What causes EWs? Your thoughts please....

[Smurfette]

Is there any definitive answer to this? Or can it be UT and/or OT?

I can't get my DD to have a consistent WU and I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I think she's heading for 2-1 but I can't tell how much to increase A time with EWs so I just thought I'd see if anyone has suggestions as to what they think their LOs are trying to tell them when they have EWs.

Ok, to be honest, I'm not even sure if 10hrs night sleep for a 9 month old is still considered an EW, but it FEELS that way at 5:40am, lol.

[~Emma~]

 In my experience from EW in this house its either

1) 1st nap of the day too early

or...

2) OT, mainly the last A of the day being too long

 Sometimes it can be too much daysleep meaning UT.

 Other than that some bubs just are EWers. DS is. Some just liek to wake early and no amount of tweaking makes any difference. 

 
 At 9 months I doubt its 2-1 thats a concrete reason for it but perhaps a a we tweak might help. You can post your routine of you like. 

[mmom]

Other than that some bubs just are EWers. DS is. Some just liek to wake early and no amount of tweaking makes any difference.

Yup!

[~Sara~]

Yup to everything that Emma said

For us, EWs have been 95% UT-related, the other 5% OT at bedtime.

[Smurfette]

Thanks ladies...I'm just so confused as to what DD needs.
She finally cut her 4th tooth around the 12th and then all of a sudden seemed to need an A increase but I'm not sure what's happening as we're still having NWs and Ews.
On the 16th she slept for her PM nap for 5 mins and then refused to go back to bed. Was happy as a clam and then STTN ( 2 ENWs) until 5:18 then next morning. (A time of 5 hrs and 50min!)

So here's yesterday's EASY
(the night before her A time to BT was 3hr 20 but was super wide awake (OT?UT?), rolling around, talking to herself and she finally went to sleep at 8:07 so a real time of 3hr 47 min
Tuesday
WU 5:53, I nursed her in hopes of getting her back to sleep but she woke at 6:15 (well I don't think she really slept)
1st nap-9:42-10:53
Sleep time of 1hr 10min, A time (from 1st wu) 3hr 50
2nd nap 2:42(she talked to herself for about 5 mins before falling asleep...this isn't like her, usually goes quietly to sleep-3:40 (I woke her up as it was getting too late in the day)
ST-50-55mins
AT-3hr50
BT-7:35 (AT-3hr 55)
ENW-8:57, cried really hard around midnight, I couldn't settle her so I nursed her.
Made a cry around 2:45am but we didn't have to go in.
Woke this morning at 5:38am. I tried to resettle her and was successful for about 10 mins and then I moved and woke her and couldn't resettle.
 Nursed her at 6 and she slept until 7 when we woke her.
(total nap length about 2hrs)
The night before her naps were only totally 1hr and 40 mins but yet she STTN with no ENWs, but only 10hr sleep, however she only sleeps about 11hrs on a good night.
Any thoughts?

[mmom]

Any chance she is starting the 2-1 early? http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=163278.0 She is almost 10 months.  Is she low/high/average sleep needs?

[Smurfette]

Re the 2-1, yeah, as I put in my first post, I think that's where we're slowly heading but it's hard to figure out these NWs.
I *think* she's average sleep needs...I guess I should know that by now,eh?

Yesterday she only took 2-1 hr naps and only had 2 NWs (one early and one at 4:30am) and slept 11 hrs. But today she has been yawning all morning and fell asleep in the car. I'm still going to keep her up for an A time of 3h50 and see where that gets me today.

[Smurfette]

Ok, last night she had 2hr and 10 mins of day sleep and two NWs (2nd was at 1:30 and she wouldn't settle until I nursed her) but woke up at 5:45 (only 9.45 hrs of sleep!) can a 9month survive on 2hr or less of day sleep? I am exhausted as I can't fall asleep once she wakes...I just sit there and feel like a horrible mother cause my LO STILL doesn't Sttn...so I must be doing something wrong!! So it's been about a week of me starting my day at 2 am or so.

Any thoughts?

[~Sara~]

I think she was OT from the short naps.  I don't think you're doing anything wrong *hugs*  Figuring these LOs out when they can't really tell us what's the what is hard work!!

I wonder if maybe she's UT and starting the 2-1...what if you pushed her first A time a bit, say 10-15 minutes or so, and see if she takes a 1.5h nap?  That 1h10 nap looked UT to me.

What do you think?

[Smurfette]

What do I think? I think I'm loosing my mind...lol. It's so hard to have perspective on days when I've had no sleep. I've been pushing her A times a bit this whole month slowly so I didn't want to go too fast. But in the first few weeks of June she finally cut her 4th tooth so perhaps once it was cut, she needed a bigger jump than I thought. Tomorrow, depending on the night, I will try 4 hours. (yesterday I did 3hr 50 for the first A and got 1hr 20, but the day before did the same thing and got 1hr 10.. )

I just put her down after 3hr43 min and she woke at the 40 min mark...is that OT or UT? I put her down early b/c of the short night and she was yawned a couple times during breakfast. When she wakes early (under an hour), that's usually where it is, but I don't know what that means. I was able to extend though.

Slept for an 1.5 hours in total so what do I do for the next A time?

[mmom]

At this age, when everything was so unpredictable with naps, we had a set morning nap time.  Not very BW I realize.  But I got frustrated and some lovely ladies on here helped me and this is what they suggested.  It at least helped me have some kind of predictability.  I think at the time, I was aiming for 9:30/10 and 1:30/2.  If my LO woke at 6, he went down at 9:30 and slept for 1 hour and then another nap at 2.  If he didn't sleep, then it was 1:30.  But I stayed within those times for a bit.

((HUGS)) though.  It really is hard to figure out what they need when you can't get any decent sleep.

[Smurfette]

Did you wake him after the hour mark?

[mmom]

Yes, I woke him.  He was short napping a lot though, so often he woke on his own.  I also kept bed time consistent.  6:30 the earliest and aimed for 7.

[Smurfette]

So he was doing A times of around 3hr 30? How long were his nights?

Thing is that my DD's WUs are all over the place. Yesterday was 5:45, today it's 6:24 and she's still asleep which is awesome, but that makes it hard to do set naps with such a variance  in times, IYKWIM.

I'm not sure to try an extended A or not, seeing as she's had a great night sleep (1 ENW and 1 @ 4, but 11hrs sleep), I think I'll consult DH when he wakes up (lol!) and I'll report back how the day goes.

[mmom]

Our wake ups varied between 5 -6:30 and we still stuck to 9:30 or 10.  It offered some type of predictability for us and our LO.

Nights varied as well.  We got lucky with occasional 12 hour nights, lots of 11 hour nights and some 10/10.5.  Between teething and illness, there was always a wrench in sleep, which is why the predictability helped me.