Please help!!
We've been doing EASY with my DD number 2 since she was born and she's generally great. She's an angel baby mostly, very happy, smiley, laid back, eats well and used to sleep well!
With her sleep all was fine (settled with minimal help, 2 hour naps, slept well at night) until the dreaded 45 min naps reared it's head around 4 months but even at that stage only woke once or twice in the night for feeds. From the 4 month stage it went a bit wonky with a growth spurt, teething and illness and the next thing we knew she was about 6 months and showing signs of needing to drop the catnap (5am cot party, difficult to get to sleep at night, back to 45 minute naps).
At about 6 1/2 months it dawned on my that she needed to drop the catnap and as everything had gone so wonky already and the routine had gone out the window she went cold turkey (if she was clearly not going to make bedtime I'd let her have 10 minutes to see her through) and brought bedtime forward to compensate. Her sleep at night improved but she was still very irratic with naps (anything from 25 mins to 1h 30m).
She's now just 8 months and still short napping and her sleep at night is irratic again too. Some of this is exacerbated by childcare whilst I'm at work not being able to stick to the routine so she catnaps during the day there despite my efforts :-/
The routine I've been aiming for is along the lines of 3ish hours activity, but can end up being a bit longer with her short naps. She seems better sticking to strict times rather than moving according to activity times, I just adjust bedtime.
7am wake
8am breakfast (solids)
10am nap - ideally I'd hope for 1h - 1h30 but have been getting anything from 25 mins to 1hr, very occasionally a bit longer
11:30am bottle
12:30 lunch (solids)
2:30pm nap - times as per morning nap here too
4pm bottle
6pm dinner
7:30pm bedtime + bottle - this often moves a bit earlier or later depending on how she seems.
Overnight she often wakes after about an hour with wind from her bedtime bottle but once the wind is up is straight back to sleep and wanting to be put back down. From there she might sleep through or could wake ever 1-3 hourly. Never needs much to get her off again, sometimes the dummy, sometimes just holding my hand or me just sitting next to her cot for a few minutes. I'm never up longer than 5-10 minutes but I can't work out why she's waking so often when it's so inconsistent.
She's started waking some days between 5 and 6am again and is often wide awake and I'm unable to settle her at that point, but she seems happy. If I bring her through to my room she might doze for a bit longer but will wake by 7. Other days she'll sleep through to 7:30!
I don't bath everyday as she has eczema but we have a consistent routine for wind down with a story etc. She nearly always goes down without a problem (nap or bedtime), quick cuddle, dummy if she wants it but not always and I try to let her do the final bit of settling in her cot (I've not managed self-settling from awake as her older sister of 2 1/2 tends to distract her as they share a room).
She's rarely grumpy with all this disturbed sleep but she could clearly be better rested. It's all so erratic and unpredictable I'm at a loss and being exhausted from getting up & down all the time isn't helping.
I've wondered whether it might be because she's ready for moving to 1 nap but given how erratic it all is I have no idea where to start if that's the problem at all!
Any thoughts or suggestions would be much appreciated. Sorry for the long-winded post!
Thanks