Re: Please help, multiple NWs and naps are changing too, Can't do it anymore

[AMJ]

she doesn't wake at 6:00, she wakes at 4:45ish am (no matter if she slept 3 hrs or 2.5 hrs or 2hrs15m during the day)and i have to shush/pat her and then she wakes at 6am. And the weird part is that she doesn't fight it like she used to, she closes her eyes right away that's why i thought its because she can't resettle herself.  If she wakes after 5 I usually can't resettle so I just stay with her in a dark room till it's 6 am. And at night she wakes anywhere between 3-5 times. On a good day it's 2-3 times plus E when EWUs.

[TB9]

I dont think it is out of the ordinary for LOs this age to wake around that time and need mom    If she is going to bed at 6pm, and waking at 4:45am that is almost 11hrs of overnight sleep and I wouldnt even consider it an ew...I think if you shifted her schedule then you wouldnt be so bothered by her waking after 10.5-11hrs overnight 

[AMJ]

You are right we never thought about it this way. DH and I just had a laughter about it lol.  We will try that then after we sleep train.

[AMJ]

Actually it still doesn't add up. Even though dd is sleeping the right amount of hrs at night and during the day she is not awake long enough to make it from 4:45am (if I don't resettle) to 6 pm. She barely makes it from 5:15am WU to 8:45am nap and then usually wakes up screaming at 9:45am instead of 10:00am which tells me she is OT and could resettle herself. If her morning is from 5:30/ 6:00am to 8:45/9:00am then she can sleep past 10:00am but I wake her. So we are left with at least 30 mins of A extra( from 4:45 to 5:15)

For example
WU 4:45 resettle then WU 6:00. Sometimes WU 5:15 don't resettle
S 8:45/9:00

WU 10:00 but if morning A is from 5:15 to 8:45 she usually wakes at 9;45
S 12:30/12:45/1:00 depending on the morning A and S. This is what works best

WU usually 2:30 the latest
BT 6:00

[*Kara*]

I know how hard those early starts can be!  But remember that an EW is actually less than 10 hrs of night sleep

[Jodes112]

Hi!

I hope you are well!

Just wanted to pop in and agree with tink! My LO is also lower sleep needs, and does so much better at night on less day sleep! Dd is 9mo and has long AM short PM, 'long' for us is usually 1hr 10/1hr 20 (i dont wake her on AM) and the short PM usually between 30/40 mins. So yes, she has around 2 hrs (maximum) a day and has done for mabee 1 1/2 months.  If she has too much day sleep she EW & NW. We have no NW on 2hr day sleep.

I just wanted to add aswell, that you need to stick with something for a few days to actually see if Lo will settle into that amount of hrs sleep. If she has 2hrs sleep one day & 3hrs the next you cant compare the 2 nights as she hasnt had time to settle into a good sleeping routine in one day if that makes sense! I know you have been trying set naps and stuck to it, well done! But i agree you need to look at LO A times now & work out the best for your LO. 

EW's are hard to get out of i really feel for you. But I think tink has given u some good advice and i would take it. The morning A needs extending, and i think its not the length of the nap that effects the EW, its the Morning A time. If i were you i would aim for sonething like -

Say WU is 5.30

Nap 1: 9.15 sleep as long as would like

Assuming that nap was 90 mins wu would be 10.45

Nap 2: 2.15 - 3 (wu at 45 min)

BT 6.30/6.45. Earlier if needed. (EBT works great here on catching up with lost sleep)

Your LO seems to naturally want to sleep longer in the AM so why not try that, and cutting down day sleep, for a week and see how you get on with that?

You just have to try different ways & hopefully you will find something that works!

How old is she now?

[lauradj]

Also to add to pp, my son takes longer to transition with extending activity times etc.  When we extended his activity time we did it in 5 minute increments over a period of two and a half weeks because he has high sleep needs.  Definitely give yourself and your LO enough time to really test out the new timing.

[AMJ]

just wanted to say thanks to all of you, Tinkerbell, Kara, Jodes, and Laura for taking your time to help! I really appreciate it.
Jodes, DD is now 8.5 months old. She will be 9 month on Jan 7.

So today she woke up at 4;50am again and this time I couldn't resettle her. So I wanted to follow the schedule Tinkerbell and Jodes proposed, but like always if her morning A is longer then 3hrs15mins she woke up after 1hr of S crying. I tried to resettle but I couldn't and by the way she was kicking and screaming I know she was OT.

What would you recommend to me to do here? How can I make her sleep longer?  ???Since we changed her naps (short AM/long PM) the only time she wants to sleep longer for AM nap is if her morning A is 3hrs/3hrs15mins.
And do i start at that EWU(4:45)? Jodes, in your example the WU is at 5:30 which is reasonable for us, and BT is at 6:30/6:45, but If I start at 4:45 am when she wakes up then BT is going to be earlier and then the next day the wake up might be earlier again. 

thanks you all!!

