Support for dropping the nap part 9.

[Aishi]

thats great naps are gone kara- less headache for you! i cant wait! re mummy time-thats what tv is for
claire- ds had a normal wu this am after that long nap but i thought it was cos of long day as wu was 5.30 yesterday and bt 8.30 rather than previous nnd- wdyt

was asleep for 6.20 today cos he was getting ratty so just under 12h day. think ill try for 2-3 nnds and then allow cu nap if he can handle so many nnds in a row...fxd for a decent. i sooo wish he would do 13h nights!!

[*Kara*]

LOL!  Mickey Mouse Clubhouse did buy me a short bit of time this afternoon!

[Truly Blessed]

Hi Ladies, an update:

15 days in and we're both shattered. He just won't sleep much more than 11 hours. He is UTW at the moment so last night he begged me to put him to bed and literally passed out at 6.30. He was up at 5.40 this morning. I don't know what to do. He is taking naps when he becomes exhausted, but that's 4 naps  in 15 days, and his mood is awful. He gets so tired that his ability to listen goes out of the window. We had 2 scary moments this week, he ran in a car park, out on to the road between parked cars. I let go of his hand for 2 seconds and he was gone. Thankfully God was on our side, I thought I was going to be sick. Also had a fall in a dept store whilst out with my Mam, because he wouldn't stop running. If he'd been with me he would have gone in the trolley after the first warning.

I can't see any other way but to keep going   

Any advise appreciated.

(Hugs) to you all.

Vicki.x.

[creations]

Think its a case of them not wanting to as opposed to not needing too.

Yes for sure that's what it is here.
Yesterday I was in a dilemma, I just didn't want to go through the nap 'thing' so let him skip. I knew he needed it really I just didn't want the argument over it.  By 3.30 he was shattered.  EBT at 5.25 (aimed 5.30 but he was so tired he was a mess at bath time and fell asleep during our WD cuddle whilst still telling me he didn't want to go to bed) and a couple of crying OT WUs.  I felt guilty I'd caused his disturbed sleep.  The last time he had nnd (2 in a row) we had zero OT WUs, both good nights.
Going to plod on with 'forcing' the nap and his regular BT.  I find the level of physical activity is a biggy here, I can't offer as much as he needs really.

[cath~]

Oh hugs Vicki. So sorry S is still so tired and not catching up. Wish I had some advice for you but I don't really.
Perhaps when you get to this stage tho you just have to do what you can for S to catch up, ie not worry about 'routine' and then when he's caught up work out where you go from there, eg to push WU later if it has crept early?

Hugs x

[Truly Blessed]

Thank you Cath. It seem there's no such thing as a CU any more. If I let him nap he sleeps such a short night that we clock up the same amount of sleep regardless. And on top of that on a nap day he is a nightmare at BT and we're back to the "I'M NOT TIRED" kicking and screaming and a mega late night. It just doesn't seem worth it, but I have to accept that on occasion it is unavoidable. There is no such thing as adjusting BT slightly on a nap day for Sam. You're looking at at least 5.5 hours probably 6 hours after a nap until he will sleep. It's handy to keep up your sleep if you need to shift WU later though, although it's not that much later due to the short nights he pulls, sigh.  I think I will have to accept he is only going to get around 11 hours sleep for a while and hope that it improves.

The behaviour thing, hand on heart, who knows if it is development or tiredness. I think developmental, but made worse when OT.

Thanks again Hun, I was so glad to hear Lydia is doing well.

x.

[barbaraz78]

We are having a lot of behavioral problems too, and I agree, developmental and worse when ot. He is tired though and pulling short nights consistently. He doesn't cu when he doesn't nap (we had a 10h night after nn day), so I don't think it is a nap problem. It can be related to the week out of dh, I actually hope it is the issue... So it should be solved soon, as he's back now

[creations]

Who has the spare rope?  Can you send it my way please? (when you come to the end of your rope it's time to get more rope... is the extra rope to make a noose for myself?)

I don't know why I am lacking my usual patience. These nap PDs are draining me.  I'm full of energy before hand, planning all sorts of house work etc etc for during nap time, but then nap time approaches and I am dreading mentioning it to DS, dreading the tantrum, dreading sitting in a dark room.  And by the time it's done I have zero energy, don't do any chores and just sit like a zombie feeling drained and miserable.  Today I felt like we were doing nap WD/PD for at least an hour.  When I checked the clock after leaving him it was 2.14pm - only 14 mins past his regular nap time!  14 mins!  It's not hours and hours it's just annoying and draining and I don't want to do it.
Morning WU is getting earlier and earlier so I'm starting the day tired and lacking patience before we've done anything.  And mostly we don't skip naps, he's only had a handful of nnds and a handful of shorter naps (1hr 20 or 30 rather than 2hrs or 2.5hrs) but I feel so tempted to just drop it and go EBT as a set time for a bit to get through the other side of this. I can't bare the thought of this going on for months because it just feels like a lot of frustration for both DS and me and very little benefit.

