I've stuffed our EASY...A times crazy and EW...how do I fix it?

[arabesque]

Hi everyone

In a flash of brilliance I think I've worked out why things are going a bit crazy at my place.

DS2 is 5mo. He's always been a 45min napper. I am able to extend his short naps by giving the dummy, which is less than ideal as he doesn't use it to actually GO to sleep, just needs it if he wakes. Anyway we've been having huge problems at night and with naps. He has sttn for 3 nights of his entire life, going to bed at 7, DF at 10:15, waking at 6:45am. Brilliant However, things have gone awry and I don't know how to solve it.

For some reason his nights have reverted back to crap (they were very very crap prior to those 3 good nights). Now he will have a NW or an EW each day. Today was his earliest EW at 5:45am, then back to sleep a little I think until about 6:20am.

I've stuffed his A times, and I'm not sure what to do. When he woke at 6:45, I was putting him down for nap 1 at 9am. Slightly long A time, but he did it happily. However each day he wakes a bit earlier, and he still doesn't want nap 1 before 9am. I'm not kidding - no tired signs, no eye rubbing, no red eyes, no grizzling. Instead he's laughing, singing, cooing and happy as larry.

Basically his A times are fairly consistently:
Wake til Nap 1 approx 3 hours
Nap 1 til Nap 2 approx 2 hours
Nap 2 til catnap approx 1h45m
Catnap til bed approx 1h45m and falling asleep feeding at about 1h25min

His naps, when I can extend them, result in b/w 3.5 and 4h day sleep, which is good. Nights are between 10.5 and 11.5h at this stage, which is good too (but they are ending a bit early for my liking!).

BUT his A times are crazy for his age, aren't they?! I think they are causing his NW/EW and I don't know how to solve this. He wakes at the 45min mark consistently from naps and will only resettle if he's had a big enough A time.

Please help. Here's today's EASY.

EW 5:45am, resettled until 6:20
E 6:55am breast
E 8am solids
S 9:05am in pram at swimming, woke at 45 min mark to come home, mantra cried to resettle, slept a further 50 mins

E (I woke him) 11am breast
E 12:15 solids
S 1:10pm-1:50, woke and cried for a few mins, went back to sleep until 1:20, cried and escalated so I gave dummy at 2:30 to complete nap)

E (I woke him) 3pm breast
tired signs at 4:15 - rubbing eyes, whingy (up only 1.25hrs)
S into bed at 4:35, asleep 4:55-5:15 (I woke to preserve bedtime)

E 5:25 solids
bath
E 6:35 formula 120ml then BF both sides (am having low supply issues so topping up)

DF yet to happen. Will be breast and possibly some formula.

How do I fix this damage I've done with ridiculously long A times in the morning and super short ones at night? And fix his EW so he doesn't have such long morning A times?

Thanks
Bec

[Yazzie]

Hey there Bec

Quick question, he's asleep by 07.00 pm, up around 06.00 ish, right?

Also, how long are the NWs?

[ElsMom]

Hi Bec, glad to hear you're having better luck with your nights, anyway! This link has recommended A times based on age. So it really doesn't look to me like you're THAT far off. If he's taking decent naps, I really wouldn't worry so much about what his A time is. What if you stopped waking him (do you do that regularly or was today a one-off?) and just let him sleep, then adjusted to see if he needed no catnap and earlier bed or something? Perhaps he's ready to transition to 2 longer sleeps. I know that puts you more than 4 hrs between feedings, but he might make it up later in the day with a shorter span in the afternoon. Not sure if that's a very BW answer, but it might be worth a try!

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.msg476652#msg476652

[weeza]

Hey Becster. Those A times don't sound too nuts to me -except maybe late in the arvo. I second Lisy's suggestion about trying to leave him to wake up on his own and possibly dropping the catnap. I dunno, I was never great at this analysis malarkey. I just know that extending A time worked wonders when naps when to craps with us. Hope those marvellous nights come back. Good luck xx

[arabesque]

Hi Yazzie, thanks for your questions. Awake time is getting earlier and earlier. First it was 6:45 for a few days, then 6:30, then 6:20, now today was earliest at 5:35am. He mantra cried with big pauses in between so we left him, but I don't believe he ever went back to sleep. I think that the 3+h A time in the morning is causing this, am I right? Today because he's been up since 5:30 I put him in for nap at 8am. I was going to split nap 1 (very un-BW) and have it from 8-8:45, then 10:15 or so til 11, then try to get back on track for nap 2...just to save the crazy OT coming in so quickly in the morning.

So in answer to your second qn...he is EW more than NW, at this stage they are lasting 1.5h until 7am when we get him up. Because he mantra cries we leave him, but maybe we need to intervene with PUPD? I can only see that making him more awake though?

Lis, thanks. I know he;s doing an ok night and if he can handle the long morning A time it's actually really great for me...it works quite well timewise. But I think each day he wakes earlier and his nap stays the same at 9am just makes his EW's even earlier, does that make sense? I'm happy to be a bit flexible with feeds but this am he actually almost refused the breast. Not sure if he just wants bottle all the time now

Weez, thanks. I agree that extending A time is ideal. But if he's waking so early I need to fix whatever is causing that too right? It's so hard. Really down and tired today!

Thanks everyone

[benners318]

Hey Bec,

Just wanted to share that if you are going to be weaning from BFing like we have talked about, keep in mind that formula will most likely fill up your LO more and a 4 hour feed schedule wouldn't be out of the question.  When I weaned my ds3 at 4/5 months and switched to formula we began to move to the 4 hour feed schedule.  Our sleep schedule with naps was 45 min with him (very frustrating), but like my ds2 at about 9 months those 45 min crap nappers finally started to cease.  Sometimes I think developmentally some of our LOs can't make it past that 45 min nap.  I finally gave in and went with the flow for Elliott and at that magic 9 month mark he mysteriously started throwing in an hour nap here and there.  It was Awesome!

[weeza]

hey again lovely becster. hope today's a better day for you and your little guys. we often get EWs when things go wonky, even now with Oscar and although I hate to extend A time when he's so tired, it does generally bring us back on track.

[weeza]

sorry, i hit send before i was finished! the other thing i can think of to get rid of EW is -eek- W2S. I don't know if you remember but when Ali had a long bout of EW once, it magically disappeared when I had to wake him to give him medicine at midnight. I know it's not exactly W2S as Tracy recommended it, but it's the same principle - waking to rouse the little one out of the dodgy EW routine. we discovered it quite by accident and it really worked for us to get rid of those nasty EWs. keep us posted babe. xxx