nooooo sudden EW please help!

[Spandanna]

Hi

I'm currently posting on naps board about my LO's 30 min napping problem. Thing is, yesterday morning he woke up at 5.30 and today 5am and I am worried that this is his new 'thing'. I'm really feeling at the end of my tether it feels like there's always something. We've had various illnesses and teething over the last month and a half and in that time I've had trouble with him refusing to feed, starting to only sleep 30mins no matter where (even in the car!) and now EW.

How can I stop this before it becomes yet another daily battle?

Please help me!

[anna*]

EWs have been an ongoing struggle for us but since he was a baby they have almost always been caused by OT. That seems especially likely if he's struggling with short naps all day. Can you try a super early bedtime?

[Spandanna]

Just been reading the internet (!!!) and that seems to be the general concensus. Yesterday went like this:

Woke at 5.30
E - 6.30
A
S -8.05 -8.50 I know this is a super long A time I had been trying to stretch him out. He went down no problem and woke after 30 mins which I was dreading as he only ever seems to do 30 mins at a time but actually put himself to sleep again. The suggestion I had was that 30 mins had in fact been UT but the 45 min nap was OT because of the long A time. Anyway.....

E - 10,30
A
S 11.15-11.45

E 12.00 solids
A
S 1.30 - 2.30pm (a miracle 1 hour nap)

E 3pm bottle

He didn't have wnother nap then and was asleep at 6.20pm. He'd been yawning and cranky from about 5 but I thought if I puit him to bed then I'd be faced with a super early wake up but it seems that spinning him out resulted in this anyway and from what I've read today I think maybe you are right

So I'm pretty sure OT is the problem, I will try a super early bedtime tonight and see what happens. Fingers crossed x

[anna*]

Good luck. If you can have him asleep by 6pm, he might still wake at 5.30 but at least he will be awake having had a good night's sleep iyswim. The only time my LO has ever slept more than 12 hours is with a really early bedtime.

[Spandanna]

Ok thanks, I'll give it a try. I can but hope...!

[rachelann]

How's it going???

We're dealing with a 5-5:30am wake time ourselves (10 1/2 mo old) for the past 2 or 3 weeks, and am wondering if putting your LO to bed super early helped at all.  I think I'm ready to do the same, but also scared of having her awake and chatting at 4am instead!

[Spandanna]

Hi putting him to bed earlier did help a little he went until 5.45 which was better but we soon realised it was all to do with his sleep in the afternoons. Days where he didn't nap after 3 affected the nights and he was waking early. Although we're not completely sorted with daytime naps over the last few days he has had one longer sleep usually about 2pm-4pm and now is going through until 6.30/7ish which is soo much better.

Good luck I hope you manage to break the pattern

[rachelann]

That's great that you were able to figure out what was going on with the EWs!  I have a few questions for you...   how old is your LO?  How did you get him to take that longer afternoon nap - did he do it on his own or do you extend naps?  When you say he is going through until 6:30/7, you mean in the morning (as opposed to his bedtime)?  What is his bedtime now?

We still get the EW around 5am, but since we've been putting her to bed earlier, sometimes she will go back to sleep till 6am.  But our naps are still a mess!  If I could get her to sleep more than an hour at a time, I know she would do soooo much better at night.

[Spandanna]

Hi

Well, at the moment we're back to 30 minute naps which is annoying. The 2 hour afternoon naps lasted a few days they happened between 2pm and 4pm and then LO would be in bed asleep by 6.30pm and going through until 6.30/7am. He is still doing this with frequent wake ups around 5am (but he settles himself or else I give him a paci and he goes back to sleep for an hourish). The only difference is I now can't get the longer afternoon naps either. At the moment he is somehow surviving on 3 x 30 min naps each day which is just ridiculous. I try everything to extend his naps

In answer to some of your questions. My LO will be 6 months old next weekand he hasn't done a long nap on his own for weeks and weeks in order to get him to take that long afternoon nap I would have to resettle (paci) after 30 mins and then he would do the next hour and half himself. It's really frustrating because he doesn't use the paci to go to sleep in the first instance but he basically has it to resettle (and even then it wouldn't work in the morning). I thought this was a great thing to have up my sleeve the last few days even the paci doesn't work to extend his nap. In fact it makes it harder for me to know if he's awake or asleep without being in the room with him or checking on him every 5 mins!

His bedtime still varies a fair bit because of his silly naps but I give him solids somewhere between 4.30 and 5.30pm (when he wakes from a nap) then play a bit then bath usually between 5.30 and 6.15 and then bottle and bed. He's asleep between 6.20 and 7pm depending on what's happened before it. Tonight he was asleep by 6.20 he was so tired because his 3 naps today were all 30 mins: 9-9.30am, 1-1.30pm, 3.30-4pm....I know it's a lot of awake time for such a little one.I'd love for him to sleep for longer (I get NOTHING done in the day at all) and the most annoying thing is he used to sleep loads in the day sometimes 3hrs at a time (until he reached about 8 weeks old)

Anyway, sorry for the ramblings. Let me know how it goes

For us the key is to make sure he has a

[Spandanna]

Hi

Well, things were good on and off for the last 3 weeks we were having 6.30pm-7.30am nights and if I did hear him at 5ish he seemed to be resettling himself within about 30 mins just chatting to himself...but we're back to 5am wake ups and terrible naps in the day. The last 3 days have been the worst this is yesterday:

5.30 wake up but finally resettled with paci about 6.15 for 30 mins and woke at 6.45ish

E  - 7am (milk and porridge)
A - trying shorter A times on the advice of Naps board to combat 30 min naps (not working yet!)
S - 8.55 - 9.25
E - 10.50 (milk)
A
S - 11.20 - 11.40
E - 12.00 (solids)
A
S - 1.40 - 2.15
E - 3pm (milk)
A
S -  4.30-5pm
E - 5pm (solids)
A - play bath
E - 6.45 bottle
S - 7pm

This is rough because I didn't write it down, but on the whole (apart from yesterday) he's been having 3 half hour naps and I'm having to put him to bed at 6pm because he's so OT. I can't seem to get him out of this cycle. He turns 6 months on thursday and people keep telling me that their naps improve after 6 months so I'm really keeping everything crossed! So far he's been doing short naps for nearly 2 months and it's driving me mad!