Getting very bored of NWs now.....7mo

[jessmum46]

Any and all help appreciated, I don't know what I'm missing here.....

DS is 7 months tomorrow, independent sleeper pretty much since week 1. Absolute dream sleeper overnight until around the 4 month mark, then teeth, rolling, hunger sent things a little haywire.  And although we have got back down to one NF (which I actually don't think he needs, but still better than 2-3) we almost always have other NWs.  We have a set routine to fit the needs of our family but I thought he was doing pretty well with it really, certainly goes down easily for naps.

Routine is usually
WU 6/6.30
Nap 9-9.45 capped
Nap 1pm for usually 1h40-2h
BT 18.15/30

We sometimes have early evening cries but he can usually self-settle these.  The main issue is a waking somewhere between midnight and 1.30am which usually needs a bit of help - but very minimal ie return lovey, maybe reposition if stuck on crib bars then leave him to it.  He will settle for 15-25 mins, then repeat.  This goes on for up to an hour and a half when he will either go back off for 2-3 hours or sometimes will not settle at all without a feed.  It doesn't happen every night but more often than not over the last fortnight at least.  Daytime routine has been pretty consistent over that time.

I'm trying to push his NF and get rid of it so at the moment it's around 4am unless I'm having real issues settling him earlier. He has four milk feeds in the day and three solid meals, I know he's young but he was starving from 5 months and is much happier overall with some decent food.  Milk always before solids.

He has six teeth already, the top ones are still moving down although they are fully through the gum.  He's pretty dribbly right now.  And also getting over a cold (again).

So.....routine?  Discomfort?  Prop of some sort?  (Though I don't know what....).  I would love a proper sleep!

[Kellyjs]

How do you feel he is in the evening hun? Do you think he may be tad OT before BT? Looks like he's getting decent naps in there albeit a little ahead of his age. At this age DD could only go 2.5hrs to BT even if it followed a nice long nap.

Do you think he could cope with an extra 15mins for that second A so you could take 15mins off the last A iykwim? The night sleep in total seems adequate and I wouldn't want him waking any earlier for you.

So nap at 1.15pm for 2hrs then hopefully BT at 6/6.15pm. Could try for a few days and see? Wdyt? Xx

[*Liz*]

He isn't cold is he??? Just with the weather  ?

[goldmom]

1.5 hr nw between 12-2 sounds like it could be UT to me (especially the trying to resettle for a bit, but then waking again).

DS1 was sleeping through with only a df at this age (dropped df at just over 8 months), but he used a pacifier and every night he needed it replugged. It was quick but he needed it just once, every night. So it could be that he just needs some interaction at some point, but the constant rewaking sounds like a routine issue, and not a prop. Discomfort would be harder to settle on our end, so if it's a quick resettle, I would consider discounting that, although a long nw without resettling, just general awake was discomfort for us (so maybe?). Hunger could be an issue, but since he's eating well during the day, it's unlikely at this age - although you could try implementing a df and see if that makes a difference (we start the df at 5 months and it takes about 3-4 days before they stop waking at the previous nf time).

[jessmum46]

Thanks for replying feeling rather fed up of it all today, something about talking to friends with newborns that are sleeping far better - as was B at that age!!

Liz I don't think he's cold, though can certainly try an extra layer.  It's been going on too long for that really, looking back we really haven't had that many good nights at all since October

So some evenings I would say he is OT by bedtime, but others he seems ok.  He is hard to read though now in terms of tired signs.  We have been consistently on two naps for just over two weeks now having been going back and forth for probably a month prior to that.  Dropping to two naps has pretty much sorted out the EW issues we were having but nights remain bad.

I can try to push the second nap later but not sure he'll manage it tbh, he's already doing 3h15 A time after a 45 minute nap.  Well some days he probably would, but today he didn't settle as well as usual at 1pm (only 5 mins fussing, but usually no fuss at all) and slept 1h25, woke in a foul temper.  So will def be OT by bedtime, sigh.

