He'll be 9 months in a few days. Starting at 4 months, he was a solid 12 hr sleeper, with the occasional blip. But for the past month, we've been having issues. He'll do the occasional 11 hours solid, but most nights, wakes 1-3 times. I think it's teething because if I don't give him medicine before bed, he'll wake up at the 40 minute mark and cry, but if I do give him medicine, I'll see him wake but go back to sleep without making a noise. But he'll oftentimes wake again at some or all of these points, seeming to depend on when he gets a dose of medicine: 10:30, 12:30, 2:30 and/or 4:30. We leave him for a minute to try to go back to sleep and sometimes he will, but mostly not. When we do go in, depending on the time I may give him another dose of meds then put my hand on him. 95% of the time he's back asleep within 3 minutes. But surely teething shouldn't be going on for this long!?! I can see where the teeth are in the gum, but can't see them coming through yet. I'm worried that because I think he's in pain, I'm coddling him too much which is causing a vicious cycle of wake-ups, if that makes sense. He used to be brilliant at going to sleep independently, but about 50% of the time now I sit with him (hand on his back). I started doing this because I would leave him like I always have once he was drowsy, and he would suck his thumb like he always has, but then I would think he was almost asleep and he would cry out.. sort of like he was trying so hard to get to sleep but frustrated because something was keeping him awake.. at least that's what I told myself was happening. Whereas if I'm in the room, he seems reassured to relax enough to go to sleep. I think maybe it's uncomfortable for him to suck on his thumb. And like I say, within just a minute or so of me putting my hand on him at night, he's back out. Could he be in pain and just need the reassurance that someone is there for him? Or is he waking between sleep cycles and needing someone in the room to get back to sleep? Ugh...!
Before I put down our routine, a bit of background on our naps/night sleep history: he used to do terrible naps (I was on here ALL the time working on that) but around 7 months they got much better. At that point, I was waiting until I saw tired signs to put him down which resulted in roughly 3 1/2 hour to 4 hour wake times and 1 1/2 hour to 2 hour naps. So then our days started getting longer and he was cutting his night sleep to 11 hours, then to 10.5 hours, then to 10 hours. So I started putting him down for his first nap at 3hours wake time. That resulted in a 1 hour first nap. Then for second awake time I did 3hours 15min or 3hours 30 min, resulting in second nap of 1 1/2 - 2 hours. However, if he isn't awake by 3pm or 3:15pm he struggles to get to sleep at 7pm, so I sometimes have to wake him, which I hate doing on the second nap. So I've been toying with cutting his first nap to 40min, so that I can put him down a little earlier for second nap and allow him to sleep longer.
I'd say that bad nap day or good nap day doesn't seem to have an effect on his nights. But I do worry about him waking at the 40min mark which always meant overtired for us... Even when he doesn't make a peep, I'll see him on the monitor come awake for a couple minutes before he falls back asleep. Whereas in the past, he would just roll over or open his eyes for a millisecond before going back to sleep. Is that just him maturing or could he be overtired? He doesn't show any tired signs at bedtime until maybe 15 minutes before he's asleep.
Mood wise, he's always happy. Even in the late afternoon, he'll happily play by himself and smile at everybody. He wakes in the morning clapping his hands.
Ok, so our routine:
6am wakeup
9am nap for 1 hour but experimenting cutting to 40min, he rarely needs resettling during this nap
Awake time around 3 1/2 hours
1:30 nap for 1 1/2 hours, I wake him at 3pm or 3:15 if he hasn't had a solid sleep, he sometimes needs a resettle at 30 min mark
3pm awake
7pm bedtime
I can put in his E routine if it's helpful. So total he gets 13 1/2 to 14 hours sleep. Regardless of how he slits naps/nights that seems to be his number lately. And he's always gotten a bit less sleep than the average baby, no matter how hard I fought against it!
Apologies for the long post. I'm frustrated and missing my long nights!
Thanks in advance!
