Naps suddenly gone - 7 month old

[jennandsophie]

What is going on?  Up until 4 days ago, DS napped pretty great during the day, except when teething or sick.  Well, suddenly we've had 2 days of morning nap refusal and 30 min naps.  I can't seem to get him back into his regular routine because everything is now off.

We have been battling the EW monster for the past month.  He will generally wake between 5 - 5:45am no matter what time he goes to bed and how well he slept in the day.  It seems to make no difference.  When he wakes, we will sometimes try to get him back to sleep, but he fights it like crazy.  DH has been able to rock him back to sleep a few times and then we wake him by 7am.  However, most days we just sit with him while he screams and cries to be gotten up, which I won't do until 6:30am no matter what time he woke.

Anyway, all this to say that the EWings are obviously affecting his day sleep now as well because he's getting so OT.  

Here's our old routine:

Wake: 5:45am
E: 6:30am
S: somewhere between 8:40 - 9:00am (usually 1hr 15mins to 2hrs)
E: 11am
S: 2 or 2:15 pm (usually 1hr 30 mins)
E: 3:45pm
S: 6:30pm bedtime asleep by 6:45 or 7pm

Monday looked like this:
Wake: 5:45am
S: 10:30am in the car as he would not sleep for his 9am nap (30 mins)
S: 1:30 (30mins)
S: 2:30 (he fell asleep in the car) 1hr and 15 mins
S: 7pm (he protested and cried for 30 mins before falling asleep

Tuesday:
Wake: 7am (woke at 5:30 and DH got him back to sleep)
S: tried at 9:30am as he was rubbing eyes and no luck, tried again at 10:10am and he slept for 5 mins and then woke hysterical due to a creak from the floor boards as I was leaving the room - finally got him down at 11:30am and slept 1.5hrs
S: catnap at 3:30pm for 45 mins
S:  bedtime at 6:30pm, asleep at 6:45pm

Today:
Wake 5am (DH had him back to sleep for about 15 mins and then he was woken up by sound of the door opening
S: tried at 8:30am (this is the earliest I can do a nap because I have to take DD to camp every day), played for a long time and then fell asleep at 9am (only slept 30 mins)

So, I have no idea what to do since the 9am morning nap seems to be gone all of a sudden.  If he is willing to take it and it's short because of OT, I'm not sure how long to keep him up before the next nap.  He usually is tired right away after waking but he never lets me extend his naps.

HELP please!  Not sure where to start to get back on track.

[jennandsophie]

Today ended up like this:
S: 9am (30 mins)
S: 12:15pm (1.5hrs)
S: 4:50 - 5:10pm (I woke him after 20 mins to ensure early bedtime)
S: bedtime of 6:30 and asleep around 6:50pm

[ENMS]

Jenn, I don't have much advice since I haven't BTDT yet. Will be soon though I'm sure our LO's seem to have the same agenda usually

So he used to go down for his 9AM nap on about 3h-3h15 of A time, is that right? What about if you extended that a little, to 3h30? Or maybe even 3h45? Maybe that would help? Could it be that he's UT when you put him down, but that by the time he's asleep he's OT?

Also I don't know what is up with taking forever to fall asleep! M does that too now, it definitely takes him longer even if I have the A times right. Must be developmental or something.

I might try to get him over the OT first though, maybe APOP naps for a day or two, so that he can catch up, and then try putting him down after 3h30 or 3h40?

Sorry I'm not much help, I'm sure someone with more experience will come along

[*Kara*]

Hi

I think he is just beyond OT at this point in time... is he good with AP?  If so, I agree with Elise, use it for a couple days to catch him up.  Then we will look at increasing his A times

I do have a few things to mention though -

The EW monster is not at play here.  EW is less than 10 hrs of night sleep.  This is just a case of him getting up at a time you don't like... unfortunately, a 630/645pm BT often means a 545am wake time   A 12 hr night is quite rare for most LO's.  11 hrs is far more common.

You might have to get him up when he wakes for the day at 545am until we can get his naps back in line and BT shifted out a touch...   Getting him back to sleep after being awake for any length of time is likely being treated as his first nap of the day... hence the refusal of his actual morning nap.  This can also perpetuate the early starts

[jennandsophie]

Kara, I should mention he usually has a NWing and it often lasts an hour or more, so if you factor that in, it's always less than 10 hrs of night sleep.

Last night we tried a dreamfeed and he didn't have the night waking.  Instead we got a wake up of 4:45am.  Still less than 10 hrs of sleep.  Seems like he consistently does 9.5hrs and then wakes up refreshed and ready to play.  I tried not to rock him, just kept repeating his sleepy phrase and some light patting when he would get hysterical.  Didn't work so ended up getting him up at 6:45am.  Unfortunately have to do the camp drop off with DD.  He started to get tired in the car around 8:15am but didn't fall asleep or I would have happily let him APOP it in the car.  I got him home by 8:30am and he fell asleep by 8:45am.  So, 4hrs of A time until his nap which I know will mean a 30 min OT nap.  I usually put him back down 2hrs and 45mins after such a short nap and he'll sleep 1hr and 30 mins.  Because of the naps ending so early, I've been able to get him to take a catnap around 4pm which is incredible because he dropped that catnap more than a month ago.  I guess he's just super tired from waking so early.

I used to always let him catch some sleep in the car if he refused a nap but lately he won't even sleep in the car.  I guess as you say, Kara, he's beyond OT.  Elise, I wish I could APOP some other ways, but he has never slept in his stroller.  He finds it too stimulating even if he's exhausted.

