10 month old - routine fix?

[Kst33]

Hi,

Just wondered if any easy experts could help me figure out if our issues sound like they are routine related.

Our problem is that we've been having 2 hr long wakings most nights for well over 2 months now. He's 10 months old and I think pretty touchy.

During the 2 hrs, he starts off eyes shut as as if about to sleep but then the eyes just keep on popping open. Then he gets more and more active - hands trying to grab me, rubbing his face, kicking his legs etc etc. Then he'll calm down and stare into space for ages and then it all starts again. This will go on for about 2 hrs when generally he'll just fall asleep. If I do pick him up- he'll fall asleep very quickly - but wake up again as soon as I put him in bed. No major crying as long as I'm next to him. As soon as I leave the room he generally escalates pretty quickly.

As this has been going on now for so long without any improvement I guess I'm missing something and wonder if we need a routine fix.

Generally for naps / bedtime he goes to sleep without any physical help - but I am still in the room with bit of sshing when needed. I've been working on getting further and further away from him and am almost at the door now.

Up until fairly recently he'd been doing pretty solid 2 naps of 1 and 1/2 hrs each. I started capping the afternoon nap in case it was too much napping but that got us in more mess so I've just started working on moving him to short am nap / long pm nap in the hope that will help.

Any thoughts on whether this does this sound like a routine issue? Or do you think I'm better off just focussing on it being a sleep issue and work harder on that?

Any thoughts / ideas would be really helpful as I've just run out of ideas.

Thanks a lot for any help.

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, could you post your day in EAS format?

Do you go to him straight away when he wakes at night, or wait for him to cry for you?

[Kst33]

Thanks for replying.

Our easy is a little messy at the moment as trying to switch to the short am / long pm and I haven't quite got the timings right.

I lost my confidence in what A times he could do / should do - so I'm kind of starting from scratch again and doing a bit off cues and a rough aim based on some averages on here!

Here's what happened yesterday:

Woke up 7.10.
BF when he woke up and breakfast about an hour later.
Sleep at 10.45 - woke up at 11am due to huge bang outside...couldn't resettle. So 15mins!
BF at 11am. Lunch about 12.30.
Small BF at 2pm (one side)
Sleep 2.45 - 4.45. With quite a few resettles due to dog barking. But he normally sleeps through or resettles from them - so I think he was a little too tired
Small BF when he woke (one side) and tea about 5.30ish
BF 7.45ish
Bed around 8pm. Took a bit of time for him to go to sleep. I had to go back in a few times - didn't have to pat - just sshh from the door.

Resettle around 10pm and again at 11.15pm. (He often needs a 3 hr resettle at the moment - the 2 hr resettle is unusual).
Fed at 12.15ish
Awake then until 2.30am
Awake at 5.50pm - resettled.
Awake at 6.15. Afraid I then took into bed for an hr with me ... bad, I know. But I really needed an hr sleep before work!

I've not been going to him straight away when he stirs but give him a while to try and resettle and only go in when he's getting worked up and properly crying. But starting to wonder if I should get in quicker before he has a chance to properly wake up. But then I know that's not teaching him anything either....

Thanks again.

[Buttonbobs]

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

As you probably have done too I started here with the average A times. It seems like 4 hours ish would be a good A time following a night or a full length nap. So you do want to go for slightly less A before the first capped nap - perhaps 3hrs from WU and then go for a shorter A again before a nap with hopefully a 4 hour approx A time to bed.

Maybe:

Working from a 7.30/8pm BT you want to aim for WU from second nap to be at about 3.30/4pm. So aim to put down for this nap at about 1.30/2pm so first nap could be at 10/10.15am for 45 minutes. This would work if you had a 7am WU.

What do you think?

Although he had a shorter A to bed today and that led to some OT NWs I think this might be because that longer nap was unsettled.

You could try going to him sooner but if the late and longer NWs are actually UT then you will struggle to resettle him.

The there thing is - are there any signs of teething? This can lead to long playful NWs. Perhaps try medicating if he is unsettled and see if it helps.

[Kst33]

Thanks for those ideas - have to admit, I haven't yet tried such a long A before bed… so that probably is worth a go. I think I've always been a bit too paranoid and scared of the OT as that generally gives us hourly wake ups throughout the night (although no long ones) - not sure which is worse!! 

Do you reckon try new times for 3 days or so and see what happens?

So far today we've had...

Up at 7am
Asleep at 10.35 but awake again at 11.12. (37 min nap).
Asleep at 3pm (20 mins too late really..mistake from DH - he forgot what time the first nap ended!)
Awake at 4.20pm (1hr 20 nap).

