Shorter A times = Longer naps!! How do I extend A then?

[Flightmommy]

Thanks! While I know that the experimenting is necessary, I'm just wish it could be over and that we could be at a good place with our naps and schedule.....it's been pure chaos for the last 4-6 weeks, not to mention that i am a very scheduled person, so i'm finding this hard. Today's am nap was a bit broken...at the 40 minute mark, he woke because he had flipped over on his tummy, for the first time while sleeping...he's not much of a tummy time kind of guy, so that really got him mad. I turned him on his back and eventually, he went back to sleep for another 20 minutes...so a total of 1 hour, but broken. During the next A time, we had friends, with babies, over for lunch and it was quite stimulating for DS, probably too much.  Because of this,I really tried to allow lots of winddown time for the pm nap, but our friends hadn't left until 1:10pm, which was already 2.25 A time, with the diaper change, etc...DS was in his crib by 1:25pm and seemed like he would go off...did the 7 mile stare and then got a second wind and started to fuss and moan..only to fall asleep at 2.05pm!! A time of 3.20!!! I knew what was coming my way....yup, a good 45 minute OT nap! Tried to resettle, but no luck...so early bedtime of 6:45pm.
   I feel like last night's 11h40 rest gave us such a good clean slate to start with, and it was ruined by our lunch time stimulation....but you can't stop living either..it's just so hard to find a good balance. Of course, the friends that were here had babies of similar age and some hadn't even napped yet....off they went after lunch for their naps and would you believe that most of them slept at least 2 hours....regardless of OT or A times!!! DS is just sooo sensitive to the smallest change or A time increase...even 5 minutes!! Is this normal?

[*Liz*]

Yes - it can be totally normal for 5 mins to make a difference. Some lo's are really sensitive to OT.

I know about the spirited sleeper - but have no experience of grumpy. I'm going to have a good think and see if I can think of any mummies on here who have had a grumpy lo as they might be able to give you some extra help.

It is hard to know what to do for the best sometimes. I found I kept getting stuck in a loop where I *needed* a bad night to get me good naps, as otherwise my routine didn't work. Then I got a short UT night and got good naps again. All the time I though he was senstive to OT and he wasn't really. I wasn't brave enough to extend the A's and was actually creating the OT myself iyswim? I wonder if that is in part what is happening to you about the second A time - a UT nap and then a mega OT bedtime. Then the EW.

If your lo is that senstive you NEED to go 5 mins at a time.

Does your lo respond to a long or short winddown?

Also 3hrs A for the first nap is just fine - I wouldn't bother shifting that - just leave it as it is - and what we need to do is find the right A for the second.

[annette.xx]

hello there

just watching in...

my dd is also 9 months and exact same issues here!

My A time is 3 hrs in am then 1 hr nap then 3 hrs again then 1 hr nap - this was 1 hr 1/2 but now she seems to be fighting going down and getting OT so A time ends up more like 3 hr 30...

but if I put her down after longer A time before pm nap then she gets OT and same battle but then end up with 30 min OT nap!! ...

round and round in circles I go!!...

sorry just wanted to let you know you are not alone and as soon as I figure mine out I will let you know any progress...

lizj - so glad you said to keep that first A at 3 hrs cos Im always reading advice to lengthen this and it always ends in tears (tried it today and it was HORRENDOUS - 10 mins added and 30 minute crying battle - NEVER AGAIN!!)

im just reading in so I can pick up tips from your replies if you dont mind!

good luck

Annette.xx

[Flightmommy]

