Good EASY routine but not nights!

[bevsteress]

Hi,

With the help of some of the moderators here I've finally managed to get my (almost) 7 month old son to sleep on his own and get 2 good naps a day. However, we're still having problems at night and I want to shift his wake up time but not sure how to go about it. Also due to early wake up not sure if his last A time of the day is too long. I already give him an early bedtime when he wakes up early but I don't want this to become a habit and keep encouraging the EW. Bedtime is normally 7.30pm and with that he usually wakes at 6.30am at least. When I do early bed (around 7pm) he wakes up earlier anyway so I'm in a bit of a vicious circle!

This was our routine the past 2 days (it only varied by about 15 mins today as he woke up at 5.30am)

5.45am- Wake up - Breastfeed
8.15am - Solids
8.45am - Sleep
10am- Wake up
10.30am - Solids
11.15am - BF
12.30pm - Formula (120-150ml) ....this was a recent addition to get him used to it for daycare starting soon
1.10pm - Sleep
2.40pm - Wake up
3.30pm - started some baby led weaning with toast fingers
4.30pm - Solids
5pm - BF (he asked for it)
6pm - Formula (150ml)
6.30pm - Bath
6.50pm - Bed

He falls asleep immediately.

We used to start bathtime at 7pm to be in bed by 7.30pm latest but when he wakes up early I get worried that if I leave him too long his last A time would be too long and he'll get OT.

I've stayed indoors the past 2 days to get him to have 2 good naps of around 1.5hrs each (he does minimum 1hr 15mins always) but he's still not sleeping much at night! 

After that routine last night he woke at:

10pm - pu/pd and back to sleep
10.53pm - fed him as he was getting more upset if i tried to put him back down
11.06pm - back to sleep
1.48am - BF again
1.55am - pu/pd
3.49am - pu/pd
4.10am - BF
4.18am - back to sleep
5.30am up for good.

How can I improve please?? I go back to work in a month's time and need to start getting decent sleep!! 

Thanks in advance

3.30pm -

[bevsteress]

Me again....this morninghe finally woke up at 6.20am which was good. The day was going great but I think I got him to bed a bit too late for his second nap and he only slept 40mins. My question is what should i do when this situation happens? Or similarly if he falls asleep too early for example in the car. Obviously early bedtime but how early should it be? He woke up from his last nap at 2.40pm. I'm going to try and start bath at around 6.20pm to be in bed by 6.45pm. Is that good enough? Hoping it won't mean he'll wake up early again now!! 

These naps are so confusing! We've been 'locked in' the house for the past 3 days to try and get him on a good schedule and there was lovely sun outside!!! 

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi there,
The NW look OT to me and it's probably because the stretch before BT is way too long for him. If you look at his A, he is doing 3h, 2h and then 4h. Most babies need their A around the same length throughout the day.
IIWY I would be working on stretching the second A, because it's rather short right now and that will push the nap later and the stretch to BT will not be so long.
You can up this A by 10-15min and stick to it for 3-4 days. If after those days you are getting 30-35min naps (which would indicate OT) then I think what is happening is this: His first A is not long enough and he gives you an UT nap (anything between 45min and 1:20h is UT) and then even after a short A he gives you a full nap (1.5h) because he is so tired from not having a restorative sleep in the morning. In that case I would be upping his A time in the morning by 10min and the second A as well, simultaneously. This all should push your day later, but you'd need to be consistent with those new A times for a few days because either way he'd probably give you OT naps till he gets used to the new A.
How does that sound?

[bevsteress]

The NW look OT to me and it's probably because the stretch before BT is way too long for him. If you look at his A, he is doing 3h, 2h and then 4h. Most babies need their A around the same length throughout the day.

IIWY I would be working on stretching the second A, because it's rather short right now and that will push the nap later and the stretch to BT will not be so long.

His A time is currently 2hrs 45mins/3hrs in the morning before first nap and 3hrs 15mins before 2nd nap (not 2h!) but then the last A time I get confused how much it should be as depending on what time he wakes up I don't want to be putting him down for the night at about 6pm!! ....or should I ?? :-/

His first A is not long enough and he gives you an UT nap (anything between 45min and 1:20h is UT)

and I thought he was doing well with 1hr 20min naps!! I will try to make sure his first A time is 3hrs instead of 2hrs 45mins and see how it goes.  Will experiment with the second A time too.

So I should try and stick to them for 3 days before trying something different? And what do I do if he wakes up early from the second nap then? How much after WU should I do BT?

Thanks!

[Rachelss]

One other thought to add into the mix....looking at your routine, he's getting something to eat almost hourly between 10.30 and 6pm, except when he's napping in the early afternoon  At night he's managing 3 hours between feeds.  I wonder whether he would do better at night if his daytime milk/ mealtimes were more defined and blocked together, leaving longer gaps between them?  This doesnt change the amount he eats, just the way it is offered to him.  It looks to me like he may be getting used to snacking all day and so sees no problem with carrying on the same behaviour all night.....!

Hope this helps.

Rachel

[bevsteress]

hmmm thanks for your suggestion rachelss. to be honest since we've started solids i've been quite at a loss and hardly even go out because if its not time for his nap its time for him to eat so even any errands are always a real rush!! :-/

he seemed to be full i guess with those portions but then wants more later which is why i was spreading them out. although tbh he doesn't seem to be fully satisfied with his solid portions right now. so perhaps instead of increasing his portions i will try to group them more to get 3 proper meal times only with solids followed by milk perhaps. will see how it goes!!

