Always wakes within 1-2 hours of bedtime

[eiram96]

Hi,

My 8month old daughter has recently started to wake up crying 1-2 hours after putting her to bed. This has happened most nights over the past 2 weeks. It's quite sudden. We have a video monitor so one minute I check her she's fine and then all of a sudden she's crying. We take her up, cuddle her for 5 minutes and she goes back into her cot quite easily without any fuss. On some nights this happens just once. On others she might do the same thing up 2-3 times until 11pm and then sleeps through the night. (i.e. it never happens after 11pm). She goes to bed between 7pm-7:30pm each night. I don't think she's OT.

Any ideas!

Thx

[clazzat]

Can you post your routine so that we can see what's going on?  TBH, this is typical OT behaviour, so it's possible that there is something in the routine that is just not quite working for her.

[eiram96]

Hi

So our "routine" goes something like this (note - this has just been established in last couple of weeks!)

Wake (varies) 6:00am - 7:00am
Bottle 7:30am
Breakfast 8:00am
Nap (varies by 15 mins or so) 9:30am - 10.50am (nearly always 1hr 20 mins)
Bottle 11:30am
Lunch 12:30pm
Nap (varies by 15 mins or so) 2:15pm - 3:00pm or 3:30pm (afternoon nap used to be consistently 1 hr 30 mins, now it's very erratic!!. Generally she's awake again by 3:30pm)
Snack 4:00pm
Dinner 5:45pm
Bottle between 6.45pm-7.15pm. Generally in bed as close to 7.15pm as possible.

Note:

I think I need to give her dinner earlier because she only drinks an ounce or two before going to bed. Maybe her stomach is very full at sleep time and she's uncomfortable?

I used to put her to bed later but we had weeks of early mornings, but no problems at night time! So I gradually pulled bedtime back.

She does use a pacifier and can re-plug herself but doesn't seem to think about doing it the very first time she wakes IYKWIM.

Thanks!

[clazzat]

I wonder if perhaps her A times are a little off - the average A time at this age is 3h, so the last A of the day is really long.  Although this was the A that my los could stay up longest, we had a lot of issues with dd2 if this A was too long - it always led to EWs if she woke early from her nap and we kept bedtime the same.  Also her naps are a little on the short side - again, the average at this age is 2X1h30 (although mine were doing 1h and 2h), so she might have a little bit of OT every day building up into a bigger problem, iyswim.

I would try to work towards slightly stricter 3h A times - here's a link to some sample routines for her age to give you an idea of what you can aim for: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164030.0

[eiram96]

Thanks, I have actually seen those routines, very helpful.

I think the hardest thing is that she never seems to wake at the same time each day so it makes it more difficult...
Some days she'll wake at 6:30am, others she'll wake from 5:00am-6:00am and the fall back to sleep until 7:30am! It varies...

Is it best to put her to bed then earlier than 7.15pm if her last nap finishes at 3.30pm. What makes that difficult is that I have a toddler of 2 also so that's not really an option as I have to wait until my husband comes home from work.

I am not sure why her naps are so short, she's moving a bit but not doing too much rolling so maybe once she starts to move about more her naps will extend? Or maybe I should try putting her for her naps a little earlier?

[clazzat]

I would try putting her down for her naps a little earlier first to see if that helps make them a bit longer.


You can also try waking her in the morning to start the day - that way she will settle into a pattern of starting the day at the same time and you will find it easier to plan her naps.  So if she often wakes at 6.30 then aim to get her up at that time every day (even if she has been awake between 5 and 6) to try to set her body clock.  You can do a little APOP to get her sleeping till her wake time for a few days (but not too long in case it becomes a habit).

I know what it is like trying to get 2 to bed on your own - would your older lo watch a tv program or something while you put the younger one to bed?  That's what I had to do when dd2 was very little.

[eiram96]

Thanks again....

So for her afternoon nap today I put her down exactly 3 hours later and she woke after 45mins! She had a temp this evening so this may have been the reason.

Tonight I managed to get her in by 6.45pm, she was asleep by 7.00pm and woke up 45mins later but settled herself. She's been asleep since. So we'll see how it goes (though temp might throw things somewhat!)