Well, today was a rough one.....DS woke at 5:30am (10.45h night) although I wasn't really surprised as yesterday was an OT day, but nothing compared to today!! I kept his first A time to 3 hours, even though he didn't seem tired, because I knew he'd had a short night and previously, with a 3 hour A time following a short night, he usually gives me a good 1.45- 2hour nap. Even though that's not keeping with the 1 hour am nap plan, I figured it would be ok for today, to help get him of the OT train and to push the next A times, as I didn't want to do a 5:30pm bedtime. Well, that backfired, as he slept all of 30 minutes, which usually means OT, but he woke happily and played until I went in to get him( looked UT??). I attempted to keep the next A time short..aiming for 2.30-45, but that backfired too as he was wayyy overstimulated with guests and even with the super long winddown....only fell asleep after 3.20 A time.....another 40 minute OT nap. At this point, it's 1:05pm, so I know there has to be another nap somewhere....I tried every AP trick in my bag...feed to sleep, rocking, shhshing, even a 1 hour walk in the stroller......even I was ready to sleep at this point!! ughhh!! Finally, at 4:50, he fell asleep in my arms and I rocked him until 5:15pm. I woke him so I could get him to eat dinner and attempt a early-ish bedtime....of course, settling for the night took forever and he finally fell asleep at 7:25pm....such a messy day and complete loss of schedule. And then, tomorrow morning, we'll get another EW due to OT and off goes the cycle again.....Annette, I'm going round and round in circles with you!! lol!!
  DS is soo severely OT that I just don't know how to fix this...this is a baby that never cries at bedtime, and even at most naps, will sometimes fuss for a minute or so....that's the most I'll hear from him. Now, he goes on and on, and then looks like he's asleep, only to start crying again...over and over.
  Oh, I redid the personality test today and I think that DS might be more of the touchy type, with a good side of grumpy added on just for fun!! lol!! It's nice to know that others are going through this though...because truthfully, today's outcome had me wondering if there was really something wrong with my son.
  Anyways, tomorrow is a new day, with new beginnings.....LizJ, to answer your question about the winddown, DS used to be fine with a long one, but lately i've noticed that, he still gets very relaxed during our winddown, as he's always done, but once he's in his crib, it's like he gets a second wind and starts squealing, giggling and playing, which of course inadvertently extends his A time. He goes from, eyes rolling back and drowsy when placed in the crib, to playful little monkey and this can lasts up to 15-20 minutes. I thought perhaps he was UT, but he was doing this today during all his naps, even when he was clearly very OT and hadn't slept for hours. Where does he get this energy???

[*Liz*]

Sometimes that playful thing is UT, other times it is a second wind in an OT baby.

I hear you on the crying with OT. J isn't terribly sensitive to OT, but when he does get there I find the screaming SO hard to deal with and it just goes on and on and on  .

I would stick to the 3hrs regardless for at least 3 days before we say it isn't working - sometimes they just do silly inexplicable things. Part of why I don't EASY log!!

Personally I would find J would do a normal A after a 10.75hr night. I mean - its only 15 mins short really? Is you lo usually a 12hr night sleeper?

Annette - if you are thinking that the best way through the transition will be to get a long pm nap you need the am nap to be as early as possible, and naturally allow it to become UT (a lot of mums cut it themselves). Now my DS just wouldn;t cooperate with this as he is a little man who sleeps when he is TIRED, and not a moment before. So he started to fight the nap and I pushed the A. But when we were heavily into the 2-1 transition at 11mths he just wouldn't sleep early enough to get a pm nap in and decent A to bedtime. Anything up to 3.5hrs works, anything over that gets very tricky.

[annette.xx]

Hi

just checking in to see how your routine is going? I saw your name on my thread as reading it so wondered if you are still having the same problems as me?! This is hard work isnt it!!

Lizj - well today I did a 2 hr 45 A time before am nap (it was after a EW) she was just far too tired to stretch out and I accidentaly woke her after just 28 mins by dropping something, then was clueless what A time to do so let her decide and she decided on 3 hrs A time!! and whats more she is still asleep after 1 hr 45 mins so far!!

so what do you think that tells me? EW (10.5 HR night sleep) followed by very short nap and fairly long next A time followed by a long nap and no fighting when I put her down (not even one cry which is unheard of just lately!!)...

hmmmm...

do I recreate this again?....

flightmummy how long is your morning nap nowdays? and what A time does he have before it?

Annette.xx

[Flightmommy]

