Set naps for 8 month old-anyone btdt?

[Mandy.kamal]

I did 3 h and 15 mins before bed and he fell asleep at 6:30. He was pretty grumpy after the pm nap so I figured I shouldn't push him.

I don't think its hunger because he only drinks 3-4 ounces for the first bottle and never seems too hungry. I will try feeding tomorrow if we have another EW and see. Should I go to him the minute he wakes and treat as a night feed and then leave him? Or should I leave him for a bit to see if he will ressetle and if not, then go in? I have been just leaving him to play since he's always content when he wakes and he plays until 6:45 ish when I go in.

We dropped the DF because he never seemed interested and he was constantly leaking through his diaper so we just stopped cold turkey a month ago and he hasn't seemed to mind. But I'll try feeding in the early am if he wakes and I'll let you know if it works tomorrow

[baabaa]

I'm dealing with nearly the same problems:  EW (5-5:30), wonky naps, and an 8.5-mo DS.  The only difference is that he almost always now goes right down for the naps...just will wake after 45 minutes most of the time.  When he does sleep until 6:15, the 2 x 45-minute is okay:  he seems well rested. 

The last week I've tried EBT (moved from 6:30 to 6, one night at 5:45--the 6 pm resulted in 2 days of 6:15 waking but slid back to 5:30).  Nap extensions are basically a disaster and yesterday I broke down and--after 3 months of not giving him the boob to get him back to sleep, I gave in.  (His dad can get DS back to sleep 2/3 of the time.)

The EW is the problem that throws off the whole day, though I feel like the poor naps are causing the EW. With the EWs, his day is just too long.  Am I in an OT/UT loop?

Here's yesterday (if the second nap is short, I just will move bedtime up to have him asleep at 6)

5:15-  awake in crib
5:30-  crying so I go in, change diaper, try to jolly along to delay feeding
5:45- milk
7:30- breakfast
9:00- nap
9:45- crying & up, I try to jolly until feeding at
10- milk
11:30- lunch
12:45  nap  (1:30 -awake in crib, I AP nap-extended; 1:45 -nap, part 2)
2:50 - awake
3:00 - milk
5:00 - dinner
5:50 - milk
6:00 - bath, massage
6:20 - asleep

Any ideas? 

I feel like we need ONE GOOD NAP a day, ideally in the afternoon.  The EW has me worried as well b/c of the upcoming time change--4 AM would be killer.   Thanks!

[Mandy.kamal]

Baabaa, I am right here with you honey! It's been rough with these EWs and long days! I think my DS has gotten use to the EW from a combo of EBT and being OT so I'm afraid I need to do some serious rearranging! I wish I had advice for you but I'm afraid I'm in no situation to give advice when I'm in the same pickle and clearly don't know what I'm doing

Layla- I fed him as soon as he woke at 5:40. He wasn't that hungry and was wide awake. I didn't talk and just fed him and put him back down. He just played and rolled around happily for another hour. I was helping my husband gather his things for work and looked at the monitor and DS fell back to sleep at 7:00! I'm sure that's not a good thing but I'm going to let him sleep until 8:00 and then start his day from that time.

Now I'm just not sure what A times to try?? I've been doing more of the 'set' naps of 9:30 and 2:00 but those times won't work with an 8:00 am wake up!

Any suggestions?
Did I totally screw up with letting him go back to sleep at 7:00??

[baabaa]

I let DS snooze this AM (courtesy of the nurse-n-snooze) to push the WU to 5:45, and I think it helped.  Here's what today looked like: 
WU:  5:15 (snooze to)
WU2: 5:45
E: 6:00 milk (730 breakfast)
S: 9:05 nap  (1:15 of nap!! --I woke him to avoid going longer)
E: 10:20 milk (11:30 lunch)
S: 1:10 nap (2:00 of nap!!!  )
E: 3:00 milk (4:30 dinner)
E:  5:30 nurse/start bedtime routine
BT:  6:15 asleep

Apart from the EW, this is a dream day.  I hope I can repeat!  I focused on pushing the first A to past 9 AM, and then I tried to keep him up for 3 hours for the second nap.  At this age, he should have A times of 3-4 hours, so I suspect today's long nap may reflect more residual OT than the A time.  Tomorrow I'll try to push the second A time to 3:15. 