We'll see how it goes 

[clazzat]

Hope that you get a peaceful night - but if she is ill it will be really difficult to work out the routine.  You might have to put things on hold until she is better.

[eiram96]

Thanks again, you have been so helpful 

So I had to get up once to her last night, though she was quite restless thru the night (I checked her couple of times coz of temp).
She woke again around 6.30am (generally I don't pick her up until 7:00am tho). Is is best I leave her in bed until 7:00am or get up with her as soon as she wakes? I'd really like her to start her day at 7:00am and she's very content to babble for 20-30 mins!

I put her back to bed at 9:15am (she was yawning lots) and she's still asleep. 

You are right! I am not going to push the routine thing too much tho until she gets better.

[eiram96]

Well, I have taken your advice and put her down earlier for naps and she did great naps (4 hours in total) in the past two days.

HOWEVER...., she has woken at 5:30am for the past 2 mornings.  Since she has been in bed since 7:15pm both nights maybe she's just not tired now.

So looks like I'll have to cut daytime sleep a little to make up night time?

[clazzat]

That's possible - sometimes when naps get better you need to shorten them a little to preserve night sleep. I'd try cutting the morning nap a bit and keeping the a time after it the same - give it a couple of days and see how she gets on.

I'll have very limited Internet access for the next week so if I don't reply it's not because I've abandoned you! I will be back whenever I can.

[eiram96]

Thanks no worries you've been a great help so far!! ;-)

I woke her this morning after 1.5 hours so let's see how that goes!!

[eiram96]

Hi,
Well I have given it a couple of days - we are a little all over the place with regards to A times. At the moment I am trying to get her body clock used to starting the day at a particular time 7:15am (she is going to bed around 7:15pm).

Here's what I am aiming for:
Wake 7:15am
Nap 1 9:45am - 11:15am
Nap 2 2:15pm - 3:45pm
Bed    Between 7:00pm - 7:15pm
Note - she appears to be able to handle longer A times.

Here's where we are at for the past 3 days:
Bed between 7:00pm - 7:15pm
Wakes between 5:30am and 6:30am. Note: Always falls back asleep at 6:30am and either she wakes or I wake her at 7:15am.
Nap 1: Very consistently 1 hr 15 to 1 hr 30 mins. I am happy with that.
Nap 2: Still varies slightly but usually get until 3:30pm at least from her. (Yesterday she only slept until 3pm but I put her to bed at 6.45pm)

All in all she is getting total sleep of 13.5-14 hours sleep which is great.
We are no longer have the original problem of waking with 1-2 hours of bedtime - yeh! 

But she is still waking early morn for 45 mins - 1 hour. I don't have to go near her, she just babbles to herself and falls back to sleep.
I don't think she's OT or hungry...do you think at this point it may just be habit? Or UT?

I am guessing if she didn't wake that she'd probably sleep thru to 6:15am - 6:30am and then I'd be left with a new problem of trying to bring her wake up time forward to 7:00am. 

I am afraid to do too much more tweaking of the routine now as I am happy now the way it's shaping up...what do you think?





 



 

[LisaK1]

HI
Just to say I'm watching your thread as my little one, 9m, wakes erratically in the early morns from 5:30-6:15AM onwards (but doesn't fall back to sleep).....but I don't start the day until 6:45am and just hate leaving him that long so trying to tweak him to sleep later consistently.

Lisa

[clazzat]

I would leave her if she is babbling and going back to sleep - it is annoying, but she doesn't need you and you are happy with most of the way things are going.  I think it takes quite a while to work out that if things are 75-80% right it's best to leave them as they are!

Her day does look pretty good - I'm not sure what the waking is, beyond the fact that they nearly all come into a light sleep between 5 and 6am and maybe she is just trying to get comfortable to go back to sleep.  If you do start intervening at that point, you might find that she stops going back to sleep and you make things worse, iyswim.

Lisa - you might want to start your own thread if you are having trouble with EWs.  It tends to be easier to get advice if you start your own post with your own particular circumstances.