Help fix 7 mo old sleep prob!

[Chaxsahi]

Hi all, this is my first time posting here. However the forum has saved my life multiple time! Cheers to all the mommas

We recently did the pupd st which has been quite reasonable yet! I am not able to follow a four hour routine as lo will not accept formula, working on it and it's too much work to express feed all day, so I try to get the calories in whenever I can! He can settle himself at bedtime bit need help with patting at naps! His A time is only two hours and if I stretch it out to 2.5 he has difficulty settling. Our bedtime is 6:30-7pm, df at 10:15, he wakes up around 4:30 am and if I feed him he might or might not sleep through one more sleep cycle and is up for the day at 5:30, however I don't switch lights on till 6:00 hoping someday he will get the idea!! He plays happily for about 40 mins and then starts to fuss/whimper. Now my qs:

He is 7 mo and I feel his A time should be more, how do I get to do that? I feel if I force him I might set myself up for disaster at naps, which are hit and miss still between 40 mins and if I nap police him enough... Can make it to 1.5 hrs

I have only df him for three days and now he has started waking at the time? Should I continue? If I don't then he wakes at 2:30 and then again at 4:30

Thanks everyone:)

[Layla]

Hi and welcome to the forum

At 7 months, we were down to 2 naps and our routine looked something like this:

6am - wake
9-10.30 - morning nap
1.30-3 - afternoon nap
6 - bedtime

As your LO is only awake for 2 hours, you are probably in an undertired/overtired cycle and taking too many short naps in a day, which aren't restorative enough and probably not helping him when it comes to sleeping well at night. I would for now feed at 4.30am and pop back to sleep for that extra cycle. I also used to leave Jennifer in the cot until 6am (which is our acceptable wake up time) so that she didn't get used to waking up too early. I would start pushing the morning A time so that the 7.30am nap will be pushed to 7:45am; then 8am; 8:15am, etc... until it started around 9-9.30am. Try taking him out of the house, try distracting him and maybe doing a low key activity before nap time/longer windown (something like walking around the house, rubbing his back and singing a song, or something like that) and slowly over time he will get used to longer A times!

With regards to DF, if he hasn't been DF before, personally I wouldn't start now. I would probably leave him until he wakes up naturally for a feed and then feed him.

Would you be able to post what the last couple of days have looked like for him?

[Chaxsahi]

Hi Layla,
Thank you for taking the gem to reply! You are very right about the undertired/overtired vicious cycle, we have been in tha loop since last two weeks and I have only been able to recognize what undertired signs for Niam are now!!! Anyhow according to ur suggestion I tried pushing the firstA time of the time by a few mins each day and it did not go well, naps became worse! Looking back at his 7 months it just came to me that he has always been most tired in the mornings and up longer in the evenings, so after a week of failure at pushing first A time I went on to trying 2-3-4 schedule and now am towards the end of tha week.

We had a few good days ( 6:30 bedtime and 6-6:30 wake up, which is rare for him) but I have realized he is not ready for the last A time to be four hours yet!! So I have been trying to follow his cues and this is what the last few days have looked like

Wake 6-6:30
Nap one 9-10:30
Nap two 1:30-3
Bedtime 6:30-7

He did well with this for two days and the days naps didn't go well I did a third car catnap or earlier bedtime, however with accumulated over tiredness now he is waking anywhere between 4:30 and 6:00 am and is ot at bedtime needing help to settle with patting which he had been independant for atleast two weeks!

Today has been like this
4:50 awake
Tried to settle back till 5:45 no luck
6:00 out of crib
Nap one 7:30
Nap two 11:45- still sleeping
I'll have to give him third catnap today!

I am a surgery resident( surgeon in training) and am back to work in five weeks, I need to wean him as well the last time I tried this gently he refused formula and dehydrated himself evidenced by dry poop!! I have introduced straw cup and he is doing better with it but will still only drink 3 oz max from cup at a feed! He won't take bottle not even with ebm! I won't have the luxury of pumping at work and will be gone on call for 30-36 hours straight every 4-5 days !!! My qs
He still needs two night feeds( incld df), should I offer those in a straw cup at night?? He has rejected the sippy cup in the past if given in bf position!! He takes it while sitting, any suggestions for night feeds!!

Increasing A time is a work in progress, he currently does 2:30 for first wake up, 2:45 for second and 2:45-3:00 for before bed! He has always been a 10.5-11 hr night sleep baby, which leave me about two extra hours to fit into his day!!! Don't know where to go from here!!!

Thanks again and sorry about my rant

[Chaxsahi]

Also wanted to mention that he has been very fussy in the last week which has not been the norm for him! He just went through a growth spurt, literally grew overnight!!! Is working on crawling and beginning to teeth all at the same time, so don't blame him bit this has made it very hard to read his tired signs! So I help my self with watching athe clock and watching him

[Layla]

Sorry for the delayed reply... just catching up now

With regards to naps, even though you are trying the 2-3-4 rule, you should still try and aim for the morning nap to be somewhere around 9am as a nap as early as 7.30am, will only reinforce the early wakings. We were pretty much on set naps from 5ish months onward and that worked really well for us rather than counting A's and readjusting the day depending on wake up time. My rule of thumb was morning nap to be no earlier than 8.45ish am (9am set morning nap time) and that meant even if she woke earlier than usual. It all depends on your baby though and you'd have to do a gradual increase... I'm just thinking you'll have to start shifting your day forward somehow so that he doesn't stay in that cycle of early to bed/early wake up or needing a 3rd nap because you have so much A left before usual bed time!

With regards to night feeds - I probably wouldn't fiddle with a cup and straw... could you maybe get DH to give him the bottle? DD3 doesn't take a bottle from me but a few times I've left her with DH and had to express and she'd have it when he'd give it. If that's not an option, we have a BF section, where you could post your question and hopefully someone who's been there and done that can help you out. Breast Feeding

Let me know how you go and again, sorry for the delayed reply. Things get a little hectic here towards the end of the week and I don't always get the chance to reply right away!

[Chaxsahi]

Thought I should post an update

We have successfully eliminated the third nap over the course of 2-3 weeks and have been on a two nap schedule for the last ten days. This is what our day looks like now:
6/6:30 awake
7 bottle
8 breakfast
9:30-11 nap
11:15 bottle
12:30 lunch
2:00-3:30 nap
3:15 bottle
4:30 last solid meal
6:00 last bottle followed by bath
6:30/7 bedtime

He now easily averages A time of 3 or 3.15 hrs! Am so glad to have done the transition! It took a lot of trial and error but the advice on here helped a lot I think what worked for us was that after I tried the 2-3-4 on him, he gained the capacity to do three hour wake time easily! It's not the best way to do it but that's how it happened for us! I noticed his body would start showing tired signs even when he wasn't really tired as that's what he had done for months!!! Just thought would put this up in case it helps anyone else

[Layla]

awesome update, glad this routine is working for you