We've had set BT at 8pm for ages regardless of nap length and he was sleeping 10hrs until 6.00am.  But with mornings getting earlier and earlier (like 5 to 5.30 now) it seems he's waking UT.
Any advice?

[*Kara*]

^^  Sounds exactly what we had about 2 months ago Creations... naps were to the point that I dreaded them and often let her skip to just avoid the whole fiasco... the resistance is so tiring... then I found that our nap was taking from nights... so I had to accept a night of 10hrs MAX to have a nap since any nap less than 1 hr 45 made for a miserable afternoon and long drawn out BT (45 mins to settle).

I had to stop the insanity... I just dropped her nap cold turkey... I use EBT as I can and do keep her day to 11.5 hrs at most (often 11 - 11 hr 15) depending on what we have done that day...

[creations]

I had to stop the insanity...

That's how i feel.
But I've had another realisation.  It suddenly occurred to me that a similar thing happened a year ago approaching the clock change.  DS seemed to move his time BEFORE the clocks changed as though he knew what was going to happen.  But then at clock change instead of his 5am WU becoming 6am it stayed at 5am.  Long and short is I suspect it is not routine making for the earlier WU but a train going by waking him - a train that isn't there during the winter months 
Yesterday he was like a zombie and yawning before breakfast
Then he fell asleep at 1pm in the car on the way home.  He hasn't fallen asleep in the car for ages so he must have been totally and utterly exhausted.  Transfer to cot, crying OT WU just under an hour later but I resettled and total nap time, wait for it... 3hrs 
At that point he woke up screaming blue murder which continued almost without pause for an hour.
I'm now in a position where I have no idea if the issues are nap-drop related or train time related (prob a combination just to make everything harder to work out).  We tried to find out last year if there was a new train going by at 5am but the information office wouldn't tell us.  The only way to find out is to get up earlier to look/listen out for one.
In an attempt to compensate for the early train (if there is one) I moved BT to 7pm, he took 45 mins to go to sleep but maybe if I stick with it he will get that extra hour sleep, 7pm - 5am.
I'm drained, his mood is awful almost all the time and i can see it is all through tiredness.  It hasn't taken very long for me to change from 'things are ok here' to 'this has got to change'.

[cath~]

yikes creations, the trains do complicate things

At that point he woke up screaming blue murder which continued almost without pause for an hour.

Has he got all his teeth yet?  Could this ^^^ be 2 yr molar-related?  Do you think so much screaming after such a long nap suggests something else (teeth/developmental?) might be going on too?

[creations]

There appears to be no link to nap length and waking screaming, 1hr 20 I would think he has not slept enough and expect him to be miserable but sometimes he is happy.  2 hrs, 2.5 hrs I'd expect well slept but again sometimes screaming sometimes happy.  There has to be a reason of course, I just can't discover what.
He doesn't have all his teeth and I think there is a small amount of discomfort in his mouth but he denies it. Says his teeth/gums/mouth don't hurt, doesn't want meds, and tbh isn't showing huge signs of great pain with them, he isn't shoving his lovey in his mouth all day long like when he is seriously teething and the few NWs that are happening feel different, don't feel like teeth, hard to explain other than mummy instinct doesn't think teeth.
Yet another complication which I've just remembered is that he is sometimes waking from the night with a dry nappy.  We've been getting big morning wees after WU for a good while now. He is supposed to wait for timer lights to know it is morning and then he happily reads in bed for a while.  He was calling for me as/after his morning wee and I've now told him to call before the wee.  I think maybe what's happening is a train disturbs him, he can't get back to sleep and then he feels a wee coming and wants up to go wee.  A few times I could take him in the dark and return him to bed telling him it was still night - now no chance. I can take him back to bed but if I don't put the lights on he is furious and shouts so loud and he has been awake for so long that really he is getting hungry and I can't make him wait any longer.  So, yes, the morning wee going in the potty could be classed as developmental disturbance.
Sigh.
I've forced an earlier nap today.  If he is waking at 5 instead of 6 then really nap needs to be 1 instead of 2.  So I grit my teeth and took him up at 1pm.  Lots of resistance but asleep by 1.30pm.  I'm planning another 7pm BT instead of 8pm.  I hate the early mornings but if this is what we have to do to work around trains and wees then I'll have to suck it up (the early morning that is, not the wee!  )

[barbaraz78]

It is difficult, isn't it? So many developmental issues in this period that complicate things!

[Aishi]

hi

just an update: ds has had nnds since saturday with 12h days. nights have ranged from 11.5h on the first two nights to 13h+ last night! wu was 8 this am but he was still tired by 12.30 so i let him nap uncapped from 12.45-2.15. is this normal after such a long night? aimed for 8pm bt and he was asleep by then too! also if i keep offering naps when he seems to need them will this confuse him and rob from night sleep?

[gwcarnes]

Hey ladies can someone help with bt?  Not sure when to put them to bed.  We have cut nap to 1 hour 15 minutes on the days I can get them to nap sometimes just 1 hr depending on when they fall asleep.  But I always wake them by 2:30.  So if they get up at 7:45am nap at 1 or 1:30 till 2:30 what time. Should I be putting them to bed?  Thanks