Completely losing it with EWs - we're in such a mess

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Please help, my 21 month old has been waking at 5.30am (ish) for almost a month now and I really don't know why, or how to fix it. She seems to wake between 5 and 5.45 no matter what we do. Sometimes I can re-settle her for 45 mins, sometimes I can't. The only pattern I've noticed is that after an early night she'll wake saying "up" and "mummy chair book" and after a later night she'll wake crying and I can re-settle her. She falls asleep quicker with a later night and fights it less, but doesn't sleep later.

Naps last from 45 mins to us waking her after 2 hours. I've managed to resettle her once from a 45 min nap, but the next day she tried to go back to sleep for 25 mins and then started playing. She's fighting naps too.

Thinking about it, the only time she's slept well for the last few months has been when she's ill or just after teething when she's done 6hrs a time before her nap, a 2hr nap and an 11hr night, with BT at 7.30. Her teeth are all fully through now.

Current routine is changing every day - we're in a mess and losing control - but we're aiming for a nap at 11.30 - 12ish and BT of 6.30 - 7.30 depending on nap length.

Please help - this is the only place where I trust the advice and I don"r know what to do next. I'm currently typing this in the dark on my phone while I wait for LO to fall asleep (it's been half an hour so far) while my parents (who only arrived a couple of hours ago) wait for me downstairs 

[Tweakster]

Hi there, how long is her night normally?  If she's waking at 5:30 from a 10 hr night then she might be getting too much day sleep.  Is she giving you issues going to sleep or just waking early from the nap?  Have you tried a later nap time?  At one point we had to push my son to 1 p.m. nap and that worked for a while...with an 8 p.m. bedtime and a 6/6:30 waking.

[s_dhroliya]

Hi Wendy,
Curious about your comment "If she's waking at 5:30 from a 10 hr night then she might be getting too much day sleep."
funny enough, my LO recently went down to one nap and the past few days shes been taking a long 3 hour nap and im getting EW's of 5:30am after 10 hours of sleep.  I didnt even think about too much day sleep.  If shes only doing one nap a day, is 3 hours too long?
Thanks!!!

[Tweakster]

It could be.  It depends on how old your LO is, how she's waking at the EW, if she's too rested to go back to sleep at 10 hrs.  Most kiddos who wake at the 10/10.5 hr mark are either UT or OT.  But for a LO who is doing a 2.5/3 hr nap, it could be too much day sleep or day sleep served at the wrong time.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

At the moment she's generally doing a 10.5 hour night, and up to 11 hours if she's not napped very well and we've done an early night. Yesterday she did about a 45 minute nap, did about a 10.25 hour night and woke up reasonably happy. We did have a NW at about 1am though but I think that may be related to us switching to using GW as we've had that cause problems before with her expecting us to be there when she goes to sleep.

She woke at 5.50am today, which is actually pretty good! What time do you think I should try for a nap, and how long should I let her sleep?

Thank you so much for your replies, means a LOT to have some help

[s_dhroliya]

Hi Wendy,
My LO is 16 months and has just gone down to one nap about 2 weeks ago - some days we still give her 2.
 - curious if shes getting too much daytime sleep.  at night, she only does between 10-10.5 hrs.  this is what her day typically looks like.

wake up  - anywhere between 5:45 - 6
nap: 10am (can range from 2 - 3 hours)
bedtime - 7:30/7:45 ish

if she only has a two hour nap (ie 10 - 12) then i give her a 25 min cat nap @ 5 and bedtime at 8

[Roseii]

Hi lovelylily sorry I didn't see this yesterday, how did you get on with the nap and night in the end?

S_dhroyila Hi there. You're welcome to start your own thread if you'd like some help? At a glance I would say try and push your LO's nap a bit later (but do this gradually) and rather than doing a later catnap, bring bedtime forward.

X

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yesterday we did a nap at 12 and she fought it for 45 mins and then went quiet and finally went to sleep at 1ish. She slept for 45 mins and woke pretty happy. We were out last night so my mum put her to bed at 7.30 and she said she looked tired and went to sleep within a few minutes. I don't know how much of it was her being tired, or whether she just behaves better for my mum! She slept through til nearly 6am!   At least for the last couple of days though a later bedtime has resulted in a later wake up....

Today I'm trying a slightly later nap at 12.45 cos everyone agreed she just didn't look tired at 12 yesterday. She's just gone to sleep I think, after fighting it for 15-20 mins. We're going to wake her after an hour, unless she wakes up anyway.

Getting slightly better I think though, apart from the dramas over going to bed and for naps.

[Roseii]

That's good
What kind of drama are you having at bt now?
xx

[LovelyLilyandJack]

What kind of drama are you having at bt now?

A lot less last night. She actually yawned during wind down which my husband, when he thought about it, said he hadn't seen for ages. She moaned for less than 10 mins. She slept til 6.10 this morning

We'll see how nap time goes today.... she's still only sleeping 45 mins, though I think we will cap to 1hr anyway.

The only thing that surprises me is that she needs so little sleep, though as I said in my original post, looking back over the last few months this has been building a while in between teething and illness.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Hmmm.... she fought her nap for 30 mins today and fell asleep at 1.20. I'm pretty sure she only slept 40 mins but seems ok so far. Interestingly the last 3 days she's eventually fallen asleep after 7 hrs 15 mins a time.  

What do you think is going on with these naps? Do you think I need to push it back more? Am a bit worried that might then affect BT..  Or do you reckon it's too late already?  

[Roseii]

Hmm as she had a 10.5 hour night (is that right?) and a short nap, hopefully BT will work out ok at normal time. I think you're risking OT if you put her down later...xx

[LovelyLilyandJack]

She went straight down at BT at 7.30 so obviously tired, which is good. Hopefully she'll have a decent night sleep. She'll be napping at nursery tomorrow at 12 (set nap time) so guess we'll see Wednesday how her naps are panning out. It just seems very hard to get her down for them, and then she's only sleeping 40 - 45 mins which doesn't seem like very long? It's only about 11.25 hours in 24... 

I'm really pleased bedtime is going better, but am wondering if she's OT or UT at naptime, or whether something else is going on?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Right, where we seem to be now is that we're getting good nights but that naps are still very short.  She's still fighting them a bit, though not for very long today when we put her down a bit later and she seemed more tired.  She's waking up a bit grumpy but not screaming, and is generally happy and running around within half an hour.  It kind of feels like she needs a bit more sleep for it to be refreshing but not too much more?!

Current routine is:

Wake @ 6.15 - 6.30ish
Nap @ 1ish, asleep by 1.15, almost regardless of PD time.  Wakes around 2pm.
BT @ 7.30, and STTN.

She had her nap an hour earlier at nursery yesterday and slept for 1hr 15, but then took 15 minutes off her night sleep last night.

Does this all look OK to you?  Am completely paranoid we're building up an OT issue with the short naps and although she seems OK at the moment, I can see that she's more tired the last couple of days than she was a week ago.  I'm not sure how I get that extra bit of sleep in her though - and maybe she doesn't even need it? 

Am I obsessing a bit too much?!

[Roseii]

ATM I think that looks really good hun You aren't having v short nights or ridiculous EWs-all good!
All you can do is keep a very close eye and you'll know straight away if you need to tweak a bit.
Well done