Why is DS so chatty all night long?? Exhausted please help

[amom526]

I have not been on this board in loong time, but here I am again. DS is 9 months and has been doing really well with his sleep. Before we changed the clocks and before he had a stomach virus, his normal schedule was:

W 6-7
E 8
S 930/10 -1130
E1230
S 230-4 or longer if we let him
E 5
BT 630/7

He would then sleep most of the night, with maybe one chatty wakeup around 4. No eating during the night.

Then he had stomach virus, and then we moved our clocks back one hour. I'm not sure if either of these things are impacting him, I think it is more a general issue of his schedule is not right.

He is napping really well during teh day, which is so different then how he was as a little baby. He could sleep 2 2 hour naps if we let him. We have been trying to cut his naps at 1.5 hours each, but there are still some days where he is getting 3.5-4 hours of daytime sleep.

He has adjusted really well to the time change during teh day, but was waking up at 5 or 530 the past couple of days. The bigger problem is that he is waking up 2-4 times a night really chatty, not crying, just not wanting to sleep.

I will give yesterdays EASY to show:

WU 530
E 8
S 910-1040 (woke him)
E 12
S 130-330 (babysitter let him go 2 hours before waking him)
E 5
BT 645

He slept soundly until 2 which is very normal for him. He was up crying a little but mostly chatty at 2 and stayed up until 245. Then I heard him talking again at 4 and had to settle him. Then again at 515. I thought he was up for the day, but he is actually still sleeping now at 640. I wake up from the chattiness, and even though I should ignore it, I know he needs to be sleeping. Why is he not tired? Does anyone have any advice?

I dont think its possible hes ready for 1 nap as he can barely make it to 930 am. Should we be stretching him longer between naps?

TIA!

[amom526]

I just wanted to add that he has no teeth, so its possible he's tething, but wouldn't he be crying if he was teething?

[Bex09]

Hi, welcome back! 

It is possible that your DS is starting the transition to one nap, although it is early for that, my DD also started at 9 months. It sounds like you have already started to transition if you are capping his naps though anyway. Can I ask what made you start cutting his naps to start with and has the NW problem only happened since then? With the transition you wouldn't really look at dropping to one nap until A time is nearer 5 hrs, so you still have a way to go yet. It took us 3 months all in all! The best idea is to just cut one nap (either am or pm) and keep the other nice and long if you can.

As for teething LOs can have long NW without crying. Sometimes it doesn't actually cause pain but just bothers them enough to stop them from sleeping. Have you tried giving pain meds, powders or teething gels at all to see if that helps?

Then of course there is always the fact that your DS may be UT, this can cause happy NW too. In which case he may need a slight push in his A times. Average for his age would be around 3.5 hours, so he is a little under that at times, but every LO is different anyway. Usually a sign of needing to extend A time would be if he is fighting naps and BT too, is that an issue at all? What do you think?

[amom526]

Thanks so much for responding.

DS has always been a light sleeper for the later parts of the night (2 am and on). We cut his 3rd nap at 5 months, and he was doing really well for a while. He's always had around 1 chatty wakeup in the early morning, and rarely sleeps all the way through. However, there are some nights where he goes right back to sleep after being re-settled, and other nights when he can go on chatting for an hour. I think that the nights that he goes on and on are nights when he has had too much daytime sleep.

We began cutting his naps because he started taking these long 2 (or even longer) hour naps twice a day. On these days he was up a lot and not wanting to go back to sleep. We stsrted limiting his second nap, and making sure he was up by 4, because 7 is bedtime.

We have also recently pushed bedtime from 615 to closer to 7. But we did that because he was napping much longer in the day and could easily make it to 7.

For the past 2 days we have been really strict about limiting both naps to 1.5 hours. Last night he went to bed around 7 but he woke up around 8 and 9 (very unusual), as I think he was a bit overtired. Then he slept till about 5, chatting again at 540, but then didn't hear him again till 7 yay. I consider this an improvement. He had two 1.5 hour naps again today- from 940-1110 and from 210 to 340. I guess we will see what happens tonight.

[amom526]

Now I'm even more confused. He is usually so good the first half of the night. The past 2 nights after having two 1.5 hour naps. he has woken up 3-4 times crying between 7 pm bedtime and midnight.

Could he be overtired? I don't know what to do next.

Does anyone have any advice?

[Bex09]

NW like that sound OT to me hun yes. Can you post yesterday's EASY and I can take a look? Did he have a longer A time to BT at all?

Maybe it might be worth just cutting one of his naps and letting him sleep as long as he wants for his other nap so that he is getting at least one good long nap a day. Have you seen this link for some ideas. http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=163278.0

[amom526]

With only one nap yesterday, ds again seems like he is up for the day 9 hours after bt which happened to be 330 am. I don't think it's possible that he only needs 9 hours of sleep? Is it possible this is just some phase I just need to wait out? I'm running out of options

[Bex09]

Sounds to me like his short nights are to do with a build up of OT. Why did he only have one nap yesterday? Did he refuse his other? As I suggested, I think if you decide to just cap one nap at say 1 hour and then let him sleep as long as he likes for the other nap so that one of his naps is nice and long.

I agree that 9 hours of night sleep is not enough no. He is probably very OT which not only causes NW but often EW too. If I were you I would let him catch up on sleep first, maybe reduce his A times a little and let him catch up on some sleep for a few days. I would watch his tired cues and see if he seems sleepy earlier.

[amom526]

So I did not get a chance to update this morning that DS fell back to sleep around 415 after being up for 45 minutes chatting. He then slept till 7! I think he was catching up on some sleep. This morning he seemed tired around 10 am and slept till 12. then he seemed tired again around 2, but we waited until 23 to put him in, and then it took till 3 to fall asleep (he was talking in his crib, not crying). So that was 2 A times of 3 hours which is what he's been on for ever and ever. We cut his second nap at 1 hour though, so he was up at 4. We are now starting wind down for a 645 BT.

I think I need to except that he is starting to transition to one nap and sleep might be a little unpredictable for a while. I do so much better when he has a solid routine, but I just need to roll with it. Thanks for reading my posts and taking the time to respond.

[amom526]

He slept from 645 bt to a 530 wake up. Small chance he will go back to sleep. I think after going in at 645 530 is probably an acceptable wake up time for him. I hope this trend continues.

[Bex09]

I think you are right and as DS goes through the transition sleep may well be a bit up and down for a while. He managed nearly 11 hrs last night so not too bad really. Check out the 2:1 support thread and I am sure the other Mamas will give you great support and help. Keep us posted.