LSN or something else?

[Martini~]

Hi Hon, I know that you are probably so so tired by this situation and I would like to hug you and give all good vibes, but all I can do is holding your hands virtually and encourage when you push her A time. Regarding the routine… it doesn’t look so bad:), let me show you some good things here:)!
1.   First A 3:55 – followed by 1h nap, great! She is not OT here and it seems that she can do more. Can you push her here to 4,5h A? If you have to achieve a reasonable BT you have to push not only the last A of the day but also the first ones;  I know that she may look tired and she probably is tired, but kids at this age are very often “used to” be tired. They know it’s time to go to sleep so they show the signs.
2.   Second A only 3h – you have to give her time to get used to first and second A so she will look tired here for a while; if you think 4,5h is difficult here, do as much as you can; remember that after better nap in the morning, she should be able to do more here; remember that in longer perspective, if she is more tired in the morning, she might want to sleep longer at night and… you will not be doomed for the longest A in the evening after a short nap, what may result in OT (and NWs…)
3.   In the routine I posted, after 30min afternoon nap I proposed 3,5h A till BT when last 30min are usually feed, bath etc so even tired kids are entertained enough to survive. The thing is: the more you push your LO in the morning, the shorter will be the last A of the day after a short nap.
4. Night wasn't so bad Hon, she slept 10:20h which is more than I thought (the routine I posted say 10h of ONS).

WDYT?

[morvayc]

Thank you sooooo much for all of your kind words and support.  It means the world!  I will keep trying to push out the first A, but may stick to 4 hours for the next day or two.  I'll keep you posted!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Totally agree with Marti's assessment, kids do learn the tiredness if they are used to a particular A time and can throw you off. A nearly 10.5 hr night is really great!

[Martini~]

Hi Hon! How are you doing?
Posting to tell you our story from this week:). DS is at nursery 5days a week. Not sleeping well there if you ask me.... Mostly 45min nap, sometimes 1-1:20 in the afternoon, but never in the morning. At home when put at 10am he slept ages and I was waking him at 1,5h mark. Not to mention that he was starting to wake somewhere between 5 and 7 am and usually self settled later but still, from 5am it wasn't a restorative sleep!

The nursery this week asked me for moving his nap from 10am closer to 10:30 as kiddos in the nursery was going to sleep around 11:15 so they wanted to synchronize as much as it's possible without making DS OT. They started on Wednesday and what happened:
Day 1 : pd at 10:20, slept for 15min... Lying in his crib went to sleep once again at 11:00 and slept another 45min, 2nd nap at 3:15 for 45min; happy baby till 7pm BT, slept thru, couldn't wake him at 7am:)
Day 2: put down before 11am twice but no interest in sleep, ate lunch at 11am and put down at 11:15, slept 1:20!!! Second nap in a car 4:10-4:30 when I came, settled beautifully at 7pm
Day 3: put down at 11:40!!! as was eating lunch for long time, second nap at 4:30-4:45, settles nicely at 7pm, slept thru
All these days I had to wake him at 7am!!! Which didn't happen in ages!
Today, sooooo sleepy at 10am as me is nothing on terms of entertainment for him:) but pushed him till 11:00, give lunch, settled nicely and still asleep.

I cannot imagine but he was so ready for this jump in A and he was trying to tell me that through ages when waking early from the naps in the nursery (I thought OT...).
So - just to encourage you... try and maybe the results will come!

[morvayc]

Martii85, thanks for taking the time to tell me your story.  I am sooooo happy that you have had a few 7am wakeups.  That must be a wonderful feeling!  Would you say now, that your morning A is roughly 4hrs?  I have stuck to 4hrs A before morning nap for the last  5 days with naps of 1hr, 1hr20min, 1hr15min, 30min, and ? (still sleeping) respectively.  One of the days was sooo promising.  We had a morning with a wake up of 6:58, so I thought that this would be the perfect day to push BT to 8pm, which we did.....but still wound up with a 4:30-4:40 NW, and then a wake up of 5:26.  The day seemed so perfect.  We had a 30 min. morning nap and a 2 hr afternoon nap, with 4hrs awake time before bed.  This has left me super confused and pretty doubtful that anything will work.  I'm starting to believe that she can only sleep a long night stretch of 9.5-10hrs, and from there, she's either up for the day if she's had a decent amount of day sleep, or will treat it as a NW, and then only sleep for an additional 30-45min.  What do you think?

[Martini~]

We have 7am wakeup and... If i do a nap around 10 at home he will sleep 1,5h+ but after couple of days his sleep before 7am becomes light... It seems like he is finishing his night with a long nap too early in the morning. So last week we were going towards 4:15-4:45 A with naps 1:20-1:40 respectively to the A length (the longer A, the longer nap). Than I do a nap around 4pm (15-30min) and 7pm BT. But you cannot copy as my son sleeps 12h at night with 2h day sleep... And your dd is doing 12-13h in total so you have to stretch her even more.
I know it's difficult but you have to push her much more in the morning. For us stretching first A is the most difficult but it gives the best results. Than after a good nap I would stretch her second A and do short 30min catnap and really the shortest A before BT. I would encourage you to push her to the extend when she will give you 2h morning nap. I don't know with what A she will do it: 4,5-5, but that's the option you didn't try. I would try to keep that for at least free days and see what's next.

