mother-in-law who got instructions on how to follow our EASY.

LO woke up 6
S: 9.45 - 11.45 ( 2 hours after 3.45 A)

S: 3 - 4.00 ( 1 hour naps after 3.15 A)

S for the night 7.15 ( after 3.15 A)

He woke up at 6.15am this morning after 11 hours sleep.He woke up once at 2.30 due to soaked nappy and lots of gas otherwise very pleased since it was 6 something rather than 4 something.

The other day I woke up him after 2 hours nap in the morning but he wasn't ready to be up at all.. kept whinging until the following nap and didn't eat his lunch. I am quite afraid to touch his morning nap. I will see how today goes and will let you know. Maybe the A's at 3.15 will work...fingers crossed.

Have a good day

Petana

[sherry lynn]

That looks great. I hope you have some repeats

[Petana]

Hi Sherry Lynn, we have had a bit of success.. waking up just after 6... so much better than 4-5 something. We have had a long nap together from 10 am to 1 pm. I was so tired after long travels yesterday that I slept with him and lost the track of the clock. I didnt give him another nap and put him to sleep at 6 pm so hopefully not too overtired before bedtime.

[sherry lynn]

I hope it works out for you

Good luck with continued success.

[Petana]

Thx Sherry Lynn, we had a wake up at 6,15. Seriously overtired during the day as both of his naps were too short... not sure what woke him up so early from his naps. He is in bed from 6,30 pm so lets see what night brings.

[sherry lynn]

If your LO is going to bed at 6:30 you can't really expect much more than a 6:15 wake up good luck on your naps tomorrow.

[Petana]

Slept from 6.30 pm till 7 am. Woke up at 4.30, had to put down quite a few times but went back to sleep in the end. I could get used to 7 am    He is asleep after 3.5 A. Had a bit problem putting him down, I think he was already OT. Lets see how naps go.

[sherry lynn]

3.5 might just be a tad too long then. Are you keep a sleep log to help you pin A times down?

Good luck on the nap.

[Petana]

Thanks hun. I will keep a log and will post it for a review in a few days    He napped well, 2hrs 15 minutes but refused PM nap so put him down for night at 6.30 pm. It seems that we are completely off our EASY for the past few days. I reckon that travelling to Europe on Saturday and then the clock change at the weekend didnt help. Hopefully we will get back to proper routine again.

[sherry lynn]

That is a great nap though   It's not too surprising at this age that if they take a long AM nap like that that they might reject the PM nap. I hope he does well for you tonight.

Good luck on getting back on track soon

[Petana]

Thank you. Slept through till 6.15 so really pleased. Just had a short nap this morning so will definitely put down for pm nap after 3.5 A.

[sherry lynn]

YEY for a STTN

I hope you have success with the PM nap.

How are you feeling things are going overall? Is there anything I can help you tweak or give advice on?

[Petana]

Thank you Sherry Lynn. We are on holidays until next week Sunday and LO is pretty busy at all times. He is taking much shorter naps than he used to at home but it seems to help with his early wakings. He woke up at 5.15 am but I managed to put him back down until 7.30 am !!! That was brilliant. I will keep log of our routine and will try shorter naps for next few days. Will work on shorter AM and longer PM nap / possibly 2-1 when we return home in a week....  I will probably need lots of your help then.