[Jodes112]

EWU' are awful, so i feel for you.

When she wakes this early, is she crying? Or just whining? If DD goes through a stage of EW, she can often re-settle herself. She will shout, whine, babble, and i just leave her to it. If she does start crying the need you cry i will pop in give her her snuggle back and say night night. She does usually drop back off within the hour. Could it be that she is in habbit of feeding at this time.

Another thing i can reccomend is wake to sleep. Dd would wake around 5/5.30 so if i popped in and stroked her face around 4.30am so she stirred but not woke up fully, it would disturb her sleep cycle and she would wake at the 'normal' time of 6.30. Is this something you could try? It doesnt work for all but does for us! With her waking around 4.30 you could try it at something like 4am?

When your LO wakes at 4.40, i would aim for nap around 8.45/9am. In your example she had 1hr nap. Which i would class as a full nap (anything over an hour for us is fully rested) so WU 10am. Next nap would aim for 1.30-3 is? Would that work? For us sometimes we have to switch to short am long pm and she still sleeps good, as long as we keep naps to total 2hrs ish.

Hope this makes sense!

[AMJ]

when she wakes early first she is whining and shortly she stars crying. See she is not an independent sleeper, I shush/pat her till she is asleep so it became a pro for us. I want to start pu/pd but not sure about some things. I have a post in PU/PD forum but still waiting for a reply. So she will not drift off to sleep on her own when she wakes early. I usually need to shush/pat her to S. It used to take me very long but for the past week she drifted right back to S and slept till 6:00. Today I couldn't resettle her.

Actually I will give W2S a try tomorrow. Thanks for bringing that up.

This is how our day is going so far:

Wu 4:50 A(3 hrs 55 mins)
S 8:40/8:45 ish (1hr 5 mins)

WU 9:50 A(2hrs 45 mins)
S 12:35/12:40 ish

WU 1:10 (30 mins) crying when I tried to resettle she screams and kicks. I can tell this is an OT nap. She just can't last that long. So now I dont even know what to do with the rest of the day.

you see, since we had set naps we set her second A at 3 hrs long but she could never last that long on 1 hr AM nap. So I cut the second A to 2hrs45mins and that gave us a better/longer PM nap, otherwise she would wake up in 30-40 mins.

I am really surprised your's and Tinkerbell's DDs can last through the day on such a short amount of sleep and long As.My DD can't do that. She might be a lower need sleep baby but not that low. I can see such a big difference in her when she wakes rested and when she is not.
After nearly 4hrs of morning A and only 1 hr AM nap she woke up soooo tired and she kicks and screams and cries even during eating(she stops and cries, sometimes I need to take her our of the room to calm her down and then go back to E). This is not normal for her. I know her. And that's why she couldn't resettle herself past 30 mins on PM nap. This just isn't working!

[Jodes112]

Its harder because you have the EW.

For us we have wu at 6.30 nap 1 at 10-11.30 nap 2 at 3-3.30/3.40. BT 7. So really dd is not stretched 'that much' but if she does EW i do still try and stretch her to 9.30 at the earliest.

Im not saying your LO needs 2hrs day sleep, but i do think that 3 hrs is too mich so somewhere in the middle would be better. Its just about trying diff ways for 3-4 days see how u get on.

I see what your saying about her not being rested after that first long A and shorter nap, could you poss aim for a shorter A say nap at 8.30in hope that she naps anlottle longer? Id also still push to 3hrs A at least for that PM nap, although i u derstand what you are saying i think she needs more A time.

[Jodes112]

And its more of finding the right balance of day sleep/night sleep. Dd sleeps 11.5hrs at night and 2 in the day so i guess overall thats enough sleep!

[AMJ]

I think I will try to resettle again when she wakes early and if doesn't happen then give her 3hrs15mins morning A and hope it gives us 1.5hrs AM nap. and the go from there and slowly increase the morning A.

Thanks again.

[Jodes112]

Good luck AMJ let us know how your getting on xx

[AMJ]

thank you Jodes but we are not so good. Yesterday she only had 1.5 hrs of S for the whole day. I tried giving a CN and an EBT but she wouldn't sleep. So at 6 pm I climbed over in the crib with her and fed her to S. I know i know but i was desperate. The night was horrible of course but she WU at 5:20. Then I decided to give her her AM nap after 3 hrs of A because she was tired. so S at 8:20. But she woke up in 35 mins at 8:55  and I couldn't resettle her I know that she was OT from the day before but I think what's really happening is she is used to set naps and now offering a nap to her at different times screws her up. Now it's a problem to get rid of set naps 

We also were thinking of starting pu/pd asap but then realized that it's almost New Years Eve and i'm sure our neighbors would prefer not to hear a screaming baby during their celebration so we decided to start on the 1st of January.
I was advised to to stick to set naps during sleep training but now I dont know if we should follow that advice because I think she is used to set nap times.