naps deteriorating

[baffled]

Hi

We are 4 weeks into pupd with Ollie.

The 1st week he went down to 1 wake up at night (from 2) and was sleeping a little later in the morning - was fab.

Anyway, his night wakings have increased but I am aware of possible growth spurts and developmental leaps at this stage and he is really going down v well with pupd (albeit I have to be I  the room but as he was heavily dependant on nursing to sleep (and even being held for naps ) so am happy with it and will do gradual removal ) and he goes to sleep (eventually) with little on no tears 

The night wakings are hard as I feed him (bf) and he holds on like a limpet with all his might so by the time I manage to unlatch him he is either almost asleep or asleep and with 4 -6 wake ups a night I am just too tired - I am hoping the wake ups are developmental/growth spurts and will naturally drop back down.

Anyway, his naps..... He has 2 naps a day - 1-2 hours each (usually), the 1st 2 hours after he wakes for the day then the 2nd is 3-4 hours after he wakes from his 1st nap eg:

ufd 6.30
bf
activity ( while I sort bits and bobs)
7.30 breakfast
activity
bf
8.30 -10am nap
snack
activity
bf
12pm lunch
activity
2pm - 3.30pm nap
snack
activity
bf
5.30ish dinner
6.30 bedtime routine activity - bath, teeth etc
7.30 bed

my problem is that over the last few days he really is fighting pupd - his crying is escalating to a level I have never heard before and today I ended up nursing him to sleep as he was inconsolable - nothing would sooth him.

so how should I deal with it - it's stressing me out as I go back to work in 2 weeks time - I'm exhausted from the night wakings and want him to be able to nap while away from me...... Is what is happening with the night wakings undermining my pups for naps? I really am at a loss as apart from the bath and teeth my pupd is the same as at night and he is totally fine  about going to bed at night. I do try and wind down for naps but he can get excited about ANYTHING lol.

any help is much appreciated

ps Ollie is 9 the old

many thanks

helen

[trimbler]

Hi Helen,

Sorry to hear you're struggling with this - I'm no stranger to nap issues myself and I know it's really hard. I'm no expert, but I'll share my thoughts and you can take or leave them...

It strikes me as quite soon to be putting Ollie down for his morning nap, only 2h after he wakes up. Could he be fighting that nap because he's not quite as tired as he used to be at that time? He may still be giving you all the tired cues because his body clock is set to sleep at that time, but he may not actually need to nap then. You could try going out for a short walk or something (to distract him from feeling a bit sleepy) before putting him down a bit later - you probably won't want to stretch him too much to start with, depending on how he reacts to getting OT, but you might find that once he gets used to it, he goes down for that nap more happily. He could also possibly be making up for lost night-time sleep by having that nice long nap so soon after getting up - by keeping him up a little longer he won't be able to do that, so hopefully he'll make up for it the following night instead

The other factor to consider might be teeth or other discomfort? Whenever our DS has suddenly started crying hard before naps, we've usually found that he's been teething or maybe he's produced some hard stools in his nappy afterwards and we realised his tummy was probably a bit sore from constipation.

Now this may not be relevant just yet, but you may want to read up on the 2-1 nap transition in advance. I certainly don't think Ollie's ready for 1 nap now, but the increased night waking may be a sign that you need to start thinking about the transition, perhaps see what happens when you move the morning nap a little later and then think about very gradually cutting one of his naps a little shorter. Sometimes if LOs have two good daytime naps when they don't really need that any more, then they might start waking more at night.

HTH - but I'm sure others will get back to you with more suggestions. Try not to worry about going back to work, I've done this quite recently and yes, the first couple of weeks or so were tough as DS didn't sleep much at his childminders - but he soon worked it out and now he's really happy there and sleeping just as well as at home, even when he has a little cold.

[baffled]

thanks so much Trimbler - I def think you're right about the morning nap will give it a blast and will be avidly reading about the 2-1 transition - I remember going down from 3-2 and that was hard!

funny you should mention teeth - ollie already had 6 teeth and was showing no signs of teething yet when we were having lunch today I found a newly cut tooth and I suspect number 8 is not far behind!

I don't know how I ended up like this - we had even read the secrets of the bw b4 he was born and were  determined to get it right!

thanks again - you really have helped

[trimbler]

Ahh... it may be the teeth that are responsible, do you give him painkillers/teething gel or anything before naps?

I don't know how I ended up like this - we had even read the secrets of the bw b4 he was born and were  determined to get it right!

Please don't be hard on yourself - I also read that book before DS was born and naively thought it should be fairly 'EASY' but I don't think it ever really is! Hope you see some improvement soon, anyway

[baffled]

fingers crossed lol