[jennandsophie]

Well, threw me for a loop, he slept for 1.5hrs this morning after 4hrs of A time.  Crazy.  He seems cheerful.

[ENMS]

Jenn - a DF is a fantastic idea. I'd like to do one but I think he wouldn't be hungry. He drink 9-10 oz at BT, and sometimes with NW's around 10-ish I've tried to feed, but it didn't work he didn't want anything. I wish I could, then it would push back his NW and we may have a later WU. Although it's been 2 days now that he wakes at 5-ish instead of 5:30-ish, so we're able to feed him and he falls right back asleep until 7 or so.

APOP-ing in the car is not as fun though at least in the stroller (that's how I APOP naps), I can walk aorund and it's fun, but driving around must be a PITA .

So glad that he had a good nap just now!

[jennandsophie]

He's been so cheerful after his nap.  It's been almost 3 hrs and he's not showing any tired signs.  I think I will go for 3hr 15min or so.  He's tummy crawling all over the place so don't know if some of this is developmentally related.

I hate the APOP car naps.  The only upside is that I get to see neighbourhoods in the area that I don't know and scope out where I want to live next   As soon as I stop the car, he wakes up.  I remember my nephew would sleep for hours in a stopped car.  My sister got to read lots of magazines while she waited for him to wake up.

[jennandsophie]

Elise - I wanted to add that he only ate a couple ounces during the DF as he started to wake up fully so DH let him go back to sleep.  He then slept without a peep until 4am.  He was drifting on and off until 4:45am when he started calling out.

[ENMS]

Hmmm that may be a good idea to start phasing out the NF we have around 1-2AM.  Although I know I can't cut it out, he's not having any solids as it is so I can't see he doesn't need a NF, but what bugs me is that he wakes twice - 1-2, and then 5-ish. If we could get that down to a DF, and then a 3-4 NF, it would be better I find.

[jennandsophie]

I would give it a go, Elise.  I think cutting out the DF is fairly easy when you think he's ready.

[ENMS]

Jenn you are making my day

I had thought about a DF in the past, but being an optimist I though it wasn't worth it to introduce it - how wrong was I!

I'm scared that the 1-2AM is a habitual waking, but I guess we'll be able to figure it out and see depending on how it goes with the NF. I definitely have nothing to lose

[huntersmummyinoz]

hi jen,
agree with pps that looks like he needs a nudge more A time, i'm thinking 3.5, maybe even 3.75hrs. and even with the long nw, agree that it's maybe not a true EW, but rather sleep needs reducing and needing to move his whole day forward to a slightly later bedtime in order to fix the wake up time.

few Qs
any light getting into his room in the morning?
still using white noise?
also can u add food and drink into an EAS for me so i can see what he's having and how much?
any sign of teeth?
when is his normal nightwaking/night feeds?
what time r u trying the DF?
have you used W2S with him before?

so tricky when u cant APOP, K is like that, even now on long car trips H will be fast asleep and K will refuse to nap!

hugs lovely xxx

[jennandsophie]

Well Elise before you try doing the DF, I should let you know that last night J woke at 1am on the dot after having the DF at 10:30pm.  Obviously it was not hunger.  I do think he had gas though.  I could hear him struggling with burps, so picked him up and tried burping him but couldn't get it out.  Whenever I laid him back down, he would start burping again. 

Needless to say, it was a long night.  Almost 2hrs before he could settle and go back to sleep.  Woke up at 5:15am today ready to go.  Tried to get him to go back to sleep but no go.  I can never do it during the mornings so I just accept that he will be up early and I just try to keep him calm and quiet so as not to wake DD.  Got him down for a nap now at 8:45am.  Settled really easily and quietly so I'm hoping it'll be a decent nap.  He's probably so exhausted from the bad night that he'll sleep okay, though I know not to let him sleep too long or it perpetuates the early waking cycle.

Kirry - I've made it as dark as I can and I don't see any light around 5am in his room.  We still use white noise on all night.  Yesterday it somehow switched itself from the static sound to birds chirping so maybe it woke him up.  Why would anyone want to listen to birds chirping when they sleep?

In terms of food and drink, he's still getting 4 BFs s a day.  Here's an example:
Wake: 5:15am
E: 6:45am - BF for about 10 mins
E: 7:20am - breakfast of fruit and sometimes oatmeal cereal (I cut the cereal this past week because it was suggested that it was too constipating and maybe causing tummy upset)
S: 8:45am - 10:15am
E: 10:45am - BF
E: 11:30 or noon - lunch of vegetables
S: 1:30pm - 3pm
E: 3:00pm - BF (I haven't done dinner in a while because it might cause tummy upset.
E: 6:00pm - BF
E: 10:30pm - DF

Up until we started the DF, he always had one additional feed during the night.  It used to be between 3-5:30am and now it's earlier, usually 1-4pm.  I do wonder if he is hungry, as he feeds okay during the day, but doesn't stay on more than 10 mins except at bedtime when my supply is low.  I have tried supplementing with formula for that feed and it didn't make any difference to his night waking.

teeth - don't think so at the moment.  He is very cheerful in the day and has not been drooling as much as before the two bottom teeth popped.  Have not tried W2S, as I never know when he'll wake but I suppose he's usually still sleeping at 4am so that's a possibility I think.  I'm just so scared that he will want to start his day at 4am!

[ENMS]

Thanks Jenn. That's what I was scared of because I think his WU is habitual. But, we didn't do it, because DH was too tired and he went to bed early (he's been doing nights for the past few days so that I can sleep and catch up).

(((HUGS))) to you. Getting up that early in the morning on a regular basis is exhausting.

I wish I had some great advice for you