The 2-1 journey continues....

[Joy-filled]

Quick question: - how late do I let him sleep in?

Aaron was so grumpy yesterday and clearly struggling from lack of sleep.  But he finally caught up and had an amazing night last night with only 1 ten minute NW and slept right until my DH woke me up ( I slept past 7:00) as he wasn't sure if we should wake Aaron so we did as soon as he woke me up at 7:15. So 12 hrs of night sleep after a 1 hr 40 min nap yesterday  .  However, I fear we let him sleep too long this morning and we're swinging back into UT territory .   What time would you let him sleep until?  And I still stick with 12:30 nap today even though we let him sleep until 7:15, right?

[jcsmom]

What A time has gotten you the best naps? Beleive it or not C is doing her best naps on 6+ hours A! She still only is sleeping 1.5 hours but for her that is a miracle. She is doing 11.5-12+ hour nights as well ( sometimes with one brief NW). I have found that if she sleeps past 7 I need to move her nap to closer to 1pm and if she is up at 6:30 or so 12:30 seems to work. I was shocked when one day my mom just kept her up (she misunderstood my instructions) and she had the best nap she has had in months.

[Joy-filled]

please please please help.  I do not understand my son at all.  So much for thinking he'd be UT today....My mom was watching Aaron this morning and he was rubbing his eyes and crying all morning and clinging to her.  She finally sat with him and sang to calm him and he accidentally fell asleep at 11 in her arms  .  She didn't know what to do but we came home ten minutes later.  I was soooo upset and immediately woke him up.  What do we do now?  Still try for the nap at 12:30?  This is not good.  He must have been awake a lot during the night and just didn't cry in order for him to be that tired this morning   Why, after what seemed to be a 12 hr night did he fall asleep after a 3.75 hr A time?  I really don't know what to do for the rest of the day.  I think he's going to definitely resist the nap at 12:30.  Any suggestions?

PS - in response to your question jcsmom, his best naps have happened after anywhere from a 5 hr A time to 6 hrs.  But then he'll have the same A times on other days and get a poor nap.  It is not consistent and there isn't much of a pattern yet.

[jessmum46]

Char I think those 12h nights are catch ups, it's normal for them to seem much more tired once the catching up process begins as the edge of the adrenaline starts to wear off.  There's no way on earth he was UT if he fell asleep like that, I would have either just let him sleep at that early time or gone for nap at normal time and basically ignored that 10 minute mini doze.  I don't think you can just say at this age 'oh that was a 12h night, he must be well-rested' because it's not just the night/nap before that counts, it's what's happened over a few days or even weeks.  You also woke him this am which says to me he still needed more sleep to be fully rested even though it was a 12h night. 

Remind me (sorry I've lost it somewhere in the thread) what the plan is with set nap and BT?  Are you doing nap 12.30 and BT 7.30pm?  I just wonder if that's pushing him too hard on a background of short nights and poor napping...for comparison we do WU 6.30/7, sometimes a touch later but wake her by 7.30am, nap 12.30ish up to 2h but more often 1h15-30, BT 7pm.  How about pulling in bedtime earlier for a while, stick with set nap time by all means to help him set to expect nap at that hour, but keep BT max 4-4.5h post nap?

[Joy-filled]

Thanks for responding Katherine. I was going to try for 1:00 but I'll now try to get him down as soon as I can after DH gets his lunch in him.

The plan with set nap and BT as 12:30 set nap (only 15 min early if WU is earlier than 6).  Capping the nap at 2 hrs.  BT is set 7:00 only 30 min earlier if nap is less than 1.15 hrs.  It sounds like you think the set BT is too late but the reason we did this is because I figured out he's LSN and for months and months has had total sleep of 11-13.5 hrs total sleep in a 24 hr period with his average at about 12.5-12.75.  I figured he needs 13 hrs in a 24 period so made a routine based on that.  The worry with pulling BT back is that he'll then EW because he's reached his "sleep quota".  Based on all that, do you still think I should pull BT back?