Hi Ladies!
  Annette, I have indeed been following your thread and have been living vicariously through you...lol!! You've had such amazing success...good job! I've been meaning to respond to it and also update my own thread, but as a result of absolute loss of schedule and extremely short naps, i've had no time to post. I am so frustrated and tired of living around naps that are short and sometimes non existent.
  Where do I begin? I first should mention that Caleb is battling a mild cold..no fever, or coughing, just quite congested and a runny nose, so I do know that when he stirs at the sleep cycle change, he is waking a bit more than usual, as his breathing is probably bothering him. Still though, that doesn't explain the last 6 crazy weeks of madness...EW's, short pm naps and extreme OT!! I've tried so much tweaking and can't really say that we've officially gotten off the OT train..it's almost like OT is our new normal!?!
  In sum, this week's EASY has been generally...wakings between 6-6:40am, first A between 3-3.15, am nap around 1.10-20 but I wake him in order to have a longer pm nap, and then the next A is where I think i'm messing up...it has been anywhere between 2.50-3.15, depending on how long the am nap was....but I always get a 30-45 minute pm nap and they end around 2pm or 2:30.....which of course, makes for a loooong A before bed as I can't put DS to bed before 6:45....anything before that results in a ridiculous EW, I'm talking 5am or 5:30.
  Annette, I've noticed that your cutting the am nap really short and it seems to work beautifully for you....i'm pretty sure I wouldn't get the same results with Caleb. He is extremely high on sleep needs and even after being woken from a 1 hour nap...continues to grizzle until next nap time.
  Oh, and this is is new too....the night before last, I woke at 4 am to hear DS chatting away in his crib and playing until 5am????Then slept until 6:40am...he's done this once before, but that was because he'd had 4 hours of naps the previous day, so it was quite obvious that he was making up the A time. But this time, he'd had shortish naps the previous day and still woke, just to play....I don't get it!! So, last night, he went to bed at 7pm and woke at 6:40am again....i never heard him play at 4 am, but it makes me wonder if he did and I just didn't hear him. If he didn't, then that was a good almost 12 hour night that we don't see very often these days.
  Here's our EASY so far today:
6:40 wake
10:00am nap (still sleeping, will wake at 11am if not up on his own)
here's my problem area....what do I do with the next A...yesterday, he had a second A of 3.10 (did the 7 mile stare before his pm nap, which tells me probably a bit OT) and then pm nap of 40 minutes, woke quite upset...so i'm thinking 3.10 was too much for him and i will reduce it today....i just never know how long it will take him to settle, so i'm afraid of starting the winddown too early and then he falls asleep UT and we get, yet again, a short nap......
   I'd appreciate any feedback you ladies have for me....thanks!

[annette.xx]

hello!

well the short am nap has been great for me until today - she woke after 1 hr 20 mins which was too far from bedtime to avoid OT for me - I normally adjust the bedtime so no more than 3 hr 30/45 before bed but silly me thought I would manage 4 hrs - guess what I am kicking myself now cos she was OT and took FOREVER to settle so EW for me tomorrow - never mind!!

but im confident I can turn it around again so not too worried!

right then with regards to your routine I can strongly suggest the short am nap - my LO is the touchiest baby you will ever meet and very high sleep needs and this is why I have always kept the am nap at an hour or more never daring to cut - when In fact this was the exact thing that was messing up my whole day!!

Jasmine always wakes up in a bad mood when i wake her from naps be it 1 hr , 2 hrs whatever she is not liking it!!

I think cos they enjoy the am nap so much and want to sleep (like an extension to their night sleep - a bit like how we feel in the morning - I know I would do anything for a little nap in the morning!) when you cut this nap real short its just enough to carry them through but they still have that feeling of wanting to snuggle up and go to sleep again cos we havent let them sleep in ...so the pm nap becomes their new love like the am nap was!

its taken me from 1 1/2 hr nap refusal in pm to her snuggling teddy and sleeping almost straight away!!...

It might not be for you but Im amazed at it!

and when the pm nap goes wrong in my experience it is ALWAYS best to do an early night even if it is 6pm - remember a 5am wake up after a 6pm bedtime isnt an EW - 11 hrs sleep is a well rested night sleep - its the last part about 10 hrs sleep till the 11 hr or if lucky 12 hr that is the really deep stage where they get the best sleep of the night!! (I read this on sleep facts on one of the boards on here)...

I say this cos if you do the early bedtime if pm nap is short and get him well rested then you will be able to slowly stretch out his day by adding 30 mins before am nap then again 15 mins or so before bedtime so hopefully within a day or 2 you will have the bedtime back almost where it should be - some people manage to stretch to the normal naptime from an early waking and continue a normal day from there - my LO is too touchy for this tho!!

I feel for you with him being poorly - its so tough - and poor caleb!

if you stick to the hour nap in am my feeling is that the pm nap could probably do with more A time - the way round it would be to try 15 mins extra and see if that makes a difference - OT always stumps me at this age cos often what I think is OT was UT all along!... think thats why I got in such a mess!

