Need help with nap schedule during 3-2 nap transition

[Tabathagucci]

Now that I've fixed that nap issue I continue to have an early am wake up problem.  Help!  Believe it is because we are putting him to bed too early but I am struggling to keep him awake longer for his last A time!  He either falls asleep during his last feed or hernia a crying mess trying to bury his head into our chests and fall asleep on us.  How don't fix this???

Here is our EASY for the past 2 days since adjusting naps:
Wake 545
E 645
A
S 915-1015
A
E 11
S 2-3:30
E 3:30
A
E 6:45
S fell asleep at 704

He woke the next morning at 4:30, was awake for 1 hour then fell back to sleep from 5:30-6:30.  We started our day then and had similar A times (a bit shorter in the am due to he wake up and a bit longer in the pm as a result, then an A time of 3 hrs 40 mons before bed time and a wakeup of 5:15 this morning after only 9 hrs 40 mins sleep.  Don't just force him to stay awake for 4 hours before BT?

[Papaya]

I think he's doing short nights because he's OT hun - that's a long day! I would try doing a really EBT for a few days, and hope that it pushes the morning WU later. So if he's up from his nap at 3.30, I would do bt no later than 6.30.

Do you think he could be teething? That ALWAYS causes EWs in our house.

[Tabathagucci]

Really?  We have been getting early wakings on and off for over a month and a sleep coach I was working with seemed to think he needed a 4 hour Time before bed so I've been pushing it longer!  Ugh this is so confusing.  I don't like the long A times during the day but this is the only way he'll take decent naps.  He has always need higher A times than the averages for his age though.

The sleep coach seemed to think he needed shorter A times during he day and longer before bed.  Is it possible my son has  somehow got them switched around? I've tried a shorter A time in the morning (3 hrs) and he then refuses the pm nap unles I push the second A time to 4 hours! 

And yes he could be teething as he's 9 months with No teeth yet but as I said we've had early wu's for over a month (not consistently tho).

Perhaps before it was that he needed more A time and now it's OT ?  He's also been wearing a helmet since May 16 so wondering if he just can't sleep in because of that?

[Papaya]

Sorry, I didn't mean ebt as a permenant solution, just for a day or two to see if it gets him caught up with a longer night in general I agree about the longer A to bed, it's just that his past couple of nights have been so short I would think he must be getting OT 
Have you tried a dream feed of meds to see if it helps the ews? or wake to sleep?

Does he need to wear the helmet? I suppose it could be affecting him if he finds it a bit uncomfortable but I would have thought he'd get used to it 

[Tabathagucci]

He does need to wear the helmet but we are nearing the end of it thankfully. 

I have not tried a dream feed of meds but I could!  I dont tend to think it is teething as we have been getting 1-3 early wakings a week for 6 weeks.  But will try just in case.

So now I'm confused about the ebt, I have been trying so hard to push it out that I feel like if I shorten it now it would defeat what I'm trying to do.  I finally just got him to a 4 hour awake time before bed yesterday but he was a mess.  He seems to want to go to bed just over 3 hours after his nap, but that is supposedly what has got us in this situation on the first place.  Just very confused!  After the longer A time last night he was awake for over an hour in the middle of the night and then woke at 6:15 after only 9 hrs 45 mins sleep, less than 10 hours for the 3rd day in a row.

I will try a 3 hour window tonight and see if it helps but just starting to feel like I'm in a black hole of sleep!

[Tabathagucci]

I can also try w2s too but he doesn't always wake at the same time each day. It ranges from 5 to 5:45.  Should I just do it after he's been alseep 8 hrs 45 mins, which is about an hour before the 9 hrs 45 mins?

[Papaya]

I have used it with a slightly roaming WU like that - I tended to do it 45 mins before the earliest WU that I expected, so 4.15 for you. It would always get me at least 1hr30 more from then, so earliest WU would then be 5.45, and sometimes later. So it didn't suddenly give us brilliant nights, but definitely better than they could have been. If your LO seems to always wake at the 9.45 mark though, then doing after 8hrs45 might be worth a try!

[Tabathagucci]

Thanks Papaya, will keep that in my bag of tricks if we still have issues.  
I tried EBT for 2 nights and got 10 hrs 15 the first night and so far over 11 last night and still sleeping.  But both days I had short pm naps for various reasons.  So now I have 3 questions:
1) if I have looong days due to a long night waking or short naps, it would seem an EBT would be the solution for that day, correct?
2) after 2 nights of good sleep now should I try going back to the longer A time before bed as long as the days naps are good?
3) what would a typical end of day A time be if he does 3.5 in the am and 3.75 in the middle of the day?

Thanks so much!

[Papaya]

yes and yes

3) is a bit trickier. If you do a 4hr A to bed, your night will be too short which will lead to OT again. So IF he really needs those long As (both second and last), I think you're going to have to cap the morning nap down to 45 mins. This is really the 2-1 transition, which most babies hit a bit older than this, but some LOs are on to one nap before a year old.

