Help needed for 6.5 month old NW and EW

[justine726]

For the past month, my 6.5 month old has been getting up much earlier than normal.  We had been doing a 8pm-7am routine.  For the past few weeks, it has looked like this:

NW: any time, either between 12:30-4 am

EW: between 4:15-5:45 or 6:00 and is up for the day

E: 7:00
E: 8:15am solids
S: 9:00-10:30/10:40 (wake him)

E: 11:00
E: 12:15 solids
S: 13:15/13:30-14:45-15:00 (wake him)

E: 15:00
E: 17:00 (we don't regularly do solids at this time yet)
S: 17:15/17:30-17:30/17:45 (Catnap of 15-25minutes)

E: 19:30/19:45
S: 20:00

He is exclusively breastfed.  His NW and EW are quite inconsistent, in that I don't know what he wants.  With his NW, he will either cry out for a few seconds and then go back to sleep (unfortunately, I don't and am wide awake) or he will babble to himself for an hour.  With his EW, he sometimes just babbles in bed and flaps around or sometimes he will cry so I go to him.  At this point I try to calm him down with shh/pat, as this is what I did before; Pu/PD never seemed to work and only agitated him further, so I don't do that anymore.  Unfortunately, the shh/pat has also stopped working and if he continues to cry, then I assume he's hungry.  If he's not hungry, I know he's not going back to sleep so we just wait in his room until it's time to feed him. 

I'm not really sure where to go from here.  I'm afraid I don't really know what his cries mean.  Since he behaves differently during his EWs, I don't know if I should aim for an earlier BT or reduce his nap times or gradually increase his A times.  I am working on increasing his A time after the first nap to 2.75 hours, but he still takes his CN at the same time.  Is that supposed to happen?  Also, I feel reluctant to increase his A times because it seems like he doesn't get enough sleep at night.  I'm also worried about early BT, as I worry it would increase or create a need for additional NF.  So I guess I'm feeling a bit paralyzed at the moment.

I would appreciate any advice and suggestions and insight you can offer, as I am feeling horribly sleep deprived. 

Thanks in advance.

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there,

I know you say that you are reluctant to increase A times, but they really are quite short when you look at the average A times here:

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

When A times are short you get either UT naps or an LO may self regulate by cutting nights shorter. Then you eventually get an OT LO because the nights are too short. I really do think an A time increase could help you. Also you may find it's time to ditch the cat nap.

What do you think?

[justine726]

Thanks for your response.

I have been increasing his A times to 2.75 hours - I did that with his second A time after the first nap for a few days since I thought it was too much to do it with his first A after an EW.  Today he grudgingly tolerated an increased A time before his first nap, so that he went to sleep at 9:45 instead.  He had an EW of around 4:15, but I think it was early enough that he put himself back to sleep because I didn't hear anything until 6:50.

What happens if he does have an EW where I can't put him back to sleep?  Do I still try for a 9:45 nap time?  And with the catnap gone, would the first day look something like this:

E: 7:00
E: 8:15am solids
S: 9:45-11:15

E: 11:15
E: 12:15 solids
S: 13:45-15:15

E: 15:15
E: 17:15
S: 17:45

Or do you increase all A times in the same day?  If not, can I increase both nap times to 1.75 hours each if he will continue to sleep past 1.5 hours?  Maybe even add bf top-ups before each nap (but not bf to sleep), as solids haven't been fully established yet.  5:45 pm seems like such a very early bedtime.  Or is that temporary because I'd be (hopefully) increasing his wake times every few days?

Unfortunately we had a late BT tonight because we visited relatives, so I won't really see accurate results of the increased A time today.

Thanks!

[Buttonbobs]

I would say whenever you make changes you need to hold for three days to a week to see the effect of it so don't worry too much about what happens in the morning - you may well still get an EW because of the later night anyway.

You can either extend all A times across the entire day or change one at a time, depending on how well your LO copes with the changes. I agree with you that it is likely that first A time is the main culprit for the EWs but the whole day will affect the quality of the night.

I would suggest you go for a specific A time but say the first nap is no earlier than 9.45am. This way you're working on a 7am WU with a 2hr45min A time and this should also help with the EWs. You may need to encourage quiet in the bedroom as if it were a NW until 7am too.

Did you go to 2 hours 45 gradually, in increments of 15 mins every few days? If you find that after a big leap in A time there is a lot of unsettled sleep you might want to go back and move more slowly.

[justine726]

Yes, he has been doing A times of 2.5 hours, so I would increase one of the A times to 2.75.  Like I said in my previous post, I had done this with the second A time because the first A time would have been very long with the EW.  I will start over with increasing the first A time and go from there.

The naps have been a good length, it's just the nighttime sleep that is bad.

Is it ok to let him nap a bit longer than 1.5 hours?  Maybe 1.75 so that the bedtime isn't too early and so that he can get a later feed in?  Or will that mess with the overall picture?  I can't remember where I read that naps at this age can be 3-4 hours, so 2 1.75 hour naps would still fall within that range.

[Buttonbobs]

You can go for longer naps for sure, but I would probably wake if a nap is longer than 3 hours, to prevent night and day confusion.

Given wake up is so early, can you get BT any earlier?

