Author Topic: Please help with my "EASY" for 8mth old.......Nightfeeds / Short Naps / UPDATE  (Read 8609 times)

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Offline bug_blues70

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I would like to take a moment to congratulate you and encourage you on making so much improvement so far!!! You have switched over a LOT of ounces from night to day and that is TREMENDOUS! Way to go!! I do want to give you encouragement too to keep going on the pu/pd and not give up. It is SO hard I am sure, and so many times a night must be killing you!! But you have come SO far with it, it's only fair to him and you to keep going or you have done all that work for nothing!!

Re: nightfeeds. I think it's really up to you whether you want to do DF and then pu/pd for the rest or just leave him til he wakes at 12-1 and then do pu/pd for the rest. I think I personally would leave him until he wakes at 12 b/c even if it's not a full waking, the DF disturbs sleep and you don't need anymore disturbed sleep than you already have, kwim?

Re: naps and EW - I think if you are just getting 30 min naps, you need 3 in a day. From what I can tell, he's going from 12:15ish til 6:30 without a nap? IMO this is probably the cause of your EW as 11 hours can't really be called an EW, and even if it is, it's probably due to the OT from the long stretch of atime and also all the NW. I think you should EITHER 1. have 3 naps a day until you get the NW under control and can work on extending atimes, or 2. you should just go ahead and start gradually extending atimes so that he gets 2x1.5 hr naps. I personally would start with the first option for a while and here's why: I wouldn't want to extend atimes so dramatically when he's still having such rough nights. I think for now, just try to get in a 3rd nap, which will push his BT a bit later, which will hopefully push his w/u a bit later. Then when NW are under control, I'd start pushing out his atimes gradually by 15 min every 2-3 days until you get longer naps and no longer need the 3 naps. Does that make sense?




Megan

Offline Tracyxx

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I think you should EITHER 1. have 3 naps a day until you get the NW under control and can work on extending atimes, or 2. you should just go ahead and start gradually extending atimes so that he gets 2x1.5 hr naps.

Thankyou so much, i was thinking of going back to 3 naps a day for a while but last night i decided to stop his dreamfeed and just feed & change him the first time he wakes naturally so he had his last feed at 6.30pm and was sleeping for 7pm, then he woke at 2am and had a feed and nappy change then slept till 5am, i did a bit of PUPD and he slept till 5.45am so i feel now that with really only 1 nightfeed left i should leave it at that for a while and start working on getting 2 good naps as i think the long 3rd "A" time is affecting his wake up time as before we dropped the catnap he always slept till 6.30/7am and i would be happy with a routine of 7pm-6am with 1 feed for now, so now im not sure if going back to 3 x 30min naps would be a step backwards as you said i would need to push back his bedtime aswell so it would distrupt everything. 

I tried a "A" time of 3hrs today with both naps and again got 30min naps but sometimes with a 2nd "A" of 3hrs i do get the odd 1.5hr nap so it can't be that far off so should i try sticking with 3hrs for a week and see what happens or just give in and go back to 3 naps?

Tracyx

Offline bug_blues70

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Honestly, I think a week is too long. I do think it's important to be consistent for a few days at a time when making changes, and some people will probably say a week is great, but I'm more impatient than that. I would only give each change 3 days. So stick with 3hrs for 3 days, then if his naps are still short AND you think it's b/c he's UT, not OT (I mostly make this choice by how happy she wakes up and/or how grumpy she is after the nap) and his nights are still pretty good, then up it to 315 for 3 days. Then up it to 330 for 3 days. But while you are doing this, i would still suggest getting in a 3rd nap if possible to avoid that 6 hr stretch of atime before bed. If you can manage even a 20 min catnap, it would help tremendously and you wouldn't have to increase the atime/push BT back very much for that as it is not nearly as restorative as a 30 min nap.

2nd, do you have to change him at night, or would he leak otherwise? Sometimes a size bigger diaper will help with leaks. Can you feed him in the dark (if you don't already) and then just put him right back down without changing him - it will help him not wake up quite so fully. What I do is just lather on the protective rash cream (night time is the only time I usually use it and I use it liberally) and leave her til morning. Her diaper is quite full in the morning, but it's never caused a problem. Once he starts STTN you won't want to wake him to change him anyway, kwim? Might as well start now... and if he's leaked before, it might have been b/c he was getting 20+ ounces at night, whereas now he's only getting 8 or so, so it might work now, whereas before it didn't.

HTH!! Good luck!!




Megan

Offline jendewit

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Well keep going with the day feedings.  That has definately improved.  Slowly work on getting rid of those nightfeeds.  I think you should consider putting him down for a CN in the afternoon.  He is waking at 12:30 and then is up until 7:00.  That is a lot of time.  I'm sure he is very tired and cranky.  As Tracy says in her book.  Good sleep begets good sleep.  Since he is not getting a lot of sleep in the day he needs an extra few winks. 

Offline Tracyxx

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If his naps are still short AND you think it's b/c he's UT, not OT (I mostly make this choice by how happy she wakes up and/or how grumpy she is after the nap) and his nights are still pretty good, then up it to 315 for 3 days. Then up it to 330 for 3 days.

Thanks Bug_Blues, another quicky question for you?  Whenever i put him down in the morning after 3hrs he only sleeps for 30mins but wakes up very cranky, you would actually think he hadnt been to sleep as he wakes up still rubbing his eyes so would you say he was OT then?, and if so should i reduce his first "A" time instead of increasing it?.  He did used to nap for 60mins on and off after a much lower "A" time of just 2-2.30hrs but i was advised on the nap board that this was too low and to increase it to at least 3hrs so then i started getting 30min naps again,

I took your advice and tried to squeeze in a catnap today as he was very cranky all day after another 2 x 30min naps but he just wasn't having it he was just too awake, i think his energy increases as the day goes on as i was watching for cues and he didnt start showing any sleepy type cues until after 5.30 tonight after 4hrs of "A" time and by then it was too close to bedtime, so i think a catnap is going to be out of the question but i'll keep trying.

