11 month old waking again

[torie2507]

Hi,

My LO turned 11 months this week and he's started waking in the night again.  He started nursery 4 weeks ago (1 day a week for 2 weeks then 2 days a week for the past 2 weeks) ready for when I start work on Tuesday.  The routine at nursery is to have 1 sleep at 12:00 with a nap earlier or later in the day if they need one.    What we have been working on to fit in with this routine is:

5:40 - wu
6:00 - breast feed
09:10 - nap in car for 20 - 30 minutes whilst driving to nursery
09:30 / on wake up - breast feed
11:30 - lunch
13:00 - sleep (he's been sleeping for anywhere between 1 hr 15 to 3 hours )
14:30 / on wake up - formula from a sippy cup (only just starting to actually drink any in the past couple of days)
16:00 - tea
18:30 - bedtime (this is the ideal however ranges from 18:00 to 19:00 depending on when he woke fro nap)
He also has a night feed, no consistency to time

Over the past week he has become harder to settle at nap time, taking about 1/2 hour to fall asleep where he ranges from cot parties to screaming before falling asleep. 

The past 5 days he has been waking ALOT at night, to the extent the past few days he has slept in bed with me.  Last night he woke up at 10:30pm when I put him in bed with me.  He woke again at 01:45 where he stayed awake (happy not crying until 03:45 when I fed him and he fell asleep a few minutes later)  He then woke again at 05:40

I'm really confused over all this.  Any advice would be greatly received

[Layla]

Hi there... he may be waking up from a number of things...

I wonder if he may be a little overtired? At 11 months, we were doing one shorter, one longer nap (short am/long pm) but it wasn't as short as 20-30mins... Is it possible for daycare to continue offering the morning nap but letting him have up to 45mins (1 sleep cycle) and then offering the afternoon nap around 3.5hrs later? As a rule of thumb, when my dd would have a 45min morning nap, her afternoon nap would start around 3.5hrs later and once we started shortening her morning nap to 30mins, her afternoon nap was around 3hrs later. What was your routine before starting daycare? You did mention that it's taking him longer to fall asleep... and this may be a sign of being overtired or undertired. Does this happen when he's at home and what time are you putting him down (is it same as routine you posted)?

Also, could he be teething at all? Just recently dd3 was cutting her bottom 2 molars (I felt the 2nd one today) and we had some shocking night wakings as well. Her night wakings began the first night I took her to family day care and it may have been from that too (she clung onto me and had really bad sep anxiety that first week), so her night wakings could have also been from that too.. Could he be waking up at night due to starting nursery (new carer, over stimulation)?!

I would try and not bring him to bed with you... you don't want to start creating habits that you later have to fix... are you able to try and resettle him in his cot (I know its so much easier to bring them to bed!).

[torie2507]

Thanks for your reply.  Sorry its taken a while to respond, I returned back to work on Tuesday so things have been a bit hectic to say the least!

Unfortunately the night waking is still with us 

I agree with what you're saying entirely and your suggestion would be ideal but unfortunately we have a 1/2 commute to his nursery from home and he always falls asleep in the car before we get to nursery.  I'd love to sit in the car with him for an extra 15 minutes to get the 45 minute nap but I don't have time before starting work. 

On the 4 days of the week he's at home week me I've been trying to work to a similar routine to give him consistency (putting down for first nap 3 hours 30 mins after wake up, waking up from nap after 30 mins then putting down for 2nd nap 3 hours after wake up, then bedtime anywhere between 6pm to 7pm depending on length of 2nd nap)

The past 4 days I've increased his first A time from 3.5 hours to 4 hours, this doesn't seem to have made a difference.

Maybe I should let him sleep more on the days he's at home to catch up?  I could put him down for first nap after 4 hours, let him sleep for 45 minutes, wake him up then put down for 2nd nap after 3.5 hours, as you suggested.

A solution I was thinking may work would be to try and move everything back so he woke up at 7:30am, then he wouldn't fall asleep in the car on the way to nursery.  He could have his longer sleep at 11:30am then a shorter nap in the afternoon on our way home.  Do you think this could work?  If so what time do you think I should try and move bedtime to?  And how would I get there? 

If bedtime is 6:45pm (which it used to be quite consistently) he generally wake up at 5:40am.  If bedtime is 6pm he tends to wake up at 5:15am.

He's definitely teething, he has 4 but it looks like several more are about to brake through the surface.  He's got all the normal signs, bless him 

I know I shouldn't put him in bed with me and I know I'm making a rod for my own back.  I've just been feeling so exhausted and looking for anything to make life a little easier!