 

[Ima shel Alon]

His A time is currently 2hrs 45mins/3hrs in the morning before first nap and 3hrs 15mins before 2nd nap (not 2h!) but then the last A time I get confused how much it should be as depending on what time he wakes up I don't want to be putting him down for the night at about 6pm!! ....or should I ?? :-/

I was referring to the routine you posted, was there a mistake there or I got something wrong?
If you have 2x2:45-3h A times and 2 naps then there can't be such a stretch to BT, ykwim?

Rachel has a very good point, sorry I missed it.
With solids, till he is 1yo, it's more for trying out and playing, his main nutrition should still come from milk and solids portions should be in the size that doesn't take away from him milk. In other words, you don't want him full from solids so he will take a sufficient amount of milk. What Tracey suggested doing and IMO works very well is to feed milk at WU (lets say approx. 3-4h apart) and an hour after the milk to offer solids. Then your next feed is a milk feed after WU from a nap.

[bevsteress]

Lol I was calculating on the one I posted too...either I'm counting wrongly or we're not agreeing!! 

re the milk I thought I was doing that mostly -offering milk and solids (just the other way round as I was offering the solids first and milk after - will try and switch them) I offer him more in the afternoon to try and tank him up for the night. should i try to cut this down?

How can I delay his feeds since he's' used to them now? Should I perhaps just offer a rice cracker or piece of toast till its time for the next feed?

he is currently waking for 3 feeds (from both boobs each time) at night which keeps him sleeping for about 3hrs each time....but i guess this could be as rachel said because he's used to that from daytime.....although last night he took BF at about 4.45pm and then 180ml formula an hour later....and he still woke up to feed at about 10pm! 

[Ima shel Alon]

Lol I was calculating on the one I posted too...either I'm counting wrongly or we're not agreeing!! 

LOL, I see where my mistake is, sorry, my bad.
I would try and push just the first A for now, and yes, stick to that for three days. If you add 15min to the first A time + a little bit more sleep hopefully that should shorten the last stretch. I believe this is all temporary and soon he will be able to cope with a longer A than 3h and then your day will fit perfectly.

I offer him more in the afternoon to try and tank him up for the night. should i try to cut this down?

Tracey was talking about tanking up only in the first couple of months, I think he is actually too old for this method and if you space the feedings then he will take more at each feed and will also get the hidden milk.

How can I delay his feeds since he's' used to them now? Should I perhaps just offer a rice cracker or piece of toast till its time for the next feed?

TBH, I wouldn't. He is already on three meals a day which is a lot, so try and keep those for now as the snack between the milk feed which is the main feed and the sleep. You might end up with a couple of days of him being hungry but I can't see a way to prevent that. I remember needing to space feeds once and DS was hungry after the first feed because he didn't take enough but when the next feeding time came he drank a lot and then he was on track!
It sounds like he is counting on those night calories. I would think that after you sort out the day time feeds we can try and shift the night calories to day time. You can of course do it now, but I don't want it to be too much for you or him, ykwim?
The way you shift calories from nigh to day is depending whether you are BF or FF. If you are BF you are shortening the feed by 1min every three nights till the feed is gone and if you are FF then you cut the bottle by 1oz every three nights.

[bevsteress]

Thanks for your suggestions Ima!


This morning we started off well and he woke up at 6.20am (didn't sttn or anything hehe....but it was looking hopeful!)I managed to change the eating routine but the naps went a bit haywire! :-/

This was our day:

6.20am - wake up
7.30am - BF (didn't offer straight away as he had already taken a feed at 4.30am and wasn't asking for it anyway)
8.30am - fruit
9.10am - nap (I was trying to wait till 3hrs but he seemed tired...although he didnt go down immediately as usual so knew my timing must have been off!)
10.15am - woke up
10.40am - FF (180ml)
(then we had a baby sensory session so got home by 12.30pm)
12.50pm - veggies
1.27pm - nap (With quite a bit of screaming!....i started to try put him down at around 1.10pm....don't know if the last feed was too close to bedtime for him as he had to eat and potty and so didn't leave much time for winding down well)
2.05pm - woke up
2.20pm - BF
3.15pm - veggies
4.35pm - nap - took him out in the car to try get him a bit more zzz's and he slept immediately
5.15pm - woke up
gave him a small rice cracker till I prepared his formula
6pm - FF (180ml) and he wanted BF too!
7.07pm - slept

I know the naps were wonky ....did I do the right thing taking him out in the car to get him a bit more sleep or was it too close to BT?

Were the feeds better like this?

Oh and I BF at night...I had started to try cutting down on the feeds with the minutes but when we got to about 2/3mins he was getting hysterical and just woke up again after a short time. The last 2 nights he took 3 proper feeds (both boobs each time) lasting about 10mins so seemed to need them so far. So I will try to sort out the day first and then start trying to cut down again as you suggested.

Thanks again for all your help! 

[Ima shel Alon]

9.10am - nap (I was trying to wait till 3hrs but he seemed tired...

This is very normal. When one is increasing A times baby will seem tired by the end of the A, but you really need to stretch him to that right A, because in the end he gave you an UT nap, which turned your second nap to OT because of lack of sleep.

did I do the right thing taking him out in the car to get him a bit more sleep or was it too close to BT?

I
I would have done the same thing. Yes, at his age he should be on 2 naps, but we can only get to that once his A and his naps are better and longer.

It looks like you made a huge progress with the feeds, WTG you! And I think you are right to tackle day first and then deal with the night. If he will sleep better in day time then his night sleep will also be better and perhaps even just that will reduce a feed.