Ahhhh, I am sorry to say that but I would be expecting a EWU after such a day you posted as ideal, Hon. She woke up at 7am so she had only 13h day and you let her sleep 2,5h... If she wakes so late, you have to cut her naps to 2h max in my opinion or even wake her at 6:30 if she didn't wake by herself. I know it's hard... But sleeping in is great for mums, but usually makes the routine for the day more tricky. You cannot allow for the same nap length as it sums up to too much day sleep and too short A.

I don't think 9,5h is enough sleep for her. I think you really can expect something like 10,5 as minimum but that will happen with a good day with not too much sleep during naps. Hmmm, have you thought about morning play groups or whatever...? I put down F today after 4,5h today but it was a fight really as he was giving me sleepy cues after 3h. I wouldn't go for it, if I didn't know he could do it (he did that in the nursery). But that's the trick. There is so much going on there that he is happy there for full 4,5h A. Maybe that's a solution for you to stretch him in the morning?

[morvayc]

Happy New Year, ladies!

I just wanted to touch base and offer an update.  Baby is now 11months9days old, and things have improved in some areas, but the 7am wake up is still elusive.....for that matter, so is the 6am .  Lo is still only getting between 9.5-10.5hrs night sleep, but we have been pretty consistent in keeping with a 7/730BT, as the later BT of 8pm seems  to always result in poor sleep and EWs anyway.  There was a period of time where baby would sttn without any NWs and fully wake somewhere between 515 and 545.  This was not ideal, but at least she was getting a solid, albeit, short night.  In the last week or so, she has started waking again in the 4s, and sleep from then until sometime in the 5s is very unsettled.  I have no idea whether this is OT or UT.  It is definitely not early morning noise or any environmental factor waking her.  I should also mention, that baby has within the last few weeks, given me a consistent 1hr30-2hr10min morning nap.  This came out of nowhere, and I was wondering if anyone had ever heard of the lengthening of a nap, being a sign of needing to transition to 1 nap? The EWs have made it nearly impossible to even try a 1 nap day, as I think it is the only thing I haven't tried.  Capping the long morning nap also made no difference, so I just let her do it and get a snooze in myself.  Our EASY looks something like this most days:

WU-530

A-4hr-4hr30min

S-1hr30min-2hr

A-3hr30min

S-30min

A-3-4hrs

S-7/730

Today, she did her normal 430am WU, resettled a few times to get to a final WU of 620am.  I used today to try my first 1 nap day, which looked like this....

WU-620
A-4hrs30min
S-1hr50min
A-5hrs5min
S-545pm.........still sleeping with non NWs as of 720pm.

I guess I'm just looking for guidance or reassurance.  I haven't done an EBT in quite some time, as they've never worked out, but LO has never done an A time longer than 4hrs40min, so I was somewhat paranoid.  Hoping for the best, but assuming the worst for WU tomorrow.  It was less than a 12hr day, and only 9hrs35min total A time.  Do these things matter during the transition?  Any thoughts on how to proceed would be greatly appreciated. 

Sorry for the length of this post.  Thanks ladies.

[LovelyLilyandJack]

It looks like she's ready for one nap to me You might find you have some awkward days where one nap is a struggle but it's hard to fit in two naps, but you could aim for 4hrs 30 morning A, and then let her cn if you can fit it in and have her awake by 4 or something. I'd cut the cn to 20 minutes though at this stage. If you can't get her cn in before 4, then you can do EBT instead. It looks like that will work for her which is great 

[morvayc]

Ugggghhh! I wish I had good things to report from last night, but sadly, I don't.  She was silent from PD at 545 to 940....then had about a 1hr30min screaming NW, then again up and down from 4am ish until 550 when I finally got her up.  I couldn't really tell when she was sleeping during those early hours, but I estimated that she probably slept about 10hr10min all night....a little less than her usual.  I'm so confused, but as I thought, EBTs are still a no go here.  I'm also confused because unlike a lot of other moms on this site, I can always get a CN.  Mind you, I don't even try for a crib nap, it's always a swing or driving nap.  With both of these, she is always asleep in 5 minutes.  If she sleeps so readily, does this mean that she really needs the nap?

Today her EASY has looked like this:
WU-550
A-4hr20min
S-2hr10min
A-3hr40min
S-20min
and I plan for in bed by 7pm after 2hr40min A. ( I have experimented with ALL A times after the CN, so I'll try less than 3hrs in case OT is the cause of the EWs.  I'm also wondering whether I should be more concerned with the length of day or the A times prior to BT.  I'm often having close to 14 hr days because of the EWs and because ebts seem to not work.

[Martini~]

Honey, we started this thread with a questions if your LO is LSN. How old is she now? I know that you are afraid of OT but with this A at this age it's rather not possible. My kid is doing 4:30+ morning A or even 5:00+ and is having a 1:20-1:50 nap after that. Many not very LSN LOs are having 1 nap already around this age so I think the only solution which will bring you less NW will be longer day and less daytime sleep:).

I wasn't also surprised with her night after 1 nap day. Almost 2h of sleep and day shorter than 12h. Once again, I think the key is to push the morning nap closer to 5/5:30A after WU now when she enters 2-1 transition.