Author Topic: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings  (Read 1510 times)

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Offline CorinneV

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8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« on: July 16, 2014, 15:50:56 pm »
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

Offline weaver

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #1 on: July 16, 2014, 19:14:31 pm »
Average A for this age is anything from 3-4 hours, so unless she is super high sleep needs, I think your first nap is too probably early.  If that is the case, then she is probably giving you a UT nap and throwing the rest of the day out of whack, possibly getting into a UT/OT loop, meaning, she starts out undertired and then gets overtired because she isn't sleeping enough, iyswim. 

If you think she does better with set naps, by all means try that.  It might be easier for childcare to follow that too?  But I would bump her A times, maybe start by moving the am nap up by 15 mins and see if that helps.
*Anne*, loving mama to a honeybee (2010) and a sweetpea (2012).  BF for 4 proud years.


Offline CorinneV

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #2 on: July 18, 2014, 14:18:23 pm »
Thanks for the reply. I tried pushing her activity time yesterday and today. In fact I threw the fixed times out the window and tried to follow her cues.
So yesterday she had 25 mins from 10:40, then passed out on the playmat at 12:30 for another 30mins. I tried to get her back off after the first short nap but she wasn't having any of it. She was then tired late afternoon and wasn't going to make it til dinner, let alone bedtime so I let her have 15minutes about 4:30. She resisted bedtime a bit (maybe due to the late nap) but slept well until 5:50am when she was wide awake and shouting.  After I tried to settle her in her room for ages she did settle in with me after kicking around quietly for half an hour (long enough to make sure I was wide awake!!). Today I've had 2 short 30 minute naps again with A time about 3h30 initially then a bit shorter second A time as she seemed tired. Don't know how bedtime is going to go!

I don't know if it's the heat, teeth or a cold but she doesn't seem quite herself either.

So should I keep extending the activity time if she's still short napping? And if she has 2 short naps how early do I bring bedtime? I still need to fit dinner in!

Any advice appreciated...
X

Offline CorinneV

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #3 on: July 18, 2014, 14:24:50 pm »
PS. If she's done her 5am cot party trick but dozed off eventually til 7 when we're all getting up do I just keep her awake if she's getting drowsy around the 2.5-3h mark?

Offline weaver

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #4 on: July 18, 2014, 20:28:07 pm »
Hi Corinne,
if you're increasing A time, you need to do it gradually.  Most LOs will not easily make a leap of 30 mins or more in their A time.  Generally it's a good idea to increase from your norm by 15 mins at a time, and hold that new time for 3 days, just to let LO get used to it.  So I'd try that for a bit, as far as I can tell she maybe had a jump of 40 minutes added to the first A, which might have been too much for her.

I don't have much personal experience of EWs but in general they are linked to OT and the first nap being too early, so see if you can squeak it out a bit later, get her to nap a bit longer and see how you go. 

At 8 mos she may well be shaping up for the 2-1 nap transition.  This does not mean she suddenly drops to 1 nap, but rather that one nap will get shorter and shorter. This is often the AM nap.  At her age, an hour in the morning seems good to me, if she then does something similar or a bit longer in the afternoon.  It's all about balancing the distribution of sleep throughout the day, and you may also find as she gets closer to doing just one nap that her day overall gets longer than 12 hours.  All totally normal.
*Anne*, loving mama to a honeybee (2010) and a sweetpea (2012).  BF for 4 proud years.


Offline Sonnysummer12

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #5 on: July 20, 2014, 15:01:28 pm »
I am in a VERY similar situation w/ 7 month old. Yesterday- and apparently today her first nap really only lasted 30 min. I thought perhaps her Awake time was too short at 2hrs 50 so this morning I extended it to 3hrs 5 min  and ended up with same result! @30 min nap.
Very odd
Don't know what to do as she will be terribly crabby later and unable to last very long - throws everything off.
Ugh

Offline Newbiemommy001

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #6 on: July 20, 2014, 15:43:33 pm »
Gosh! I could have written this post! My LO is doing the same thing. He'll be 8 months next week. I don't have any advice to give you as I'm in the same boat. I can just offer you some reassurance that you're not alone in this. Hopefully, our LOs will settle into a good rhythm soon.

Offline CorinneV

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Re: 8 Month old with short naps and night wakings
« Reply #7 on: July 21, 2014, 08:59:05 am »
Hi all, I'm glad it's not just me, although sorry for all the other tired mummies out there!

So, to update you all yesterday went a bit better... we cheated a bit as we drove 45 minutes to a swimming lesson that was cancelled so DD had 45 minute there and another 45 minutes on the way back after discovering it was cancelled! She seemed much more settled the rest of the day. She only had 40 minutes in the afternoon but given the 1h30m in the morning I figured that was ok. She didn't seem OT at bedtime and then slept   through from 8pm to 6:30am without a squeak. I think she only stirred then as she'd ended up on her front and ended up doing some impromptu crawling practice!

My mum has her today so she has strict instructions for nap times (trying to stick with 3h30m activity time today as childminder likely to go wonky tomorrow!), so keeping everything crossed it goes better today now she's less chronically OT! I think I'm going to need to push her A time closer to 4h but small steps for now!!

Hope the rest of you get some improvement soon, stick with it!