Have you seen this link? http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=95670.0

So I would keep the morning A at 3hr30, cap at 45 mins, then try reducing the second A to 3hrs. If you get a good nap, you can then do 4hrs A to bed. Or thereabouts - it might take a little trial and error to figure out the right A times after a shorter am nap.

What do you think?

[Tabathagucci]

So he has generally always slept about 10.5 hours at night at right now about 2.5 during the day.  Which would mean 11 hours of A time during the day so I would think 3.75-4 hours would be ok but maybe that is why I am having thIs issue in the first Place?

I can put him down after 3 or 3.25 hours in the morning but then needs the afternoon A time at 4 hours (after a 1 hour Am nap).  I hesitate to reduce the middle A time from 3.75 to 3, it seems like a lot less!  I can try though.  Would it perhaps be better to reduce the morning A time by 15 mins, cap the nap at 45 and reduce the second A time by 15 or 30 mIns?

I have read the link which is why I have been capping the am nap.

For today since Ive already had him awake for 3.5 in the am I'll wake him at 45 mins and put him down 30 mins earl for pm nap and see how he does.  Do i wake him from the pm nap or let him go as long as he as wants?  He never naps longer than 2 hours, but typical good pm nap is 1.5 to 1.75 hrs.

Thanks!

[Tabathagucci]

I tried reading his cues after the capping the am nap at 45 mins. But have never had much success at this.  Put him down at 3 hours 20 mins and got a 35 minute nap which has alway been UT for us.  I know I should try a new A time for a few days by think tomorrow I'll just push it to 3.5 hours and see if it makes a difference. But also please let me now if shortening his morning A time would make any sense at all as mentioned above.  Thanks so much!

[Papaya]

Would it perhaps be better to reduce the morning A time by 15 mins, cap the nap at 45 and reduce the second A time by 15 or 30 mIns?

Yes, this might also work as it's not a bad thing if he goes down a touch UT for the first nap if it's capped - and he will then probably be able to handle a bit more for the second A. I would just be careful about making the first nap too early, as it can perpetuate the EWs. 15 mins earlier should be fine.

It might be that your LO can do almost a full A after a 45 min nap (some can) in which case the next step would be to cap further. Capping down to 30 mins would probably make much more of a difference as that's not even one sleep cycle, and not very restorative.

[Tabathagucci]

Do I need to wake him from second nap at all or just let him sleep and put him to bed four hours later (unless it means putting to be after ?

Thanks again!

[Tabathagucci]

Well, put him down 15 mins later today and he was fighting me a little going down like he did yesterday which generally means UT for us.  We got another 35 min nap even with the extra 15 min A time.  So in addition to my question above about waking from 2nd nap, also would like to know:

1) What is the end goal in terms of an easy schedule? 

Before I started changing them a couple of days ago, once I got to the 4 hour A time at the end of the day, it would have looked like this:
Wake 5:30
E
A
S 9-10
E
A
S 1:45-3:15
E
A
E
S bed time 7:15
Which is 2.5 hrs of naps and 11 hrs 15 mins total A time, which would allow 10 hrs 15 mins of night sleep.  If this is not enough night sleep, what is the end goal, ie what should the EASY look like? I'm getting caught up the minutia of each nap and need to see the big picture. 

2) based on the last two days of 35 min naps, should I continue waking him at 45 mins for 1st nap and using the same second A time for a couple more days or start cutting the fist nap to 30 mins already?

Thanks!

[Papaya]

Do I need to wake him from second nap at all or just let him sleep

I would only cap one nap. I found OT accumulated very quickly if I capped both. On the odd occasion (if bt would otherwise be very late) it's fine, but I wouldn't do it every day.

We got another 35 min nap even with the extra 15 min A time.

Are you sure this was UT?  We would get 35 min naps for VERY ut, but otherwise it always meant OT

1) What is the end goal in terms of an easy schedule?

A structured routine that allows your LO to get the amount of sleep he needs and that suits you! 12.75 hours total sleep is very low for this age Is he happy on this? And 10hr15 is a short night - usually you want a longer night (10.5hr+) as night sleep is more restorative than day sleep. That said, it's not uncommon for days to lengthen when you're in a nap transition - we were up to 14 hour days at times in the 2-1, but my LO would get OT if her nights were that short for very long.

When I was capping at 45 mins, my EAS started off looking something like this:

WU: 6.00
nap: 9.30 - 10.15
nap: 1.15-3.15
bed: 7

Slowly I'd need to stretch out the second and third As or I'd get EWs, til bt got to 7.30/45 - then when the EWs started again I cut the nap to 30 mins, so something like:

WU: 6
nap: 9.30 - 10
nap: 12.45/1 - 2.45
bed: 7

I was given the advice to not give the first nap earlier than 9.30 no matter what the WU (except maybe on the odd occasion), and it really helped to push our EWs later.

Does that help?