Tracyx
« Last Edit: November 17, 2010, 20:48:16 pm by Tracyxx »

Offline bug_blues70

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Hi Tracy,

If you were getting 60 min naps after 2.5 hrs I would definitely stay with that. A lot of times LOs need shorter atimes in the mornings - especially after lots of NW and/or poor sleep at night. I definitely wouldn't keep it at 3 hrs just for the sake of being at 3 hours - or for the sake of being close to the average - if it's not working for you and Kieran. If 2.5 works better, that's what he needs. It def sounds OT to me if you were getting better naps at 2.5 atime and he's cranky and grumpy after his 30 min nap when you keep him up for 3 hrs. But you could probably try keeping his 2nd atime at 3 hours and see how that goes.

It makes sense that his energy increases in the pm - some LOs are like that, some are just the opposite - and he's probably also got some OT energy mixed in there as well. I personally would keep trying to get that CN in, even if I had to apop, and if it works, great, and if not, that's ok too. And if it gets to close to BT and he does happen to fall asleep, just cap it at 15-20 min and push bedtime out just a little bit - after so short a nap it wouldn't even have to be more than an hour or maybe an hour and a half, if that. But if you think that doesn't work for you, that's great too - it's your call and you have to do what works for you and Kieran.

What I do when I need to give Ellen a short CN just to get her to BT w/o OT is I let her have just about her full atime, then a 20 min CN and not one single minute more and then give her an hour and a half until I actually put her in her crib for bed. And I usually have to apop it in to get it to land exactly when I want it. I don't have time to wait for her to fight it (or BT would be really pushed back) and I know she probably wouldn't fall asleep on her own anyway. This is useful for me when her last atime would be 5-6 hours b/c right now she can only do about 4 or maybe just over.




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Offline Tracyxx

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Please help with my "EASY" for 8mth old....Nightfeeds / Short Naps / UPDATE
« Reply #21 on: December 29, 2010, 14:51:00 pm »
Hi Girls,

Well it has been 5 weeks since my last post so I'm back with an update for a few reasons, firstly to say thankyou for all the great advice but mainly to remind anyone reading this who is currently struggling with their "EASY" that every baby is different, which is something I had forgot, as I was trying to get Kieran to fit into a typical EASY for his age rather than creating an EASY that suited him.

Firstly I couldn't get him to nap unless I made his A time 2-2.5hrs which I was told was far too short for his age (8/9months) so I stuck with 3+ hrs and got nothing but short naps, but only now at 10 months I am getting great naps after 3hrs so I now know that it was just too much for him at 8/9 months and I should have stuck with 2-2.5hrs no matter what the "average A time" was for his age.

Secondly I tried to fit him into the 7-7 EASY even though it clearly didn't work for him, I would struggle to get him to sleep at 7pm, have 4/5 night wakenings a night and have crazy early wakenings of 4.30-5am even though he would clearly still be tired and it wasn't until someone stopped me and said "Why does everything have to be so timed, why don't you just let him tell you what he wants" then I realised I had stopped watching his cues, I had became a robot and everything was done to a timed schedule. So I let him do his own thing for a month and find his own schedule and I have a totally changed baby.

He was having massive amounts of milk up to 8 x 8oz a day, he now has 4 a day totalling 20-24oz.

He was having 2 x 30 mins naps a day, now he has 2 naps 1 x 2hrs and 1 x 1hrs, and now my problem is his naps are too long so are pushing his bedtime later & later so I actually need to start cutting them.

He was still having 3/4 nightfeeds per night which we stopped cold turkey at 10 months and I have been using shh/pat to get him back to sleep which is working great so far, although I expect the nightwakenings to continue for a few weeks yet until he realises he won't be getting any more milk but hopefully by the time he is 12 months he will be sleeping through the night.

Some people may not agree with our new easy as he sleeps later in the mornings now so has a later bedtime to balance it out, ok it means I miss out on the "Y" time I used to have at night but it's working for him and he is a much happier baby and that's all that matters to me and I know the late bedtime is only temporary as it will get earlier when he makes the 2-1 nap transition sometime in the next 6 months.

Here is our new EASY well AAAES (lol), our A times are currently 3hrs/3hrs/4hrs.....


E: 8.45am -        6-7oz Milk & goes back to sleep for 1hr
A: 9.45am -        Wake up & Play
                        Breakfast
                        Playtime
E: 12.30pm -      4-5oz Milk
S: 12.45pm -      Nap for 2hrs

A: 2.45pm -        Wake up
                        Lunch
                        Playtime
E: 5.30pm -        4-5oz Milk    
S: 5.45pm -        Nap (1hr)

Going to try limiting this 2nd nap to 30mins to see if it brings his bedtime closer to 10pm but I'm not too worried as I know he will drop this nap eventually when he makes the 2-1 nap transition and his bedtime will naturally move forward.
                        
A: 6.45pm -            Wake up
                             Dinner
                             Bath & Tv Time
E: 10.30pm -           6-7oz Milk
S: 10.45pm -           Bed  

Still having 2 brief Nightwakenings out of habit from when he had his nightfeeds as we only dropped them a week ago so hopefully these will stop in time.

Tracyx
« Last Edit: December 29, 2010, 19:01:06 pm by Tracyxx »

Offline bug_blues70

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Tracy, I'm glad things are working out for you! There's a thread about the 2-1 transition that might be helpful for you since it seems that's what he might be starting.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=182336.270




Megan