Concerned about afternoon nap...

[katha]

Hi there,

My 7mo takes her afternoon nap anytime around 2pm - as her activity time is quite long for her age, so she gets 3hrs 15 in the morning, and then tends to need longer in the afternoon, around 3 hrs 30. Anyway, my concern is that she doesn't wake from aher afternoon nap until around 3.30 sometimes, and i'm worried its too near her bedtime of 6.30 (s its then only 3 hours activity time) and that she's not tired when i put her to bed for the night.

I'm currently working on early morning wakes, so have changed her bedtime from 7pm to 6.30, in the hope it helps. Only on day 2 of this. I think i know the answer to the whole 'napping near to bedtime' thing, but i keep worrying about it and need someone to put me at ease. I've considered waking her around 3, but at the same time, i want good quality naps to help her EW's too....

I guess im concerned about it as she's now going down at 6.30, which is earlier for her and last night she didn't seem tired in the slightest, as she woke from PM nap at 3.30 and was being put down at 6.30. She woke after half an hour but then went back.

Arghhhh. Please help!
Thank you X

[Shiv52]

Can you post your EASY for you whole day?

6.30 prob was too early after only wakening from a good nap at 3.30pm despite the EW.  We did a 13 hour day/11 hour night before we switched to one nap to fit in good naps and a decent bedtime.

[katha]

Hi there,

Thanks for your response. Great to know someone may be able to shed some light on our issues...

Here's our routine:

Wake: 5, 5.30, sometime 5.45, today was 4.30! As a rule, we don't get her out of her cot before 6am
Eat: Bottle at 6/6.15.
Activity: Usually 3rs 15.
Sleep: Around 9am, for about 1 hour 30.

Wake around 10.30
Lunch at 12/12.30.
Due for nap again around 2pm. Around 3hrs 30 activity.
Wake around 3/3.30.
Activity.
Eat: Dinner at 5
Bath 6
Bottle and story at 6.30
Bed at 7pm.

This varies some days, of course. I've given the routine we were doing a few days ago before i started putting her down earlier at 6.30. She's at the high end of activity needs for her age (just 7months). She's been on solids from 4 months and now takes 600ml of milk a day - refuses any more. When she wakes in the morning she's always very happy - she's been STTN since 6 months.
Her early wakes don't make her cranky for the day, (just make us cranky!) infact she's always full of beans - she's a very happy baby.

Tried the 6.30 bedtime, for 3 days now and made no difference to EW's. Suspect its her rhythem?

Any advice - either on EW or the best bed time after 3.30 wake from nap would be brilliant!

Thanks so much.
Katha x

[Shiv52]

Your routine looks great actually.  She's handling a great amount of A time for her age!

If she wakes early does she tend to go back to sleep or just chill out in her cot until 6am?  Do you ever resettle if she wakes before 6am or is she just too wide awake to go back to sleep?  I had wondered if she was OT by 9am but if she;s sleeping 1.5 hours, she seems to be managing the A time ok. 

Some info:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85130.0

6-8 months                                                            Two naps 1-2 hours each;
More mobility; able to                                                   10-12 hours at night
sit and crawl

Am wondering if she's high needs for A time is she lower needs for sleep do you think?   I see you're doing 2x1.5 hour naps and wondering if you cut the second nap (by 20/30 minutes) would that help with getting her to bed 7pm but hopefully more tired to sleep through.  If she's asleep by 7pm and wakening at 5am thats still 10 hours night sleep which is pretty good (I know timing aren't good though...I would not be pleasant at 5am!!).  Hopefully if you take a half hour off your day time sleep it'll add to your night time sleep!


If it works you could think about shifting bed a bit later in a few weeks and maybe get to 6.30/7am wake up but one step at a time!!

What do you think?

[katha]

Hi there,

Thanks so much for your thoughts. To asnwer your q's, she wakes cooing (signalling that she's pretty happy to be awake) then after 10 mins of no one coming she'll start to cry. We always leave her 20 mins to see if she'll go back, if not we try to resettle her every 20mins after that. She used to go back to sleep, but for the last 2/3 weeks she's not.

