19 Month old, EW's and Crying at BT

[AN190781]

Thanks j.and.e, It's just I'm afraid of putting things back and then him ending up being ot again.  It's also very difficult as he's at nursery they just put him to sleep when he's tired.  But luckily most of the time at nursery they do put him down just after lunch around 12.30pm.  I've got some days off work soon, so we will have to try it then.

Thanks for the advice, It's nice to know that I can actually make bt later now, we seem to have waited so long as his sleep as always been poor.

 

[creations]

Hey that's a monster monster nap!
Thing is, it's tricky to say to cap the nap right now if his canines are coming.  Personally I would prob not let it go over 2 hrs, but like I said in previous post we had some days when DS was begging for a nap with canines coming.  it's not really the best time to try to change a routine but obviously you also need to do something.

I think you said that you would prefer a later BT so you could see him after nursery.  you might find with a good long nap like that he can do a later BT and later morning WU but IMO you'd need to experiment with it because not all LOs move their WU time.  For example I'm trying a 8pm BT (rather than 7pm) and he is still waking at 6am so instead of pushing his wake up later it just reduced his night sleep by an hour from 11 to 10.  On a positive side he went down easy at BT which was a relief for me as we've been having difficult BTs like you.

Some advice from other BWers is not to shift nap and BT at the same time as you can get a bit lost with which is working or not working.  This makes sense to me.  So I'd try capping the nap at 2hrs for a while and see if BT and WU get better.  When the nap is regular and established (and if BT and WU haven't improved) then try shifting BT later. 

[AN190781]

Thank you Creations.

As I thought we would, we had a bad night 
He woke up at 11.30pm and I re-settled with dummy.
Woke again at 2.30am and I re-settled with dummy.
Woke again at 3.30am, so I gave milk and meds. 

I'm a little confused if these wakings were his teeth or OT?

He then woke for the day at 5.30am!  So I know he will be overtired by the time I collect him from nursery.  It also seems to be affecting his behaviour at the moment, especially at nursery.  As I'm uanble to control his nap time at nursery I just haven't a clue what I should be doing anymore.  Leave his nap and move bedtime later? When his bedtime was later yesterday he went to sleep within 10mins and hardly any fuss, which is the best we've had it for a while again.

Any help is gratefully received, it just seems like an on-going battle all the time.

Thanks

[AN190781]

So today we had:
A - 5.30am
S - 12.50pm
A - 3.00PM
S - 7.30PM

We didn't have much fighting when he went to sleep, I'm not suprised considering the long day though!  What do you think should I be expecting another night of nw's?  As he was at nursery I had no control over the time of his nap, they generally  put him down when he's tired.  If I had put him to bed any earlier he would have had a really short afternoon and probably not enough activity.  I suppose as all of you have advised me, I just have to tweak these things and hopefully we will find the solution.  But it seems that he is naturally napping later and therefore not going to bed until later.  Fingers crossed we'll get there soon!

Thanks

[creations]

Is it possible to ask nursery to give him a set nap time?

The NWs sound more like teeth than OT to me, although the 5.30 WU can be pain, OT or UT.  Not much help I know.

[AN190781]

Hi Creations, he moves up to a new room next week, so I think I will see how they go with picking up his sleep cues then maybe ask for a set time.

I'm thinking it must be more teething than OT in the night, as when he's OT, he stays awake longer( I'm hoping it is anyway).  After tomorrow we have 5 days off together and we haven't got much planned, so I'm going to try and push the nap out and put bt later and see how we go.

Thanks for your help

[creations]

I think a set time for naps at this age tends to work better than A times or sleep cues.  We've had WUs from 7am down to 5am and stuck with a set nap time, it really helped with getting him down in a nice calm way.  Although we're on the change right now.

[AN190781]

Well last night was a good night, no wake ups all night!
Then he woke at 5.30am

My oh has been getting up at these times lately do go to work and really isn't the most quiet person, I'm wondering if this is what is disturbing him more at the moment?  As he will be in a light sleep at this stage of the morning.  When my oh's alarm didn't go off the mother morning DS slept until 6.00am when we woke.  Is it a coincidence?
The later bt is definelty helping with going to bed making it much easier, it's just the ew's still.  I'm contemplating putting his fan on a low setting in the corner of the room for white noise to distract what other noises there are and see if he sleeps in longer then?  I know he did a good 10hour night, but I would be happier if he could do at least 10.5, he seems so tired still.

Thanks for any advice
.

[creations]

I think if there is a disturbance (whether it be teething OT, UT, noise etc) in those early hours around 5am then there is a great chance of LO not going back to sleep.  I suspect there is an early morning train here (not a passenger one) which disturbs my LO and the only time he can sleep through it is if there is NO other issue going on, ie his routine is right for him, no pain or illness etc.
If your LO takes to white noise it could really help to cover the household noises.  I'd certainly try it.
It'll take a little while for him to get over any OT remaining from the previous night with lots of NWs so he's going to need a few undisturbed naps and nights to see the benefit and to judge if he can cope with the length of the night and naps too.
I'm there with you, we've had 5am WU here too long!

