Habitual waking

[My little Liam]

Liam has been waking every morning after exactly 10hrs40 for the past month at least. Obviously it is habitual, right?? He will cry for me and i do wiwo trying to resettle, sometimes for over an hour but he never does. I tried w2s 2 nights ago 1hr before the habitual wakeup. He stirred a bit and woke 20 minutes later after 10hrs and wouldnt resettle so it made it worse! He is still tired upon wake up so i dont know what to do. Any advice would be grateful!!! TIA

[HenaV]

Hi again!

You posted previously re: routine and nap transition, do you now think your LOs EW is down to habitual waking as opposed to routine issues?

Hena

[koe2moe]

Maya, there's another way to do w2s which can avoid stirring him when he's already at his light sleep phase.  Stir him when you go to bed at night.  it interrupts his sleep cycle.  Or you can extra super EBT that way when he wakes at the usual 10h40, say at 3am, there is a bigger chance that you can wiwo him back to sleep because his body is used to sleeping at that time.  (I didn't dare try that till DS was 3+.  I wish I did earlier.) 

[My little Liam]

Hi Hena,
I think he is OT but i think that a big part of the OT is because he isnt getting enough sleep at night. Could the actual OT cause him to wake after the same amount of sleep?? I feel we are dealing with so much right now - hos canines are moving but not near cutting (dm arent helping the ew), in the past when he woke ge would lay in bed at least 5-10 min before i came to get him but now he calls for me right away and if i do wiwo he becomes extremely angry snd hysterical (this would work in the past at least to get him to stay on the cot for another 20-30min or so), he may be going through something developmental but would that cause him to wake up after the same amount of sleep?

Koe, i go into his room every night before i go to sleep abd he stirs almost every time so i dont think that makes a difference. I could put him down for sebt but if what if he is undertired after his nap and i get a long nw before the 10hr40? Then he willgo back to sleep and still wake after 10hr40? Or maybe even before??  A few days a go i did a 2 nap day since he was so tired. That night he slept 10hr20 
We did get a 12hr night about 10days ago and i was hoping we were done with the mess but the next night we were back to 10hr40. Sometimes we get 10hr50/55 but it could also just be that i didnt hear him wake right away, yk?

[koe2moe]

I understand totally your concern.  If he stirs every night you go in, perhaps can you try not to go in for 3 nights??  and see what difference it makes?   I have a theory (which has worked btw DS was 2).  that when an LO has an EW, it is an indication of what the best time it is to put him to sleep in the pm.  If he wakes at 5, put him to bed at 5pm. 

What is your gut feeling?  Too much nap?  have you been shifting bt, nap time constantly due to inconsistent wake time?  (I was doing that for a very long time.)  DS suddenly slept 2h solid nap and slept 12h at night at 24months.  So he got old enough to fit into whatever times I thought worked.  If I was late by even 5 mins for his bt, I would get NW and/or EW! 

I suggest you look at your EASY and figure out what you think is the first thing to try.  Have you tried fixed nap time also?  It might help, if not his sleep, your sanity!! 

[My little Liam]

So you day his bed time today should be 540???

The thing is that he is sleeping the same amount of hrs at night if his nap is 1hr, 2hrs or 3hrs... I dont get it?
He is doing a lot of new things developmentally  so maybe it has something to do with it... When we sing songs he will do the hand movements alone, he has a few more words and i feel like he has developed a lit in the last week or so but still... EXACTLY 10hr40?!?!!

[My little Liam]

Today put him down for nap 5.5hrA and he slept for 1hr27 minutes???

[My little Liam]

I took your advice koa and put him to bed at 540 but he didn't fall asleep until 6. I had to go in twice to resettle. I think his teeth are bothering him more than I think because I ran out of teething gel which I have been putting on his gums every night before bed and tonight when I had to go resettle him he as chewing on his cot. I s able to mange the last few drops of gel from the tube and then he went straight to sleep! The problem is that DM are not helping and these cuspids aren't even close to cutting... What else can I do???

[koe2moe]

Sorry I was out all day and just seen this!  It sounds exactly like DS.  We had 10h30 for like an eternity.  DS was not able to handle anything more than 5h A from 24mo.  Have you ever tried fixed nap time?  What would work better for u?  Fixed bt or fixed nap time?

Liam is still so young.  When was the bt when he had longer than 10h40 night sleep?  Factor all those in to see if we can formulate some kind of a plan together.  So at least you dont have to wonder every single nap like I used to. 

[My little Liam]

Yes I did set nap at 12 and BT 630/7 depending on nap length for 2 months but I stopped 2 weeks ago because naps became no longer than 1hr20 with hysterical WU and the EW was getting bad. Since then the EW is the same but I do morning CN if really early.

We have already had 1 NW... 

[My little Liam]

I cannot say when our BT was when nights were longer than 10.5hr because I don't remember 

In June we went on holiday to the US for 2 weeks and when we got back he had horrible jet lag but it kind of reset his clock and he was sleeping amazing once the jet lag was over. That is when I set the nap and BT at 12 and 7 but slowly over the course of a month nights and naps became shorter. He was also teething a molar at this time...

[koe2moe]

  for not remembering.  At least it's good to hear that he can reset and it started only recently!!   There is hope!

Teeth is a PITA.  You just have to ride it, esp when DM doesn't help at all!  It sounds like a mixture of teeth and UT causing OT (but i'm no expert).  When he was sleeping well, what time does he wake up?  around 7? 

[My little Liam]

I guess you could say 7... Like i said it was too long ago 
7 would be amazing for me! I would be very very happy with 7!!!

[koe2moe]

lol i'm just trying to get the math right.  If he was doing 7-7, nap @12.  That was only 1 or 2 months ago.  You can most definitely try 5h15 A (extending it 15 mins) to see what effects it has.  He is now very OT but if you keep 12:15 as nap time for 3 days to try?  (it might take a few days to resettle.)  You can also do a late bt with 2 naps in order to shift wake up later, taking advantage of 10h40 night sleep.  Say, a CN at 4:30 then bt at 8:30?  For us late bt always gave us at least a week of grieve lol  but it sounds like he was ok to do a shift. 

[My little Liam]

Well todays nap was with 5hr30 A and it was 1hr27??? Since he woke at 540 i did nap at 1110-1137 and i havent been doing the set nap at 12 for a few weeks so should i just jump to 1215 from tomorrow and give it some time??
If he wakes up early tomorrow that will be a really long morning. Will he eventually just catch on or what??