[amayzie]

How are things going now hon? Any improvements?

[torie2507]

Things have gone from bad to worse unfortunately, the past week has been the worst sleep we've had yet    We seem to be in a major over tired / under tired cycle which we can't get out of.

End of last week was ok, I was putting him down for his first nap after 4 hours of A time and he was sleeping for 1.5 hours to 2.5 hours.  He resisted nap 2 so I ended up giving him cat naps for 30 to 45 minutes in his buggy. 

Since then he has been really bad at night, waking several times though out the night wanting to get up for the day at 4:30am every day.  This week he has been waking from nap #1 after 30 minutes, really unhappy and still tired.  Nursery have been putting him down to sleep at lunchtime but he's barely had an hour.  When I've collected him at 4:30 he's ended up sleeping in the car for 10 mins then refused to go to bed at night.  The night wakings continued, on Wednesday night he was awake for the majority of the tme from 11pm to 3:30am.  Yesterday, because he was awake so early he had an earlier sleep in the car, Id left early so drove around to make sure he got 45 minutes before taking him into nursery.  He woke up screaming again as soon as I stopped the car (8:20am)  He then refused to sleep at nursery (they tried for an hour from 11:45 to 12:45)  When I collected him at 1.30 he fell asleep in the car straight away but kept on waking, he napped for just under an hour in the end.  Last night he was restless and had night wakings until 9:30 but then slept until 4:30am. Which is an improvement but still not great. 

I'm really confused as to what to do for the best in the future. I can't tell if I need to increase his day sleep or reduce it and at what timings to fit in wit nursery 3 days per week. My train of thought is that I have 2 options:

1) Try and work towards 1 nap by letting him sleep for as long as he likes in the morning, starting from 4 hours A time and moving back by 1/2 hour every 5 days until his first nap is at 12:00.  To begin with I'd give him a cat nap in the afternoon, gradually reducing and removing .  I'd have to amend my working hours to start earlier and finish earlier, which would be ok but the problem with this is he may fall asleep in the car on way to nursery, which would disrupt the schedule.

or

2) Give a short nap in the morning of 30 or 45 minutes then give 2nd nap 3 hours 30 afterwards.  Gradually reducing the morning nap and moving the afternoon nap earlier.  The problem with this is that he fights the afternoon nap so much.

I took him to the doctor yesterday as nursery suspected an ear infection but the Dr said he looked fit and healthy. 

I'm thinking he may be ready to reduce one of the naps to be 30 minutes or shorter so he gets 1 longer nap.  What do you think?  I'm so lost with it all!

[torie2507]

I forgot to mention that I've dropped the night time breast feed and started giving him formula milk from a sippy cup during the day.  I wonder if this is why he's been waking up so early so the past 2 mornings I've fed him at 4:30am in the hope he'll go back to sleep, but he hasn't unfortunately

[amayzie]

Ugh!! What a bind you are in honey!! the 2-1 can be a KILLER!! And once they get overtired they are CRAZY to break out of it.

Look- I'm thinking that the cat nap especially in the afternoon is killing things at the moment- it's even seeming not to be awesome in the morning. Often people move to a morning cat nap and a long afternoon nap and then shrink the morning cat nap down and down to nothing. We used to go with a 20 minute car cat nap in the morning at about 9 or 9.30 or so.. then wouldn't try for a long nap until about 1 or 1.30. Then he'd have to be up NO LATER THAN 4pm. I would REALLY try to not let him sleep later than that anyway as that then mucks up bedtime and then the night is stuffed!! It really gets to the point where any cat nap is dodgy.

How many days is he in day care? I would be perhaps even tempted to aim for cold turkey one nap those days and 2 naps the other days That's a sort of daredevil way to go- but might suit where you can't tweak the routine out of your care.

At night what are you doing to resettle him? Is he crying? Awake and ready to play? Have you got any sure fire ways to make him sleep? I was wondering for a couple of days if you can do some APOP (accidental parenting on purpose) to see if you can catch him up on some sleep so you can take the over tired out of the equation? Also- remember on one nap or shorter nap days always lean towards a crazy early bed time over a later cat nap (or any cat nap at all). If bed time is usually 7 you can put them down at 6, or i think i've heard of some mums going even earlier!! It's a gamble going too early though as you HAVE to be sure they'll stay asleep- or they'l think it's a nap!! FAIL!!

Hugs again- we are just out of the 1-0, and that was a horror story too!!