Here's where we are today....
She went to bed at 6pm last night as she woke at 4.30am yesterday and didn't have great naps and was very tried. She then woke at 3.30! I went against all my rules and fed her a bottle, as the last thing i wanted her to do was cry until 6. She then went back to sleep until 7am!!!

So we're thinking today that she's hungry (maybe a growth spurt? But its been nearly 2 months of early wakes?!) and will try and get more milk into her. This is hard, as she's not fussed about more milk beyond morning and evenng bottle. Worth a try?

However, now we've read your post, we think it makes perfect sense that she could be under tired - as she always wakes happy. Because she has high end activity time, and woken at 7am today, we're a little baffled as to what to do with the second nap, at it will be due around 3.30 which seems far too late!! So we've concluded to only let her sleep an hour, which takes her to 4.30 and then maybe bed at 7, but then thats only 2.5 hours activity before bed!!Argh! Which again, may mean she's not tired enough to sleep long again.

We're really pleased last night broke the pattern, and that the day started at 7am - just anxious to play it right this afternoon/ evening to keep it going.

What is your advice? Hunger or UT? 1 nap or 2?
Thanks so much for your help.

[Shiv52]

Great news on the night.  Am glad you are getting to a normal start to today.  I'd wake her after an hour for the pm nap and aim for 7.30 bedtime.  3hrs after only a one hour nap should be fine for bed.  And at this age we did a 13hr day/11 hour night as there was no other way to fit in the naps and then it went back to 12/12 as we cut back the nap and switched to 1 nap.

 

So we're thinking today that she's hungry (maybe a growth spurt? But its been nearly 2 months of early wakes?!) and will try and get more milk into her. This is hard, as she's not fussed about more milk beyond morning and evenng bottle. Worth a try?

I am also thinking she may be hungry.  600mls is below the average for her age.    At 7 months the recommendation is that babies still get between 28-32 oz of milk in a day.  Solids at this stage is just for taste/experience and actually doesn't contain anywhere the same amount of calories/nutrients as milk does.  Most drop one milk feed at 8/9 months but continue with 4 milk feeds until then and 3 milk feeds until a year.  So am wondering do you need to try and get another milk feed in there to make sure she is full up through the day in the hope she goes back to sleeping through to your normal time? 

Here's some info:  I bf'd so had to look it up.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=67933.0

Once your baby reaches six months, you can feed him anywhere from 180-220 ml / 6-8oz at a feeding, and his total formula intake should be roughly 900ml / 32oz per day.

HTH!  Try the 1 hour nap and slightly later bedtime and more milk and see where that gets you! Remember it can take a few days of being consistent to see a good result so don't be discouraged if it doesn't work right away. 

Siobhan x

[katha]

Brilliant - will do. I'll keep you posted. Just put her down, 7,15 -  she had a 45 min afternoon nap, waking at 4ish, so due to that we put her down a little earlier than planned as she was yawning away, but happy. Tried to get more milk in her today (offering after morning nap and pm nap) but only ended up being few ounces more that usual - having said that, she took a whole 250ml at 4am last night).

Fingers crossed for the night....
Thanks for the support, its really helping!
Kate x

[Shiv52]

My pleasure.   Keep up the hard work (you're doing great by the way!).  Great you got her down when you knew she was ready.  Fingers crossed for a good night xx

[katha]

Hi Siobhan,

Just a quick update - after a fraught night on Sunday (10pm wake up screaming - think she had bad dream and then 4am wake up,  fed her and slept till 7.45!) yesterday felt like we were getting somewhere. She took more milk and was happier at meal times too. She went down at 7.30 and slept through until 5.45. Still in the 5's, but tons better then the last 4 nights. Interestingly, she only had a 1xhour nap in morning and a half hour nap in the afternoon. Maybe proving less sleep in day is better for her nights?!

