6mo NW - OT or Wonder Weeks?

[ThomasTheTank]

Hi,

I'm back with another question! I was on the naps board a few weeks ago as my 6mo old (5mo then) started essentially refusing his morning nap and dropping his catnap. I increased his morning A time by a lot and that seemed to help for about 4 days. Then he started what I'm sure was a Wonder Week. He's always been a great night sleeper and all the sudden he started waking in the night and took forever to resettle him.. like he was trying his best to get back to sleep but couldn't quite get there. This was exactly what happened during his WW19. So bc of his bad nights, his A time then were all over the place for the next few weeks.

Well it's been a little over 2 weeks now and he's still waking in the night. I'm worried it might be due to OT from the change in his daytime sleep. He's going to sleep with no problem at all and not waking at the 40 min mark (which used to be how I knew he'd gone down OT). But he'll randomly wake usually twice in the night and cry out. We go to him and put a hand on him and he's back to sleep within minutes. This is different from when it would take an hour sometimes to resettle him in the heart of wonder week. So last night was at 11pm and 2am. The night before was at  10pm and 4am. He's waking for the day 12hrs after he goes down.

I should also add that in the last 4 days he started doing 20 min naps again - what he was doing when I came to the naps board panicking a few weeks ago. I upped his A time yesterday to 3hrs 15 and he then napped for 40 min and woke up happy.. but then the day was really strange after that. This is how it went:

WU 6:15
E 6:30, solids 8am
S 9:30 - 10:20 (woke up happy and kicking around in his cot)
E 10:30
-- then around 11am his eyes got really red rimmed and he started being a bit clingy and fussy. We were out and about with friends unfortunately and then were waiting on food so I couldn't get him back home for a nap until 1pm; solids around 12pm
S 1:20 - 3:00 (guilty of napping with him for this nap.. he woke up screaming but after I fed him was fine)
E 3:10
S 6:30 (should have gotten him down at 6:15..)

And again, he's going to sleep for the night with no problem and not waking soon after we put him down.. Could it be the wonder week still going? Teething? Or all these signs of OT build up?

Also, it's not the first time he's woken up from a nap screaming bc he's hungry. How do people manage long A times with long sleeps? Should I be holding off his solids as long as possible before that long afternoon sleep or should I give him a top up breast feed before he goes down?

Thanks!!!

[michaeljacknnugg]

It does sound like teeth. Are you medicating?

With long A times, I would separate the sleep timings from the E. So feed every 4hrs, if that's your current schedule, and sleeps when needed. If it works out as AEAS, that's fine, but avoid feeding right before sleep. Otherwise it can become a prop.

Hth!

[ThomasTheTank]

Thanks MJ&N. That's so great to hear as I was so worried I had created some sort of horrible OT cycle!

He's been drooling and chewing on everything in site for about 2 months now.. doesn't seem to be any change visible on his gums. I haven't medicated him as I wasn't sure I should if I couldn't see the teeth coming through. Should I reconsider?

[michaeljacknnugg]

It's roughly the right time for teeth so might be worth a try - maybe for a couple of nights?

[ThomasTheTank]

Hi again. Was just perusing other posts and see that solids at dinner time could also be a cause of NW's? My little man is very very hungry. Took to solids like a duck to water. For dinner, I just give him a few bites of puree usually and give him lots of finger foods to practice feeding himself. But I do give him more puree if he reaches out for it. Should I consider stopping the puree or maybe not even giving him the finger foods?

He did 3 1/2 hours of day sleep today, way more than normal, so I'm curious to see how that effects tonight...

We're off this weekend for a little holiday so he'll be doing a lot of pram sleeping. Fingers crossed he doesn't keep us up all night!

Oh, and have been thinking that what I'll do is delay his 2nd feed till 4 1/2 hours, even if he wakes from his morning nap before then. So it would go EASAE(bf)AE(solids)AS. And roughly E at 6:30, 11:00, 3:30, 6:15. Does that make sense? I never considered that introducing solids would drastically increase the amount of time we spend at home doing E related things! 

[ThomasTheTank]

Oops, we must have posted at the same time. Ok, will give him some meds when (if?) he wakes tonight. Maybe this sounds dumb but just to ask: if I give him meds when he first starts teething, will that effect his ability to get used to feeling the pain? What I mean is, I've always heard that the first two teeth are the worst (outside of the molars) bc LOs haven't experienced pain before so they don't know what to do with the sensation. So if you medicate them too much, then each incoming teeth is hard for them to handle and they never get to a point where they just deal with it. Is that crazy?

[michaeljacknnugg]

I don't think it affects it at all, some kids handle pain better than others. If you think he is in pain, the kindest thing is to medicate.

Can you write down your day in easy format? Like a line per thing? It's hard to follow from your post, sorry!

[ThomasTheTank]

Our easy has been a mess the last couple of weeks bc he was having such bad nights (1 -2 hours to resettle) and some EWs that it resulted in much shorter A times than normal and his sleep cues were all over the place plus fluctuating between 2 and 3 naps a day. Now that he's back to better nights (still waking but taking only a couple of minutes to settle), it seems that his A has upped once again. I also have a habit of napping with him for his second nap or being out and about for it probably 5 days out of the week, which isn't helpful in terms of finding the right A time. We are going away this weekend but starting next week I'm going to refocus on getting a more reliable routine back in place - will commit to doing every nap in his cot for at least a week and see how we go plus will keep a more detailed journal of his mood when he wakes, how long he takes to settle, etc. So let me do that and come back to you.. I'll for sure be back as I have struggled mightily in the last 3 months with our routine.