I honestly can't decide if he's just horribly OT overall which is why nights are a mess.  And somehow he is usually managing to do long naps in the afternoons but they aren't enough to break the cycle.  Or whether he in fact has just had a really unlucky run of colds and teeth so OT build-up as well as discomfort.  Or whether the fact I still feed at night sometimes could be an issue??  Or in fact as Goldmom says could it be UT?  Would make him very LSN though....

Thanks for being there to listen x

[michaeljacknnugg]

He seems to have a very long night to me - from the perspective of my lsn boy anyway. Could you take bedtime a bit later?

By six months we were on two naps with a 7pm bedtime and roughly 6am wake.

[goldmom]

We've had long nw, but in the am hours. They've gone away with his napping now at his babysitter of 1.5 h total day time sleep  . Which may come back to bite us, but the long uninterrupted nights are pretty restorative, I think he was more OT with long (good) naps and disturbed nights. Yesterday we did 4.5 hours A before bed after a 1 hour nap (and 30 min am nap), so my theory is there's no such thing as too much A time before bed  , he was even playing nicely on the floor after 2.5 hours - when I normally would've given another nap if he'd slept so little during the day, and only really seemed to be getting very tired after 4+ hours. (I'm totally not advocating 1.5 hrs of daytime sleep at this age, but I'm just throwing this info out there, DS2's sleep is still a work in progress  )

At a younger age, 2 hour naps for DD would disturb her nights, so I did have to cut back to make sure she never slept that long in one go, but that was closer to when she was 5 months; a long am nap at 7 months would just completely eliminate a second nap at this age (we weren't in the midst of 2-1 yet, so we didn't want this).

A cranky baby after waking from a nap is horrible, hugs and good luck making it through the day.

[jessmum46]

Well tonight we'll see....total of 2h10 day sleep in probably about a 12h15 day....wish us luck! 

MJ&N - did you have two long naps with the 11h night?  Or one long and one short?

[michaeljacknnugg]

I think it was two long ones, but we were in the realms of ews too. I can't remember a lot of the detail tbh, it's just what popped out of your post to me.

[jessmum46]

No problem hun it's actually nice to forget all the early months sleep shenanigans!!

[michaeljacknnugg]

It certainly is!

[jessmum46]

Happy new year everyone!

Ok, well after what seemed to be a bit of a disaster of a day, we had our best night since forever.  Yesterday was:

WU 6
Nap 9-9.45
Nap 13.05-14.30
BT 18.15

Slept soundly until 3.15am, cried but self-settled.  Woke again at 4.45am (so 10.5h exactly, clearly an OT night) and chatted until 5.10am when he started shouting/crying.  I fed him then and he went back off, and we all overslept and woke up at 7.15am!  Oops...today could be a bit silly....

So I guess discomfort/hunger not an issue at that 1am hour as that would presumably still have happened last night.  Maybe it really is UT?  What do you think?  And if so, what would you change about our usual routine?

[goldmom]

Yay for the good night! 

The wake at 4:45 is just a little past when you normally would've fed him? Could be he woke from that and not OT?

If yesterday gave you a night you liked, you could consider just capping that second nap to 1.5 hours after the 45 min am nap. At 7 months I don't see that being a terrible amount of daytime sleep.

[jessmum46]

Could have been hunger that woke him....though he was happy to mess around for 25 mins in bed before yelling for me whereas I'd have thought he'd have yelled earlier if he was starving.  He didn't feed like he was desperate - perhaps I should have tried to resettle without a feed.  The cries at the 9h point too were what made me think OT.

Capping both naps scares me a bit.....especially as I'd also probably have to wake him in the morning too to keep things on track if he made it to 6.30am.  Doesn't really give him any space for a longer sleep if he needs it one day?

[goldmom]

I'm warry of 2 hour naps . You could possibly try to push out bt if you keep the longer naps.