Low sleep needs or wrong routine?

[BusterB]

I think if he won't resettle from that nap then you are right to increase his A times, plus often mummy's gut feel is right anyway But I would try the lower A with 2 feeds just to reassure yourself, like you say, that it's not a feeding issue.  I re-read your thread and you said at the beginning that you'd increased his A times to 2hrs 45 recently, so I assume you've tried various other A times like 2hrs 30 anyway.  If the extra feed doesn't help then probably the next thing to try is a later nap. Let us know how you get on

Morning LovelyLilyandJack I hope you had a good night with your 2?

Yes since the beginning of Jan we have worked our way up from approx 2hr15 A to the 3hr 15 we are currently on.... so an hour in about 4 weeks... but obviously for a couple of those weeks i was getting 2x 2hr carseat naps and we therefore dropped the CN... now i'm back to 1 v short nap & still no CN, maybe it does need changing?

[BusterB]

I just offered my LO a top up feed as he was fussy - and he fell asleep feeding! So def an OT baby this morning...

He woke when I took him off - and is now rubbing eyes like mad. Should i do his morning nap at 2hr 45 (so another hour awake)? Or push him do you think?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

No, I'd put him down earlier if he's ot. Not sure what A time you're on now but I'd pd quite soon if he easily fell asleep feeding.

[BusterB]

we are headed for 2hr 30 but as usual he has a bit of a 2nd wind... he is beaming at me from across the room   

ETA: put him down at 2hr 36... As he started burrowing into my shoulder.. he has now been in cot awake for 20 mins, panting (never a good sign!) leg slamming, blowing raspberries & cooing to himself for over 20 mins... he is now about to kick off crying... so I definitely feel I had an OT baby but appear to have put an UT baby down to sleep! I am so confused!?!? Either way not a chance in hell this nap will even last 30mins.

He is now at 3hrs awake anyway.... so could have just kept him up and avoided the crying etc....

I REALLY do not understand any of this stuff

[BusterB]

Would love to hear what you make of this...

So yesterday we were out and about and I was worrying that it would ruin our routine and that we were in the car, on a train or out in the sling+pram in new and potentially overwhelming new place.... thought i'd have a very OT/OS baby & naps and nighttime would be a disaster....

However, although naps were short -
30m (cot) +
A 2hr - 30m (car) +
A 2.75hr - 1 hour (pram)

.... we just seemed to end up with a normal tired baby at bedtime, which was 2hr30 from his last nap and he slept from 6:30pm to 7:30am, with 2 NF and 1 short NW that he resettled himself - so one of our better nights and a new overnight total of over 11hr, even though he did seem spend some time happily chatting to himself in the crib & playing with his lovey a couple of times, so I'm not 100% of exact sleep total. He certainly didn't seem to need me to attend to him though, he just kept putting himself back to sleep.

So I think perhaps my with my good intentions of of ensuring he gets 3 hours naps and staying home for almost all of January (apart from walks & short trips out) in order APOP to do so, I have created a very UT/bored baby - is it possible that his day sleep robs his night sleep?.... perhaps I need to stop worrying about lengthy naps and make sure my baby is stimulated enough to sleep well overnight, even at the sacrifice of his naps? (.... which is what my Mum has been saying to be fair)

Or is this just a lucky blip and if we continued down this path i'd end up with an OT mess of a child?

[LovelyLilyandJack]

Day sleep definitely robs night sleep here - I've found for a while that anything over 2.5 hours in the day causes problems at night, either through nws or through a short night.  However, ideally you'd have at least one good nap in the day to stop OT building up.  How are you doing with that morning A? Ready to try a later nap? 

[BusterB]

Well I wasn't 100% sure what time he woke up this morning, when I woke up and looked at the clock it was 7:28 and he was wide awake chatting to himself and playing with his lovey.

I just put him down at 10:20 as he seemed tired (but not over tired) and he grizzled for 4 mins then went out like a light... so I think I got it about right?

So that's in the ballpark of 3 hr A ...

ETA: with regards to the 1 good nap, ideally it would be the morning one, but I honestly do not see any light at the end of that tunnel for a while!

Looking back at my log, the 3 shorter nap schedule has now twice produced a good nights sleep...

On our current schedule, I think the 2hr afternoon sleep is what has been causing our nightsleep issues, so I would like to move or cut this one, but I can't make the maths work to get enough naps of the right length and good A times if I do that... the CN is either too close to BT or his day is too short! 

It looks like 2 - 2.5 hours naps a day looks like his sweet spot.... so x2 30 mins and a 1.5 hour might work - yes? Just trying to fit that in with long A's, it's tricky!

I can get him to reduce his A if we are in motion, but i'm not sure if that is the way to go?

[BusterB]

Just thinking about how to achieve the decent nap - as the crib is still a definite no!

In your opinion what is the lesser of the APOP evils....