I feel that she needs a lot more sleep than 7.30 - 5.45, as the nights i fed her she went back to sleep till quite late.  So hopefully once we've caught up on the mik and things settle a bit, we'll get longer out of her. What do you think?

Anyway, fingers crossed for the next few days. I'll get back to you.

KateX

[Shiv52]

Great news on the milk.  I think if you can keep that up it'll make a difference to your nights.   

Interestingly, she only had a 1xhour nap in morning and a half hour nap in the afternoon. Maybe proving less sleep in day is better for her nights?!

At 7 months I don't think 1.5 hours is really enough sleep for the day.  Once in a while it's fine but overall I think those short sleeps will lead to OT, leading to more EWs IYSWIM?  The A time overall would just be too much to keep handling day after day I'd think.   I'd keep aiming for 1 x 1.5 nap and 1x1 nap and see how she goes with that.  My LO always slept better at night when she had enough day time sleep (whatever that happened to be for her age) but if we had too little or too much sleep we always got NWs!  So hard to get a good balance eh?!

Finger crossed for next few days.  Keep me posted how you get on. 

{{{hugs Kate!}}} Your LO is lucky to have such a great mummy to be working so hard on all these things so she's happy and rested.

Siobhan xx

[katha]

Agreed re naps. And thanks for the kind words!
Keep you posted. KateX

[Shiv52]

Good luck!

Siobhan xx

[katha]

Hi Siobhan,

Thought id just update you on things...

Since i last chatted to you, Bea's been waking pretty consistently at 5.30. There's the odd morning when she'll go back to sleep until 6 after an initial stirr. However, this morning we had 5.15 and no going back to sleep!
She's been napping for 1.5 in the morning and no longer than 45 mins in the afternoon. She wakes around 3ish and we've been putting her down around 6.30/6.45 as she's soooo tired by then and drops off pretty quickly. I know we said about later bedtime, but just don't think i could hold her off till then. So, were going on her cues etc, and she's sleeping through till the 5's - is there anything elese we could try, or do you think this is just her rhythem right now? Today's afternoon nap went to 1 hour 30 after i tried extending her pm activity to 3hrs 40. I know we talked about keeping that pm nap to 1 hour, but i thought i'd try giving her that bit more sleep in the day, say 3hrs in total, with a later put down and see if that does anything...what do you think?

After a few days of her taking more milk - she then refused any more than 4/5 oz at each feed - she just didn't want it. Inc her evening bottle! That's not settled, but she still doesn't want anywhere near as much as is "recommended". Taking her to see the health visitor to check that out - just to put my mind at ease, but she seems perfectly happy with what she's taking and i cant force it into her.

Right, that's quite an essay - sorry!
Kate X

[Shiv52]

Hi there

Sorry things are rough still. 

If she's going down at 6.30ish and sleeping until 5 ish thats 11 hours sleep and I don't think you could count the 5am wake up as an EW because of the total night sleep IYSWIM?

I would try and get two longer naps if you get a 5am ish wake up to get you through to a later bedtime otherwise I think you're going to be stuck with the 5am wake up.  The extra day sleep shouldn't affect the following night as it will be over a 13/14 hour day to get you through to a later bedtime and providing she has enough A time before bed. 

How does that sound? 

With regards the milk...good idea to check out with HV.  If she's happy and content, having plenty of wet nappies and is sleeping well at night I don't think its a big concern.  My friends LO only ever took half the recommended amount of milk and slept like a trooper and her HV wasn't concerned so hope it the same with you.

{{{hugs Kate}}}  Hope you get a later wake up very soon xx

[katha]

Thanks Siobhan, i completely hear you re the later bedtime. Its just been tricky with short pm nap, whch makes her pretty tired and ready for bed by 6.30 (especially with 5.30 wake up). Although not solved yet, i do feel a little clearer on how to sort it. If i can keep that nap longer and extend bedtime for a few days, then hopefully we'll see a change. If not, then i give up!

Thanks very much, i'll report back in a few days. X