[AN190781]

Thank you Creations, it really helps when someone else can understand the process and thoughts I'm having to go through.

When we had really hot weather a few weeks ago he had to have the fan on all night and he slept in a could of times then, maybe only an extra hour or so, but he woke himself.  I think I'm going to try it tonight.  Will also have to judge what time to put him to bed, as good as putting him down later has been, as you say it may all start catching up again soon, so maybe an earlier night tonight?  I'll have to see what his nap at nursery was like.  Ideally I want to be heading for:

A: 6.30am
S: 12.30PM
A: 2.00 OR 2.30PM
S: 7.30PM

Do you think this would be ok?

Good luck with your 5am WU's, do you know what's causing yours? Sometimes I think no matter what I do he's just programmed for these early starts!  I guess we'll see

Thanks

[creations]

Your plan looks good.  Pretty average from what I've seen, although of course every LO is different.  I would prob look more towards the 2 hr nap rather than 1.5hr and only reduce further if you really see a need for it.
What I've found most useful is set nap and set BT.  Obviously they are not set if you are the process of tweaking the routine but I would really try to stick with something and let it settle in rather than changing BT every day based on nap length and A times.  A times for younger babies are super to go by, but at this toddler age I think they like the predictability of knowing when they are going to be put down to sleep.

Our 5am WUs started with illness, led to OT because of the short nights, and then I think the OT added to the EW.  But eventually ended up UT, I can see the difference in him even though I tend to be slow on the uptake and don't act quickly enough to prevent problems!  I'm almost positive there is a milk or postal train going by here in the night too and the noise waking him.
I went out on a limb recently and used an illness disturbed night (lots of long NWs) followed by a later morning WU to kick start a new routine.  Rather than:
WU 5-5.30am
S 12.30 - 2.15/2.30
BT 7.00 (had started to UT refuse and S was coming 7.20-8.00)

After his awful night he crashed until 7.30 so I used that to my advantage but it is still a flexible process whilst he is ill.
Looks like we are on our way to
WU 6.15 - 6.30
S 12.30 - 2.30
BT 8.00
or at least trying it.  Like you I'd like to see a longer night but a happy PD at BT and a decent amount of overall sleep in 24hrs so he is rested, energetic, happy, those are the important things.  Seeing him groggy or grouchy in the afternoon is unpleasant and UT BT refusal struggles drains me of every ounce of energy I have.  It just does nothing for my mood at all!

[AN190781]

Creations, I just noticed your ticker and there is 2 days between our boys!  They must be in sync somewhere! 
Do you think If my DS is low sleep needs then we should head for a later bt again?  I notice you are looking at a 8.00pm BT, with a 6.15am - 6.30am wu, am I expecting too much from 7.30pm bt and 6 - 6.30am wu?

Again thanks for your help.

[creations]

lol, I hadn't noticed

tbh I think your best bet atm is to try to get the nursery days and at home days running the same, or as close as possible.  The routine and body clock working together really does help.  At the beginning of the thread your home days the nap was pretty early and I would guess making all days the same will really help his sleep and also to reduce the number of variables for you so that it becomes a little clearer when things can be tweaked.
I'd stick with
S 12.30 2hrs
BT 7.30
for a bit and see where you get (and asking the nursery to PD at 12.30 - 2.30 too.  Obviously if he wakes earlier they will just get him up but stick to the set BT.  Ask them to cap at 2hrs if he doesn't wake on his own.)

My DS was 13 days late and tends to follow a sleep pattern of an older LO.  Right now I think he is a couple of months ahead of himself (just going by what I see on other threads).  We've had a 12.30 nap and 7pm BT run great for a good while and I'm only changing because I see his needs changing.  I've also tried a few other tweaks (shorter nap and same BT but he seemed tired in the afternoon).

For your LO, at this age and older there are still LOs doing the 2hr nap and 7pm BT so I would be cautious about pushing things too quickly before a set routine is established iyswim.

[AN190781]

Thank you I'm really beginning to feel alot better now, I have a plan and what to stick.  I just spoke to my oh and he said that he slept from 12.25pm - 1.50pm at nursery today.  So I will still aim for 7.30pm bt and see what happens.  As you say try and stick to the same routine and make it easier.

My LO was 5 weeks early, I should have known then that he would be an early riser as he's always been keen to get on with things!  But as you mentioned with your LO, my LO is probably still following the pattern of younger LO's, I will just have to wait and see how things go.

[creations]

But as you mentioned with your LO, my LO is probably still following the pattern of younger LO's

Could be.  It would be interesting to see a poll on ages versus 'real' age iykwim and related to sleep needs etc.
When you have established the routine I'm sure it will be easier to identify where/what to tweak.  If you see OT or UT creeping in in a few days it would be worth looking over your sleep times and seeing if there is a pattern etc.