Annette.xx

[Flightmommy]

Well, after what I though was a good day, we've had an unusual morning. Yesterday went as follows:
  6:40am awake
  10:00 am nap (A time3.20, which is stretching it for us, but didn't seem OT, so that's a good improvement)
  11:25am awake (i woke him and had really intended on doing it earlier, but he's battling a cold and felt like he needed the sleep, but our big hurdle these days is short pm naps, so figure if he's going to short nap in the pm, at least get a proper long am nap...it's better than 2 short naps!! )
  2:40 pm nap (took him 25 minutes to settle, so don't really know if it was OT or UT, but in total, that was A time of 3.15, which is on the long side for the second A )
  3.40pm woke on his own
  7:15 asleep for the night
  Overall, I felt really good about this day, although not ideal, it was the best we've had in weeks. I figured he would  AT LEAST sleep 11 hours since he didn't seem OT at bedtime, so I set my alarm for 6:15 (as i've said before, DS can stay and play quietly in bed for up to an hour before crying, so if I don't wake to look at the video monitor, i'll never really know what time he woke...lol!!). Well, he was awake already at 6:15 and my stomach just sunk, cause really he's always done close to 12 hour nights when he's not OT....also, he looked like he'd been awake for awhile, from the position he was in...all the way down in the crib and fussing already. I left him for a bit and to my surprise, he fell asleep at 6:50am!! I figured i'd leave him to sleep a little cause he might have had an EW and needed to catch up.....well, I had to wake him at 8am!! i've never had to do this, so I don't know what's going on with him....could he have been up for hours??
  As for the am nap, he was rubbing his eyes already at 10am and fussing...so I kept it low key and held him and walked around the house, cause I know it was way too early for his nap, but he seemed tired....again, makes me question his EW and even his night...did he not sleep well? He went down for his am nap, with just a bit of a fuss, at 10:40am and it's 11:30 here and he's still sleeping.
  Ideally, i'd like a shorter am nap and then longer pm nap, but he seems to be the type to do the opposite and since I can never be sure to get that longer pm nap, I'm tempted to just let him sleep as long as he wants in the am nap.
  Would it be best to wake him from the am nap to preserve the pm nap? And how does this go along with the upcoming 2-1 transition, or is it here already?
  Thanks!
 

[Flightmommy]

Well, here I thought we'd had two good days in a row, but we are still having the EW's. So i'm wondering if someone could please have a look at the last two days and help me tweak this a bit. Just a bit of history, the last 4-6 weeks have been filled with many OT days and trying to recover from it...previous to this, we had a great 7-7 schedule and somehow found ourselves in a OT cycle laced with EW...i figured the main problem was because naps were front loaded and the pm nap would always end too early in the day, making for a too long A before bedtime. And even early bedtimes were giving us EW's.....so fast forward to this weekend:
 Friday
6:40 awake
10:00-11:25 am nap
2:40-3:40 pm nap
7:15pm bedtime
Saturday
awake, not sure, as i woke at 6:15 and DS was babbling away in his crib, but he fell back asleep at 6:50 and I had to wake him at 8am
10:40-12:10 am nap
3:20-4pm pm nap
7:15 bedtime
  woke this morning at 5:50 to find DS, again, babbling in his crib. Only this time, he never went back to sleep. Since I didn't really know what time he opened his eyes, I decided to let him go this morning until he showed me that he was tired. With such an early waking, I thought that might help stretch out the A's and the day so that I don't have to do bedtime tonight at 6am, thus encouraging an EW tomorrow. Anyways, he started getting grizzly around 9am and so I brought him up, did winddown and he went down without much fussing by 9:15. So that was at least an A time of 3.25, if not more, since i don't know what time he woke this morning. The potential for his longest A is definitely first thing in the am, but I don't know if I should wake him after an hour to preserve the pm nap and what if that doesn't work and he ends up short napping in the pm...then we've got two shortish naps AND one miserable baby for the rest of the day!!
  So my big problem is finding the right A time for the second A...this is where the day goes wonky. I really though the last two days were an improvement in terms of having the pm nap later in the aft and therefore, less A time before bed....but today's EW has proven me wrong. Does anyone think it's because the pm naps were short and perhaps not restorative enough, even though they were later in the day? Maybe the ideal would be for a shorter am nap and then longer pm nap....just don't know how to get there..

[*Liz*]

Some lo's really do not like losing that long am nap - and it is perfectly acceptable to do the 2-1 using a long am nap and a pm CN if you would prefer.

I suspect the EW is simply that the final A is too long - 3h 25 after a 1hr nap and 3h 15 after a 40 min nap. Those type of A's seem too long for your lo to me, based on what would produce a long nap. Remember even if your lo is asleep at 6.45pm, if they sleep a full 11-12hr night it puts you in a better position for the next day even if the time on the clock is a tad early.

I would do bedtime 3hrs after a 1hr nap, and 2h 45 ish after a 45 min pm nap. As the EWs improve (which they should once he stops going to bed OT) you can push back the am nap as well, and that will also help the EWs.

