DS's sleep has been a bit off for a few weeks now. My main reason for posting here is to keep a bit of a 'record' as my mummy-brain is not allowing me to remember accurately how he's doing sleepwise
and I'm wanting to try and find the reason. I am, of course, also in search of my fellow BWers thoughts, opinions and advice (as I always am!
). We are getting an earlier wake up, NWs, and not settling well for naps or BT (We've NEVER had problems settling for BT before).
It *think* it began just before Christmas, but nothing too bad, and really showed itself while he was ill with a bad cold over Christmas - this is where the mummy-brain is causing me problems!
I have a few theories, just need to work out which (if any!) is the cause:-
- Is it due to the illness, knocking him off schedule and still not back on? I dont think so personally as he's not ever taken this long to get back on track before.
- Is it due to the developmental leap that I think he's undergoing at the moment - he has improved hugely on his speech and understanding these last couple of weeks, and we are having a few issues with behaviour which I'm putting down to this. I think the sleep issues started before this though.
- Is it OT? I would normally put this type of wonkiness down to OT, but I really don't think he is, can't really explain why but I just don't. We also get night terrors when he's OT and we havent had any at all this time round.
- Is it UT? Is it simply that his sleep needs are changing and he's needing a shorter nap or something? This is what I think, or at least I did, not certain now hence the reason for me posting!
His usual routine is:-
Awake around 6.30am (used to be more like 7am or even later sometimes, but more like 6-6.30am these days)
Nap around 12
Bedtime by 7pm (used to be asleep almost straight away, certainly with 10-15 mins, but now taking half an hour or more, and crying and needing us rather than just babbling to himself)
His nap is usually an hour and a half, but he is with my friend 3 days a week (while I work) and we generally find he wakes at the 45 min mark there (I think he stirs, realises he's not at home and wakes) but would make up for it with a longer nap on days when he's at home. This was fine for a long time. But then he started sleeping a little longer when he was with my friend and doing exactly and hour and a half at home (no longer naps) which would normaly lead to OT but didn't, he was fine with it so this made me think that he was beginning to need a little less day sleep. The just before Christmas he started having the odd NW - nothing too bad, just 1 or 2 a night, sometimes he would cry out but re-settle on his own, but more often than not he would need us to re-settle, which only took a second but he's not had a problems with re-settling for a long time. He then started taking a while to settle at nap time and then the same started to happen at bedtime. I'm also struggling to get him to wind down at bedtime, it really is as though he's just not tired enough. I am reluctant to make bedtime later though as this has always resulted in OT and night terrors for us.
So, I have moved his nap slightly later (he's definitely not as tired before his nap as he was a few weeks ago) and started to make sure his naps do not exceed and hour and a half (I let him have some longer naps when the NWs started as I put it down to OT but it had no effect) and also not worrying if I need to cut the nap short to go out or whatever. I've never cut them short before as again this has always led to OT. But it's not having any effect on the NWs or anything. Today he took 45 mins to settle for his nap and then cried half way through the nap at the 45 min mark but I managed to re-settle him and he's sleeping now. I am thinking its UT that is stopping him from settling but wondering if I am completely wrong and it's OT afterall? I just dont know!
My thoughts are to stick with the UT theory for a little longer, keep nap time a bit later and keeping them to a max of 1.5 hours and possibly try a later BT. And if it still has no effect to put it down to OT and tackle that.
I have a feeling I am handling this all wrong!
If you've read all of this then I do apologise for the rambling, hadnt realised how long it had got!