[justine726]

Earlier than 5:45pm?  What time should I be targeting based on the revised schedule below:

E: 7:00
E: 8:15am solids
S: 9:45-11:15

E: 11:15
E: 12:15 solids
S: 13:45-15:15

E: 15:15
E: 17:15
S: 17:45 (BT)

So he will still be waking up early (before 7am) until he has an appropriate A time and his BT eventually works towards 7 or 7:30pm?

[Buttonbobs]

Sorry I was looking back at your first post and saw BT 7.30/8 but hadn't seen your proposed schedule.

Yes, I'd try 5.45 and see how you get on. Remember that the EASY is not a schedule so you'll still need to look out for his cues and follow those as you adjust his pattern.

Good luck xx

[jessmum46]

Hi there . Just popping in to offer another set of eyes.  I agree with Naomi I think you're hitting the 3-2 nap transition and you need to push your A times and get rid of the catnap. 

I had a couple of thoughts - one was that I wouldn't cap (wake him) from both of his long naps, I'd probably let one of them go up to 2h and then wake him from the other if needed to stop the day getting too long.  Two 2h naps would be fine though in a 13h day, something like WU 7, nap 10-12, nap 3-5 and BT 8pm (once you reach 3h A time).

My second thought was that you may need to be a bit flexible on whether you do 2 or 3 naps for a little while, especially if you are getting some EWs.  My rule of thumb was if the second nap ended before 3pm, we would try for a catnap.  If the second nap ended at 3pm or later, we'd skip the CN and do BT 3h later. 

Just personally speaking if we got an EW I didn't try to push for a set first nap time (though this does work very well for some LOs), I just stuck with the set A time.  The reason I went for that was DD would have short-napped if OT and never resettled so we were in a worse mess than if we offered a nap at the right A time but early clock time.  I've generally found that as long as the first A time is age-appropriate, the fact that the nap happens at an early clock time shouldn't in itself cause EWs.  I think where the trouble happens is when you stick with a set nap time of say 9am, continue to offer a long nap at that time, so LO wakes earlier and earlier to try to fit in enough A time beforehand.  Does that kind of make sense? 

[justine726]

Hi Naomi.

Sorry, "schedule" was probably not the greatest choice of words.

I did let him nap a bit longer in the afternoon.  I've been finding that he wakes up fine after a 1.5-hour morning nap, but he'd cry if I woke him after he slept that same amount in the afternoon.  He woke up fine after sleeping 1.75 hours.  He still fell asleep at 5:45pm anyway.

I had a couple of thoughts - one was that I wouldn't cap (wake him) from both of his long naps, I'd probably let one of them go up to 2h and then wake him from the other if needed to stop the day getting too long.  Two 2h naps would be fine though in a 13h day, something like WU 7, nap 10-12, nap 3-5 and BT 8pm (once you reach 3h A time).

Hi Katherine.  Thanks for your input.  Could I do two 2-hour naps right now even though he's not at 2.75-hour A time yet?  Could that help delay/eliminate the EW at a quicker pace?

Just personally speaking if we got an EW I didn't try to push for a set first nap time (though this does work very well for some LOs), I just stuck with the set A time.  The reason I went for that was DD would have short-napped if OT and never resettled so we were in a worse mess than if we offered a nap at the right A time but early clock time.  I've generally found that as long as the first A time is age-appropriate, the fact that the nap happens at an early clock time shouldn't in itself cause EWs.  I think where the trouble happens is when you stick with a set nap time of say 9am, continue to offer a long nap at that time, so LO wakes earlier and earlier to try to fit in enough A time beforehand.  Does that kind of make sense? 

He still managed his long nap at 9:45 despite his EW for two days, so I will keep along on this path for now.  However, I will continue to be vigilant on looking for his "I can't take any more of this wake time" cues. 

If I understand you correctly, you're saying that I should be mindful of moving his nap time forward if I want a particular WU time as he gets older.  If I don't, then he will wake up earlier to compensate for more A time before the first nap?

These are some really great suggestions, ladies.  Thanks!  I reached a point where I was/am so sleep-deprived that I couldn't figure out what sort of action to take to address these problems.  I appreciate the time you've taken to help me out.

I may have some questions/feedback on this later.

[jessmum46]

The question about having 2x2h naps - basically it will really depend on your LO and their own individual sleep needs.  Say for example your LO needs about 14h sleep in every 24h, if you allow 2x2h naps that means there's only really enough sleep left for a 10h night which for lots of LOs would be too short.  It may be better to have say an 11h night and a bit less total naptime.  Whereas a LO with high sleep needs might do 2x2h naps and still do 11.5-12h overnight.  There's no hard and fast rule really, it's about determining the best way to distribute sleep between naps and night to keep your LO well-rested.  My gut feeling would be while your A times are still fairly short, allowing 2x2h naps might backfire and give you an even earlier WU, but you could always risk it and see.

Re moving his nap time forwards, yes if you want to keep a long morning nap then you will probably need to move it gradually later as he gets older.  The alternative is to keep it at about the same time, but cut it progressively shorter and aim for a long afternoon nap instead.  Usually an early nap won't cause EWs if it's only a short one, it's the long ones that seem to cause trouble