Either way really - you either need to find the right second A after a short am nap or the right A to bedtime. But if your lo genuinely prefershis am nap there is no reason not to stick with it for now instead.

I actually did the 2-1 with the long am, short pm as I just couldn't get it to work once the am nap was less than 1hr. It does get messy - but TBH I think it always does really  .

TOTALLY agree with Annette about not being too quick to assume everything is OT at this age. I've made that mistake SO many times. J was UT for weeks and weeks at one point.

[Flightmommy]

Thanks LizJ! Just read this tonight, so not in time to tweak bedtime, but will keep this in mind tomorrow......could be a crazy EW for us tomorrow morning...last A was over 4hours( completely unintended)...ughhh!! Although, he didn't seem OT at all, and wasn't even fussing....just rolling around and playing with his lovey....i'm thinking maybe his body has just gotten used to a longer A before bed...but maybe i'm just kidding myself!! lol
  Anyways, in sum, here was our day:
wake, not sure, prob. around the 5:45am mark ( see previous post)
9:15-10:35 am nap
1:35-2:50pm pm nap (was playful and didn't fuss much for this one, so might have been slightly UT..prob. could have gotten a longer nap if he'd gone down just a tad later, but it's sooo hard to know when he'll fall asleep)
attempted bedtime by 6:45, but he just played and rolled until 7:15pm....he's got quite the congested nose, and i know it's been bothering him when he goes down..i can hear his stuffy breathing over the monitor..poor little bub!!
  If we've got a good waking, i'll try and cut the am nap a little shorter and see if the pm nap doesn't extend...i know he really likes the long am nap, but he's just miserable following a pm catnap and does far better with the longer pm nap.
  And you're right about the OT vs. UT...i stretched his first A this morning to our limit of 3.25, even after a short night and he still did quite well...not a super long nap, but got over the jolts and kept sleeping...so perhaps i've been keeping his A times too short.....will work on extending them this week, although i think it's safer to play with the first A time than the second...he tires very easily during this period...lots going on, breastfeed, lunch, playtime and DH is usually home, so lots of stimulation. Thanks for your advice!

[Flightmommy]

I don't know what is happening with my great night sleeper....but would you believe he had a crib party last night from 2-4am...yes, a whole 2 hours, maybe even longer, as I woke at 2am to find him already awake and playing quietly..?? He never even cried, just played and started fussing a bit around 3:45am, as he was probably getting tired and then asleep at 4am, awake for the day at 7:15am.
  Don't know how to even explain this, but I certainly don't want it to become a habit....he had normal nap lengths yesterday, not an excessive amount of day sleep and I even extended his A times, so i don't think he was awake to make up for lost A time....and if it was a NW due to OT, wouldn't he be crying?
  What should I do for naps today? I'm thinking he must be tired after losing 2 hours of sleep last night, but then, I don't want to let him make up for it during the day and have a repeat performance of the crib party tonight......boy, they weren't kidding when they said sleep goes wonky at 9 months!!!

[*Liz*]

Sometimes these lo's do some really odd things.

I would guess OT regardless, as UT seems so unlikely.

Jacob rolls around singing for ages if he is OT at sleep time, but rather irritatingly does the same for UT as well. Which makes it hard to figure it all out.

If it was all UT I think you would be getting some serious nap resistance as well.

Is your lo a generally happy baby?

I would just go with the general plan for naps today, but be prepared to put him down a touch early if you think he is losing it. I often go 15-30 mins early if he has had a bad night (but that is on 5hrs A).

[Flightmommy]

Thanks Liz!
  Caleb can be quite happy usually, if he's well rested...but he is still the touchy/grumpy type overall. When it's just DH and myself, he squeals and laughs all day, but as soon as there are other people, family, friends or strangers...he becomes very withdrawn.
  As for today, I woke him after one hour at the am nap, so that he could (hopefully) get a nice long pm nap that could restore him better until bedtime.
7:15 wake
10:25-11:25 am nap
 2:25 went down a little fussy, despite a long winddown...so I suspect a tad bit OT, probably due to the crib party effect creeping in...hopefully not too OT to get over the jolts!!
  As for yesterday's long A before bedtime, we've had weeks and weeks of A times going over 4 hours and never a NW...while I know it's rather long for his age, he's always seemed to do fine with it. Just in case though, do you suspect it might have contributed to last night's NW...and should I cut it back to how much? Thanks!