9months - extremely active in crib before sleep

[Manueli]

Hi there,

We are still in the room singing when Hayden is going to sleep. I really want to leave, but he is teething right now (and has been for over one month) so I keep waiting and not doing anything. But I have the other problem that he is extremely active in his crib, and I am not sure why or if some kids just need this before they can go to sleep. There are so many moms that tell me how the WD and then put the baby down, and then the LO just turns around and goes to sleep. Maybe my LO just can't do that, he is pretty spirited regarding sleep (textbook otherwise).

Our WD routine looks like this: reading some books on my lab (if he isn't too restless), walking around the room, going into the bedroom, into the sleep sack, turning off light and white noise on, singing and swinging in my arms, down to bed.
He is calm in my arms, snuggling on my chest and sometimes even closes his eyes for a bit. Then I put him down, he rolls to his side and seems to be ready to go to sleep but 1-2 seconds later he is on his belly and on all four trying to crawl or pulling himself up. I put him back down and leave him (still singing), he goes back on all four and etc. We repeat this a lot and he takes at least 20min to fall asleep. Often he gets really excited and kicks his legs and swings his arms like crazy. I know he is tired, because on the belly he burrows his face into the mattress. He has been doing this for more than a month, pretty much since he became really mobile and learned to pull himself up. He knows how to get down by himself.

I have thought about several things that could be wrong but haven't had any success yet. First I thought maybe he isn't tired enough before bed so I left him crawl until short before bedtime and did the WD routine relatively short. That helped for 2 nights and then it was back to the usual, but I am still doing this.
I also thought maybe I am distracting him, so I stopped singing and tried to hide but he stands up and looks around (same when I leave the room, he thinks its playtime then). I got him to sleep a couple of times w/o singing but was still there.
I also thought maybe he is UT since he had a pretty short A time of 3 hours. So we started to gradually increase it to 3.5hrs. It didn't make much of a difference. I also believe that often he is tired before since he has pretty bad nights, so often he will go to bed earlier.

Here is our ideal routine:
W: 7am, bf
E: 8am (solids)
S: 10-12, bf
E: 1pm (solids)
S: 3.30-4.30, bf
E: 5.30 (solids)
S: 8pm

He often has 2.5-3.5hrs of naps, and a 13hrs day. This routine varies +/- 30-60min. His first A time is shorter than the others right now, but we did have them all at a 3hrs lenght and that didn't work either. He really does get tired at around 3hrs in the morning, I don't want to make him OT.

Does anybody have an idea of what is going on?

[clazzat]

Could you try recording the singing and play it in his room while you are not there?  My first thought is that he is distracted by you being there and doesn't quite understand that it is sleep time not play time.

[twogirlsmommy]

I have no advice but am going thru something similar with my dd so I'm gonna tag along   We are 9 months and have the exact same schedule.  She does sleep thru the night (unless teething) so I hesitate to move times but going down for naps has become a 3 ring circus around here

[Manueli]

I gotta find a recording machine somewhere then and give it a try. I have actually kinda thought about this but never done it. The problem is that if I leave the room he just stands there and either cries or talks to himself, depending on his mood or how OT he is. Should I go in and get him back down (when he isn't crying very hard), or should I leave him? It usually ends up that he hurts himself somehow and I have to come in anyways.

He is in generally pretty unhappy when in the crib, either fussing or full out crying because he doesn't want to go to sleep and lay back down.

3 ring circus, I like that, totally describes our situation.

[clazzat]

Are you giving meds for the teething?  If the behaviour is new then it might be more related to that.

[Manueli]

We are putting on some teething gel or tylenol. I also bought some homepathic medication because I don't want to use the gel so often. We will see if it works.

I thought that he might be in his 2-1 transition and he really wants more A time than I give him? We have really long AM naps right now and extremely late bedtimes because we still squeeze in another PM nap, but he still kinda wants it.

I just never know what to do with him when he stands up in the crib, do I leave him be or put him back down?