LO seemed really tired and grumbly and we had a few mini-melt downs during bath and wind down with lots of eye rubbing. Bed at 7pm but took until 8pm to go to sleep. That's quite unusual for him. Normally bed is ok despite the horrible nights. There have been a couple of cries so far but he's put himself back to sleep each time.

I don't think the general behaviour is due to teething… just because it's been going on so flippin' long!! We have had a couple of nights where there's been a lot of upset crying - and I've guessed those ones are teething and I do medicate then.

Thanks again for your ideas. I'll give it a whirl tomorrow and see how we get on.

Fingers crossed 

[Kst33]

We've not had a lot of success so far

Last 2 days have been:

Wake up: 6:15am
A time = 3hrs 10
Nap 1 - 35 mins: 9.25 - 10:05 (he stirred at about 10)
A time = 3hrs 20 mins
Nap 2 - 1hr 25 but disturbed: 1.25 - 2.50 (with a long resettle at 2.05 to about 2.20)
A time = 3hrs 55 mins
BT: asleep at 6.45. He crashed while feeding at about 6.40 and straight to sleep once in bed.
9pm - to about 12 - awake! Not a happy awake. Fell asleep if I picked him up or held up but would wake as soon as in bed.
4am - feed / resettle
5.30 - resettle
7am awake

Today so far:
Wake up: 7am
A time = 3hrs 5 mins
Nap 1 - 35 mins: 10.05 - 10:40
A time: 3hrs 15 mins (was aiming for 3hrs)
Nap 2 55 mins but disturbed: 1.55 - 2.45 asleep (bed at 1.35 but took ages to fall asleep)
Long resettle 2.30 - 2.40. But then awake at 2.45 anyway.

Wondering whether I pull bed forward to just 3hrs / 3.15A. Or just aim for 4hrs again and see how he does.

I just wish I knew whether these long night wakings were too tired or not tired enough!

Tomorrow- I was wondering about pushing the second A time a bit - perhaps he's not tired enough for a long nap. Or perhaps he's too tired!! I haven't got a clue anymore!

Any thoughts would be great. Thanks in advance.

[Buttonbobs]

Hi honey. I so think teething might be impacting your ability to properly see what's going on. Assuming you are medicating and it is helping, I would probably shorten the second A time a tiny bit. The idea of going for the short first nap is to tide him over - he will need a shorter A time after this short, non restorative nap. So I wouldn't go more than 3 hours for a few days and see how that goes. Then if you get a really good long second nap the stretch to BT should be more manageable.

It does sound like OT WUs in the early part of the night, followed by teething type WUs later on. Hold on in there for a bit and see if things improve when the teething passes.

[Kst33]

Thanks again for the advice.

I did 2.50 A time today before the 2nd nap….and still got a 35 mins wake up 

But I APOP the rest of the nap and he did sleep for another hour and a half. I know not very good - but he looked so tired, I thought he could probably do with it!

He's also got a cold which I think might be bothering the naps more than I realised - so I'm going to take it easy for a few days and stick to the timings but help him sleep where needed.

And then start again next week - getting rid of the props I'm now creating!! Oh well - I think we'll both feel better with a bit of sleep catch-up and hopefully have more success then!

[Buttonbobs]

I'm sorry I didn't come back sooner. I hope you were able to catch up a bit and that your LOs cold had lessened. Do come back if you want some extra eyes on his sleep.

[Kst33]

Hi,

Thanks for checking on us - sorry it's taken so long to reply.

Things went pretty horrible - naps and night sleep all went out of the window and everything got very messy!

So this week I started again and have gone back to long am nap and short pm nap. He's doing about 5hrs in the morning now which for a couple of days has given a 1hr 20 min nap. He does need a resettle at about 50 mins - but is very easy to resettle. So much much better than we were doing. I know it was a massive jump in A time - but nothing else seemed to be working.

I've not quite nailed the afternoons yet. At the moment - I'm trying to be in the car at about 3hrs A time which tends to get 30 mins or so sleep from him. BT I'm still not sure about - I think I've been doing it a bit late. So going to try for 2hrs / 2hrs 30 for a few days and see what happens.

So still far from perfect…but the other night I did get 4 hrs straight sleep…which hasn't happened for months so something is working, even if just a little bit!

He's waking at about 5am now and needs some major AP to get another hr or so sleep. So I think once I've had a few consistent days of naps and better nights - then I'll start tackling that!

Thanks again for all your help.