Mandy, how do you think your AM snooze turned out?   

[Layla]

How did you go with the 1st nap Mandy? I would probably try and offer morning nap around 10.30-11? That's just my guess... it does make it a bit tricky when they go back to sleep so close to wake up time . There is no right or wrong though... even if it turns out to be a messy day, tomorrow is a new day

[baabaa]

4:50 AM up, and ready to go.     Yesterday seemed like we were back on track!  I hate waking up and feeling like failure.

We are tapering off the dream feed now.  Could that be it?  He's not super hungry when he wakes but happy to nurse.

Or, do we need to try a *later* bedtime?  Everything I read says that the later BT doesn't do it, but that's all we haven't tried. 

Soooo frustrated. 

[Mandy.kamal]

I am so sorry to hear that Baabaa especially after your good day yesterday. Sometimes it just takes a few days to work things out. I wouldn't just do a late bedtime unless you add in a quick CN or he naps fabulous today. Just don't let that last A before bed be super long...I've made that mistake!!! You could try feeding when he wakes that early and treat it as a night feeding like I did yesterday and see if he will go back to sleep and start his day later??

Layla- surprisingly, yesterday went really well! He did nap 1 from 10:50-12:20 and nap 2 from 3:30-4:40 (woke grumpy though). So I was able to do an 8:00 bedtime and he just woke this morning at 7:00!!! Woohoo! He woke for a bit at 5:00 but quickly resettled. He hasn't done a 12 hour night in quite sometime so I'm thinking last nights 11 hour night was a full night for him.

I'm going to my dads today and will be there for the next 4 days so I'm hoping this will continue!!

[Mandy.kamal]

Also baabaa, you may want to start a new thread to get some more eyes to look at your situation. These ladies are probably sick of me on here and want to avoid my thread

Just copy and paste what you've written and start a new thread and you should get much better advice than what I can give you! These ladies on here are so wonderful.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Yay! Well done mandy!  Fingers crossed it continues!

[Mandy.kamal]

DS keeps waking from second nap crying and seemingly tired still. We are working towards set naps still and the first nap is the long one, usually. Then the second nap is shorter but always wakes crying and grumpy before bed. Any ideas why?

[Layla]

Mandy, possibly because he isn't rested enough. Have you tried swapping the naps around and doing a shorter am/longer pm nap? My understanding is that the afternoon nap is more restorative overall than the morning nap

[Mandy.kamal]

I've only tried capping the first nap a couple times and he took a short pm nap so it ended up coming back to bite me. I've been just letting him sleep and not wake him from first nap and treating the second as more of a catnap. I've been told told the second nap is better being the longer of the two but I hate waking him early because he is usually grumpy when I do. If that's what is definitely causing the grumpiness after the second nap then I can really try and switch the lengths. I just didn't want to mess with things if it wasn't necessary.

[Layla]

ok cool, i guess it might just be a matter of riding it out and trying to distract him when he takes a shorter afternoon nap. I think by this age, not all will do 2 long naps. The shorter pm nap might be something he will have to get used to 

[Mandy.kamal]

Thanks Layla!

He's definitely getting enough day sleep with both naps combined but it's just strange how he wakes crying everyday at the second nap??

I guess I will just wait it out as you said and hope he gets used to it!

[goldmom]

I tried to always have a bottle ready for DS when he woke from his second nap (sometimes it was capped, we had a long AM short PM) since it gave him a little time to transition to being awake. I tried to keep things calm for him at the beginning so he could get used to being awake again.