[clazzat]

It is possible that he is just beginning the transition to 1 nap, although I'm afraid it is a really long road so you won't find him going down to one just yet.

One thing you can do is wake him from his morning nap to preserve the afternoon nap - we had a long time where dd2 needed 2 naps, but would get too much sleep if I didn't limit them.  We actually had a short am/long pm combination, and I always had to wake her from both otherwise she wasn't ready to go to bed.

If he is standing up, I would be inclined to lie him back down - unless you think that he will lie down of his own accord and go to sleep when he is ready.  I know that neither of mine would, though!

[twogirlsmommy]

DD will lay back down sometimes on her own but thats usually after she has chucked every bimmy she owns outside the crib   If she is standing and talking for a while I will usually just do a WIWO where I don't say anything but I lay her down and give her bimmy and blankie.  Sometimes I have to do this for like 30 minutes before she either goes to sleep on her own or gets up set and then I shhh pat and she sleeps.  She has started this new trend where she will sleep for like 40 minutes in the morning now and take a long afternoon nap.  I don't mind b/c she is still getting enough day sleep its just another change in routine

[Manueli]

I really need to work on the waking up early from the nap, and night I guess. We didn't set our alarm today so everybody slept in till 9am which resulted in another 10pm bedtime.

I do think we got our A times a bit better, he goes down easier more often. And tonight I had a real success. It was probably a combination of right time, enough exercise and exitment before bed without getting OS, right WD, and enough meds to kill his teething pain. I also let our sleep music running instead of turning on the white noise, and I think that was really what caused this success. I basically just put him into his crib and didn't say anything. I did lay him back down everytime he got up though, I really don't think he will lay down by himself. He only got up about 5 times, got really excited in between, but the music seemed to calm him. At the end he fell asleep without any help. Even though I was still in the room, it was really black so I didn't distract.

I am really happy, just hope it will continue going this well. It happened before that DS just needed a change in routine, I guess this time it was the music instead of white noise.

[Manueli]

Oh, another thing. Brennasmommy you said you are doing WIWO, but I thought it was only for older LOs? Does your DD have any problems with it?
I wish our LO would let us know if he prefers long AM or long PM nap. We are trying for either 2x1.5hrs or 2hrs and 1hr. But it varies, today he had one 1.5hrs nap and woke after 45min for the PM nap. That way I didn't have to wake him, not sure why I have so much trouble with it.

[clazzat]

By this age I think it is pretty unusual to still be taking 2 naps of the same length - if it is a recent thing, though, it will probably take a litte while to work out how to structure the day.  Sounds like you are getting there, though - yay!

As for wiwo, it is fundamentally for los over 12 months - tbh, though, it sounds like what brennasmummy is doing is closer to PD.  If your lo is used to going to sleep without you in the room, then you are better to walk in, put them down and then leave rather than staying - does that make sense?

[Manueli]

So if he is used to falling asleep with me in the room, should I stay if he complains when I am leaving (or when he would just stand around forever) and try WIWO when he becomes 12 months old? Is there another method of leaving the room for under 12 months?

Congratulations by the way to the new baby coming soon. Must be exciting, but still so long to go.

[clazzat]

Yes - you should stay with him at this point.  I'm not sure whether you would try wiwo - given that he is used to falling asleep with you there, you should probably look at gradual withdrawal (where you move out of the room really slowly over the course of a few weeks) as wiwo is fundamentally for babies who are used to going to sleep on their own.

Thanks for the congratulations - very excited, but it is such a long time!

[twogirlsmommy]

To be honest I do it that way and I had assumed it was WIWO because she falls asleep with out me in the room and 90% of the time if she stands up she eventually lays down and goes to sleep.  If I stay in the room then I'm a game and she just stands there laughing at me....its sad I thought I would have to wait till the teenage years before someone would laugh at me

[twogirlsmommy]

and we do use the music....are high tech daughter has her own ipod (it was a gift lol) and dh downloaded to cds for her so when she goes to sleep I just hit shuffle and let it play.