[Buttonbobs]

Ok, so you've followed your instincts and gone for quite a long A to first nap. I think a longer A may well be right, but this one may be a tiny bit ok long. I would suggest that you go for 4-4.30 hours A time for that first nap. Those EWs and the slightly short first nap do sound like OT to me.

Has the teething finished?

Once you get nearer to 4.5-5 hours A time you're heading into dropping to one nap territory, so I would get him settled on the long nap first, see if you can get it over 1.5 hours and then tweak the 2nd nap and BT. The day gets quite long just before the CN is dropped so OT is quite common around this patch.

[Kst33]

Thank you. I think you're right - some OT has built up now… today's nap sounds very restless and last night was pretty rubbish as well. So will muddle through today and start tomorrow!

So does something like this sound ok to aim for? (He was doing about 3.45 / 4hrs A time about a month ago which was giving a 1.5 hr nap. So thought I'd try 4.30 A first - sound right?)

Say it's a 7am WU.
7am - BF
8ish - Breakfast

11am - BF (would you do it here or just before nap? I never used to do it pre-nap and I do find he's falling asleep now when I feed. Which isn't helping the sleep training if I do it right before nap. But if I do it a bit before and he goes all dozy then at the end when I wake him up- he gets a proper second wind and is a nightmare to put down for the nap and takes ages and then more OT! Although perhaps the slightly shorter A time will fix this as well)

11.30 nap. Hopefully at least 1.5 hrs.
Say 1pm wake up. Lunch
3pm - BF
4.15ish Nap - hope for 45 mins. (after a 3hr ish A time)
5pm Tea
7.15 bed. Asleep for 7.30…maybe! (after a 2.5 hr A time)

Any thoughts on that plan would be great - hard to see the obvious sometimes when you're stuck in the middle of it. And your brain has stopped working!

Thanks again.

[Buttonbobs]

Sorry I've not been about for a couple of days. I hope things have been going ok.

So does something like this sound ok to aim for? (He was doing about 3.45 / 4hrs A time about a month ago which was giving a 1.5 hr nap. So thought I'd try 4.30 A first - sound right?)

Sounds like a good plan.

11am - BF (would you do it here or just before nap? I never used to do it pre-nap and I do find he's falling asleep now when I feed. Which isn't helping the sleep training if I do it right before nap. But if I do it a bit before and he goes all dozy then at the end when I wake him up- he gets a proper second wind and is a nightmare to put down for the nap and takes ages and then more OT! Although perhaps the slightly shorter A time will fix this as well

I would do it at 11ish (assuming he'll take a good feed at that time). It's best to keep feeds away from naps for the reasons you've mentioned. If you find he gets sleepy at that point, you might find this is the time to start also dropping a feed and replacing it with a solids snack with a drink in a cup. There was a period of time with my DD when I was giving one milk feed before breakfast then a sort of lunch mid-morning and then a second lunch type meal after the nap. Then a milk feed later before tea and then another milk feed before bed. It is a bit odd for a while with the food while changing the naps around but it does seem to work itself out.

The plan looks good to me - have you started it? How're you getting on?

[Kst33]

Thanks for the thoughts on feeding. He is now 11 months - so did wonder about dropping a feed. Sadly we're still feeding at night..so I was a bit worried about dropping any day time feeds until I've got rid of the night time ones. But as I'll be dropping both day time ones in a month - perhaps I should just do one now.

It's nightmare city here!

Saturday - tried early bed as he seemed over tired. This baby hasn't ever moved an inch from lying on his back for naps / bed. But Saturday - he suddenly realises he can roll, crawl, stand and cruise around his bed - all at once. So did that for 2 hrs instead of sleeping. Was then stupidly over tired -so horrendous night!

Sunday was no better - tried a 4hr A time in the morning. Very disturbed nap but was in bed for 1 and 1/2 - up at 1.30pm. He then wouldn't nap in the afternoon. And we had a family thing to go to so I couldn't do bed as early as I liked. He went to bed at 7pm - so already too late…and then did his new cot tricks for another hr and half - so was 8.30pm by the time he fell asleep. So another awful night - felt like he was awake most of the night - he kept trying to sleep but would jerk awake after 5 mins or so. He did sleep soundly from about 4 to 6.30. And to top it all off….he woke up Monday with another bad cold!

1 step forward and about 10 steps back at the moment. 

So I'm just waiting out this cold…and will then try again.

Thanks for seeing how we're doing. Hopefully the cold will go in the next day or so - and we can start back on the plan and make some progress. Hopefully!!