[Eva's Mummy]

Hi Char sorry things are still not settling for you. If we are OT and have a catch up night i just let her sleep to 7:30 aswell i did that yesterday then we had a good 2 hr 30min nap BT 7, but today she was still tired so i let her nap when she was really rubbing her eyes at 10:15 (very early) and she slept until 1:15, i was amazed but she must have still needed to catch up. BT was 6:30.

Sometimes when OT i think you just need to play it by ear to let them catch up. Then start back again x

[Shiv52]

I honestly wouldn't pull bedtime back. 7pm set bedtime with the option to go to 6.30 is totally fine in my eyes especially with a 12.30 nap. I think he's proven time and again he only tacks for a night or too to catch up them he goes back to his typical night length. Much earlier than 6.30 you risk 5.30/6 am starts which is just increasing the length of time he needs to get through to get to his nap. YK?  He just doesn't reliably tack on.

Was the crankiness with your mum tiredness?  Any chance he was just upset you weren't there?  My friend was here with her nephew the other day and he whined all morning after his mum. He's 14 months and only settled when she arrived. Just going through a bad batch of SA and he lives with his aunt so he knows her really well.

With the wake up I'd have probably let him go to 7.30  or let him sleep on to whenever he woke and just did the nap a bit later.

[Joy-filled]

I agree, Shiv, I don't think I should pull BT back as he is not a reliable tacker so we then get EWs which make for OTness to reach the nap.  Trouble is that we've still been getting EWs as it is where he spends a good chunk of the morning trying to fall back asleep.  Nonetheless, I do think I should stick with the times we have.

We are experiencing quite a bit of SA around here but I'm quite sure the crankiness with my mom this morning was tiredness as he fell asleep on her.  This is very atypical behaviour for him.  He is usually extremely alert and needs total darkness and quiet to wind down and fall asleep.

History tells me that even with a 10 min doze this will be enough to keep him going for hours so I am truthfully worried he's just going to roll around for a very long time but I guess we'll see .  He's currently wide awake rolling around singing

Gail, I would love to just play things by ear with Aaron when he seems OT, the only trouble is that he is so hard to read and his cues are quite unreliable.  He can rub his eyes and yawn and then pull of an UT nap, too.  I think the best thing with Aaron is to stick with my set times.  Mostly just for my own sanity .

[Shiv52]

History tells me that even with a 10 min doze this will be enough to keep him going for hours so I am truthfully worried he's just going to roll around for a very long time but I guess we'll see .  He's currently wide awake rolling around singing.

Unfortunately I found the same with mine! When we were nap dropping even a 10 minute nap extended bedtime by HOURS. Maybe he'll surprise us.

Hugs char x

[Joy-filled]

Surprised me and fell asleep at 1:10 .  If he sleeps until then, should I wake him at 2:30 as that's when I'd wake him if he'd gone to sleep at 12:30?

[jessmum46]

Good luck hun whatever you decide, agreed if 7 is your set BT then ok to pull back to 6.30pm, sorry I thought you'd set later.  Obviously we all have different experiences here and if I thought J was OT I wouldn't hesitate to throw in a mega-early BT as a one-off to get us back on track, but you know Aaron better than any of us so what you decide has to be the best for him whatever any of us may advise xxxx

[Joy-filled]

Thanks Katherine!  I really doubt if I know what's best for Aaron sometimes so thanks for the encouragement  .

He's sleeping away.....any thoughts on whether I wake him at 2:30 or let him sleep longer?  At this point I'm thinking I'll wake him at 2:40 as that will give him a 1.5 hr nap with the 10 min mini doze this morning and then perhaps BT at 7:15 (or do I stick with regular BT)?

[Joy-filled]

Never mind, woke crying at 2:20 after 1 hr 10 min.

Thank you all sooooo much for your help today.  Your support and input is honestly invaluable to me.

[Shiv52]

I think I'd go for 7 char xx

[jessmum46]

Hope you get a good night xx