Help needed with ASAP with today's EASY and how to beat major OT?

[AMJ]

Please if anyone has any suggestions I would greatly appreciate it. She is just sooo tired it hurts to look at her. Her night are 9/9.5hrs long because of lengthy NWs and taking 1/1.5hr to fall asleep at BT.  For the past few days she's been tired looking earlier and earlier in the day. Yesterday I gave her a nap at 10am (WU 5:00am) and she napped for 2hr5m but WU screaming. Today same WU but she had her nap at 9:15 and only napped for 1hr35m.  It's 10:50 am and she is up and I don't think that she will take a second nap. The only  thing I can think of is set nap/BT but I'm not sure if it will work since it didn't before plus we are traveling in 3weeks and there is going to be a time change, and then another month later we are traveling again to Europe so more distributions.

How do I help her catch up. She is already in the crib at 4:45pm for BT

[lilac83]

I really found with both my kids that nap and bedtime needed to be around the same time each day to allow their circadian rhythms to adjust and they sleep better. If you set just bedtime her wake up time should also stabalize in a few days, making it easier to set naps. Too much tweaking at this age really just makes things worse imo.

[AMJ]

Hi Robin, thank you for replying.

So do you think I should go back to set nap/BT even with this crazy OT? I'm so afraid that it will even get worse. If you read this post then you probably saw that I did one crash day after a 3:40am start of the day and then 2 more days of late nap/BT and that's how she got sooo OT. What do you think I should set the nap/BT to?

[lilac83]

I think consistency will get her over the OT faster than guessing on a day by day basis. Her body will get used to the routine and the sleep timings. She seems like an early bird so I would aim for having her asleep at 6:30. Start wind down at 6 and spend some extra time helping her settle since she's OT. I would also set mealtimes if you haven't already. Having lunch right before nap consistently will be a huge key for her in figuring out where she is in her day. Right now it seems she doesn't know if she's coming or going.

Also, expect different length naps. Just because she didn't sleep 2 hours doesn't mean the routine is wrong. Obviously you know they aren't machines, so just because you input Y doesn't mean they will always output X. Anything over 1 hour is a restorative nap and she should be able to make it if not to bedtime then within 30 minutes of it.

Is she putting herself to sleep completely independently? Do you leave her for a bit when she wakes to see if she settles? Does she get fresh air and exercise every morning? How is her mood overall? I also strongly recommend a digital video monitor if you don't have one. They're a little pricey but I love mine!

[lolsyb1982]

Hi AMJ

Agree with the set nap/BT. It really helped us (although she's in a leap this wk so has gone a bit downhill but trying to stick to it still and hoping we get back to where we were as it was the best it had been in months)

Why don't you try a nap at 11.30 to start with and BT 6.30 (asleep by). Yep you'll still get early starts but once she's settled into that you can start to push nap and BT again.

Took us about a week or 2 to see any change but wu did start getting later! If nothing else it may save your sanity. Can you ever resettle if she wakes early from a nap? Even if you AP?

[AMJ]

Ok I'll start the set times again, what time would you suggest the nap to be at then? Is she up at 5am sometimes even earlier.

Oh gosh I don't know how she will last till 6:30pm.

The thing is we did try set times with her before few times but it just seemed that once she was through the OT it would work for a bit and then her naps will start to shorten and then her nights as well. Plus us traveling lots this summer didn't help.

She is totally falling asleep on her own. Even when I try to resettle I feel like I just make things worse by being there so no props at all. In fact I can't even resettle her at all, not during the nap or in the mornings. And I always leave her in the crib till 6am and for nap time till it's been 2 hrs. We stopped going outside in the morning because I tried to watch her tired clues but before that we always went out. Her mood is cranky and she is not herself because of the OT. In fact I don't recognize my child!
We do have a digital monitor and I don't know what I would do without it! Such a piece of mind.

But maybe this is the only way to get her through the OT even if we need to travel in 3 weeks.

[AMJ]

Hi Lauren, how are you? Don't you feel that we are on here all the time,lol?

Thanks for responding. I'm just thinking if I do a nap at 11:30 and BT at 6:30 that means that I'm hoping to have her WU at least at 5:30. And that's 6hrs till 11:30. I feel that's too much A for her. Maybe if BT is 6:30 then WU 5:30, maybe 6(I wish) and nap at 10:30? What do you think?

[lolsyb1982]

I'm good thanks. Yes I'm always on here trying to solve one problem or another 

I think 10.30 nap will leave you with too long an afternoon, especially if her nap isn't a long one. I know my DD can handle a longer am than pm. I think 6 hrs is about right for this age group but if you really think she won't handle it or adjust then maybe 11?

We were getting 5/5.30 wu's and I set her nap at 12 (was 11 prior to that) It really was a struggle at first but now it's manageable and I'm keeping to that time this wk even though she's having NW and EW (today she was up at 5.10 - just over 10hrs ns)
We had to push it that much later to get the later starts. I couldn't believe it when she started sleeping until 6 (damn this leap which has ruined my lie ins!)
I've found since I've gone to set times I'm also much more relaxed. I was far too anxious before when thinking about A times.

[AMJ]

Yeah set times do give me my sanity back but just until they stop working. So you are sticking to it even with EWUs and NWs? Good for you! Do you offer 15m earlier nap and 30m earlier BT? I find that I did that the earlier nap and BT became our regular times because things just didn't get better and I couldn't move them back to the original times.

Yeah I feel like such an early nap does leave us with a huge second A but I'm hoping maybe if I give her 12.5hr day insteadof 13hrs she will sleep 11.5hr at night. It does seem that's what she needs only she can't get herself to sleep that long

[lilac83]

You might want to consider getting her out of the house in the morning. At this age they need the exercise and stimulation and part of what you think is tiredness could very well be boredom.

I would do 11:30 asleep for nap and 6:30 asleep for bed. I don't do early bedtime because like you it just pulls her day earlier. Today my younger dd napped 45 minutes. Her bedtime will still be 8. She might have an OT wake around 10:30 but that's better than a 6:00 wake up (she normally sleeps until 7:15). Yesterday her morning was the same length as today's and she slept 2.5 hours. There's no rhyme or reason but with set times it all tends to even out. Most days her nap is 1.5 hours with an 11.5 hour night.

[AMJ]

Hi Robin

Maybe you are right regarding boredom but she looks plain exhausted. I think I do protect her too much from overstimulation because for some reason she gets so overwhelmed even but playing beside loud children.

Wow 45m, that would be a disaster for us. I think some kids are able to catch up better then others. Our DD doesn't unless I catch it early enough(which I never do)  and then OT just accumulates more and more. She never did and we always end up in a similar situation.

[lilac83]

Yeah, some kids are definitely more touchy about OT than others. My older dd was pretty touchy and still is. Often just 10 minutes late for bed and she'll end up in tears over one thing or the other. My younger dd is touchy but she's also had to learn to adjust because obviously having an older sister means not always being able to cator directly to her needs unfortunately. However, having had the chance to see that in dd2 has lead me to believe kids will catch up eventually and be better off for it. No doubt she'll get OT, but her body's rhythms will be able to adjust and there will be a huge improvement. Until the next regression because I promise you just when things are going smooth these LOs like to shake them up again!   

[AMJ]

that actually makes sense. I hear lots of stories that second children are more adjustable then the first. It's just so damn hard. It's probably easier second time around as well.

and these regression, is it even a thing or people just made that up to make some kind of sense out of their kids not sleeping  it feels like we've been in regression all the time.

[lilac83]

Lol regressions probably are just made up to help us feel better about our kids not sleeping!

[AMJ]

haha that's what i think