• a stationary carseat nap, where I'd need to wake him after say 1/1.5 hours
• a nap flat in the pram on a walk, where it is more likely he'll wake naturally himself but I can't therefore control the duration so well

I use to get epic naps out of him in the sling - but recently he has been waking under 30mins in there too, so looks like that is off the table 

[LovelyLilyandJack]

I'm not sure tbh.  Neither of mine would be AP'd so I don't really have any experience there.  I dint know if anyone else does? At this age we were just getting through the 3-2 and Jack was doing 2 long naps for a while.  Before that though he did 1 x 1.5 hr nap and 2 x shorter naps I think so what you suggested could work til you can get two longer naps. Just not sure what APing does to A times and therefore night sleep and also no idea what is easiest to wean.

[BusterB]

Just wanting to touch base for some support again, as we had a total routine disruption when my little boy had a cold last week - he suddenly started sleeping really well at night (11hrs)  so our morning wake up time was pushed to 7:45pm and this disrupted things with our routine.

However, for the last 3 days we've been somewhat back to 'normal' and we're on our 3rd day of early wakings and only 9.5 hours sleep per night again So very much feeling back to square one!

I just wondered if someone could help me adjust our routine try and help his nights?

As advised on here previously, we moved feeds well away from naps and first nap is in the cot - but regardless of A time prior to this nap (have tried between 2hr45 - 4hours) we still haven't managed anything more than 30 mins and i'm starting to feel like a mad woman for doing the same thing every day with no change 

The only thing that seems to have changed recently is that although he wakes from that nap bright as a button and is impossible to resettle, he now wants to go back to sleep 1-2 hours after waking, whereas before he would need a full 3hr A time. So I don't think there is any doubt that he would benefit from his first nap being longer & putting him in the cot is, without question, preventing that!

This was yesterday (he is 25 weeks old this week) :

Wake up: 5:45am

A: 2hr 55 (he was pretty desperate for bed by this point!)
Nap 1 - 8:40-9:10am (30 mins in cot)

A: 2hr 10
Nap 2: 11:20-12:15 (55mins in carseat)

A: 3hr 10
Nap 3: 3:25-4:35pm (1hr 10 in carseat)

A: 2hr 30
BT: 7pm

NWs & BF:
10:10pm
1:45am

I realise this looks like a very long day - but I don't think we could have done anything less than a 2hr 30 A time before bed as he would have been UT and that is a disaster!

W/U this morning: 5:30am - fed & changed him in the dark, put him back in his cot where he cried out twice, yawned a lot, chatted to himself, went very quiet at 6:30 and I thought he was asleep, but he definitely wasn't and started to grizzle & escalate until I did a big wake up at 6:45am.

He napped this morning at 8:30am (30 mins in cot) and again at 10:40am (in carseat).... & he is still asleep now.... am planning on waking him at midday otherwise he will definitely end up sleeping too much today.

I know something is off, I just can't put my finger on what it is - so would love some expert advice

If anyone has any other suggestions for getting him beyond 30 mins in the cot I am all ears..... I honestly do not think it is activity time related as such, so not sure what else I can try? I am at the point of abandoning it again to get him a decent sleep in one go in the morning... instead of the 2 shorter naps we currently have.

[TB9]

It sounds like it may be an issue with him being used to sleeping in the carseat    Because his carseat naps are still around 1hr or longer, which arent really bad naps.  I am going to see if I can find anyone who can help with weaning a carseat for naps 

[BusterB]

It sounds like it may be an issue with him being used to sleeping in the carseat    Because his carseat naps are still around 1hr or longer, which arent really bad naps.  I am going to see if I can find anyone who can help with weaning a carseat for naps 

Ok great thanks Tinkerbell... the 30 min cot naps have always been an issue though, before the car seat really came into play a month ago - I was just APOPing in other ways before that (sling/pram etc), so I'm not 100% sure it is just a car seat issue.

Originally I thought it could be a motion thing, but he sleeps for ages in the car seat without there being any motion and can fall asleep in the cot without any issues and that's not moving! Also I tried rocking his cot slightly to see if that got him beyond 30 mins... but no, was still wide awake after a v short nap.

I also got him a very padded sleepsuit to try and imitate the cosiness of the carseat... no difference with that either. I also tried a baby pillow so that his head was more supported - he didn't like that at all.

I'm definitely a bit stumped as to how to proceed...

[BusterB]

Another quick question...

If my LO wakes at 5:30am for example, should I be roughly sticking to the 12 hour day and doing a (early) bedtime close to 5:30pm?

Or do you disregard the EW time and continue as if baby woke up at your preferred time, say 6:30am, provided that you can get in enough naps to prevent OT?

I have been doing the latter as I didn't want to reinforce the EW - but I realise that makes for a very long day and I have no idea what will get things back on track towards more of a 7-7 quicker?

[weaver]

Just to clarify: were you APing all his naps?  Has he never done a long nap in the cot?

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

Re the early wakings - ideally yes, you would try to keep to your 12 hour day if you can.