7 month old NWs - out of ideas

[OzziesMummy]

Hello,
I am so out of ideas about how to get my lo to sttn! any help would be greatly appreciated.
We are now down to 2 naps during the day, the first one can be anywhere from 1.5-2 hours, but the second one is usually only 1 hour max.  I don't know how to get him to take a longer second nap, and he now refuses a catnap, so ends up with an EBT most nights to prevent OT. He fusses some for the naps and used to not fuss at all for BT after his bath, but that seems to be heading in the wrong direction now too could this be because he is OT? There may be a correlation between stopping the catnap and fussing at BT.

Anyway, our day usually goes something like this:
E 6:15 bf
A
S 9:15/9:30 - 10:45/11
E 11 bf
A
E 12 solids
A
S 2-3
E 3 bf
A
Bath and bedtime routine begins at 5:30, bf, to bed by 6:00

The NWs are fairly predictable. If he is OT, there may be an early NW either 45 mins or 1.5 hours after BT, but if that doesn't occur, he is up at 10:30, 2, 5 and then up between 6 and 6:30 for the day. Ideally, I'd prefer he slept from 7-7 or 7:30-7:30 but at this point I am mostly focused on getting rid of the NWs. I typically feed him at 10:30 and 5 and my husband will go in to him at the 2:00 waking. We don't have a lot of success with pat/shh or pu/pd, both seem to aggravate him more, even our presence in his room really upsets him if we don't feed him so we eventually leave his room and that's when he stops crying (at the 2:00 wake up time anyway).
A couple of weeks ago he had my hopes up so high after sleeping 11 hours through. Unfortunately, that was the one and only time that's ever happened, but at least I know it is possible. He has always been a terrible sleeper, but at least he is not up every two hours anymore 
He is teething off and on and is making developmental strides, however his sleep issues are nothing new, so I doubt these are contributing to the NWs. He doesn't take a full feed at either of the night feeds, he mostly just uses me to fall asleep again and then when I try to take him off and lay him down, he cries for a minute or two but I leave the room anyway and he falls asleep.

Any help or insight with these NWs would be so incredibly appreciated. Thank you!

[Erin M]

Hi, welcome!
Have you tried to stretch that second A time a little bit to try to get a longer second nap?  You are probably right that he needs a longer second nap in order to sleep better at night.  And I would definitely imagine that getting that second nap longer would help you to push your BT a little later and shift his day a little bit later. 

He fusses some for the naps and used to not fuss at all for BT after his bath, but that seems to be heading in the wrong direction now too  could this be because he is OT?

Do you mean that he is fussing before his naps or that he is fussing when he wakes (or both)?  He could definitely be more fussy at night if he is overtired at BT. 

[Shellha]

Are you just doing solids once a day? At what age did he start solids? I would suggest that he needs a bit more food, maybe solids twice a day moving to 3 x a day once you have the second lot established.

I have a 6.5mth old (and 2 other kids) and she is on 3 solid meals per day, having started solids at 5mths 2 weeks.

[OzziesMummy]

Thank you both for your replies!

To Erin M, yes, I meant that he is much more fussy and difficult to put down at BT these days. He used to go down much easier when he was getting that last catnap. Now he has a bath and before I can put his pjs on he's crying so I hurry as fast as I can, them feed him, and them put him in his crib. He cries for a few minutes now, whereas before he almost seemed happy to be going down at BT.
So it sounds like my plan should be to extend the second A time and shorten the third A before bed?
If I extend the second A time, should I try for 3.25 or 3.5 hours? And what do you suggest the third A time be? Closer to 2.5 or 2.75 hours perhaps?

To Shellha, I generally feed him two meals a day, however he has not really wanted to eat much for solids over the last few days. I guess that's why I only put down one meal a day in the schedule above. Today went much better for solids so I will go back to the two solid meals a day and then try introducing a third meal as well.

[Erin M]

however he has not really wanted to eat much for solids over the last few days.

Could be some teeth moving around too -- not wanting to eat solids often connects with teething pain.

I would start by trying 3.25 hours for the second A time.  If you get a longer nap there, the third A time doesn't need to be all that much shorter, but if it remains on the short side, I'd go first for 2.75 hours -- generally, smaller changes are probably better than big ones where A time is concerned. 

And FWIW, we didn't do a third meal of solids until closer to 9/10 months for all of mine, so it's ok if you hold back there for a little bit while you tweak some other things to see if that helps.

[OzziesMummy]

Thankfully my LO seems to have transitioned well to two naps a day now, they both last about an hour and 45 minutes, which is fantastic!
I am only feeding him once per night now, usually at around 3 am, and have been working on reducing the amount of time I bf. We are down to 4 minutes and plan to cut it out altogether within the next week. My issue still lies in the NWs though, he is up exactly 3 hours after BT and will not go back to sleep until I pick him up and put him down again. If he wakes up again before the time that I'll feed him, same thing, just wants to be picked up and tucked back into his crib blanket. How can I teach him that he doesn't need for me to come in and help him get back to sleep when he wakes?

Thank you!

[Erin M]

I'm wondering if you might try something like wake to sleep as that sounds pretty habitual -- How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods)

The 3 hour mark would be 4 complete sleep cycles, odd that he would have trouble transitioning then! 

[shirat]

i know its been awhile since you posted this, but i just posted this exact issue, did you solve the problem? my lo is asleep by 6:30 and waking between 9 and 9:30 lately ! i usually end up giving her an early dreamfeed if she just carried on the screaming longer then 20-30 min,